James Bloodworth

A classic room game fearuring a combination of search, deduction and translation(!) puzzles.  Play is mostly linear with a couple of surprises in later rooms that are executed well and should bring a smile to your face.

This game is quite child friendly with some fun theming.  The beach theming is minimal but effective, this is a relatively straight forward room but there’s still a couple of puzzles that could trip you up.

Taking over the space from “The Cage”, this is a large multi room game which features a split start told with a novel tale.  Story is good and theming and set pieces carry this off effectively.  Once the game starts there is a lot to do, and the game changes gear from linear to non-linear and back again and there a couple of points where it’s easy to get bogged down.  Theming is good and the puzzles are relatively standard but some are very obtuse, I think signposting needs some work to improve the overall flow of the game.  This is billed as their hardest game but I think some observation puzzles are unfair.

A classic escape room with a lot of familiar tropes.  This game is very padlock heavy and the puzzles are a combination of searching and logical deduction.  Theming is ok and is enough to convey the ideas and story behind the room.  Our host was Brad who clued us when we needed to and ran the game incredibly well.  

The newest game at the venue and it's a heist!  You have one objective and also bonus objectives (if you have the time).  I really enjoyed this room, the puzzles were clever and relied on both observation, logic solving and some physical deduction.

Our GM was Sarah was excellent throughout and clued us just when we were getting a little frustrated.

This is a great little venue with superb hosting, with Escape Brum around the corner, this could form part of a great day out for enthusiasts.

Prison's are a perennial favourite for escape rooms and I have to say I'm a great fan.  There are some tropes that you can check off like bingo: -

Split Start in cells - check

Forced co-operation to escape cells - check

Having to put hands in toilets - check

Joking aside this is a well themed room featuring lots of tech and minimal padlocks.  You can play this game with varying difficulty levels, we chose the hardest and just made it out.  Theming is excellent and puzzles are oblique enough to be challenging.  This was my favourite room at the venue.

Our GM was Sarah was excellent throughout and clued us just when we were getting a little frustrated.

This is a great little venue with superb hosting, with Escape Brum around the corner, this could form part of a great day out for enthusiasts.

This is a well themed room featuring lots of tech and minimal padlocks.  Theming is a good and puzzles are in keeping with the carnival theme (there are some dexterity and physical puzzles to overcome).  There is an option to have a live actor but this is not mandatory.  Puzzles flow well and in some areas are a mostly non-linear fashion and be tackled seperately.  Our GM was Sarah was excellent throughout and clued us just when we were getting a little frustrated.

This is a great little venue with superb hosting, with Escape Brum around the corner, this could form part of a great day out for enthusiasts.

I'd been wanting to play this since it got nominated for a TERPECA last year.  This is a puzzlefest style of room where you have to complete so many puzzles to get the victory.  This is slightly differnet as the room is divided into so many areas, and then these open up as the game progresses.  It's not in the same league as say Escape Quest but there's a lot to like here and the story is executed well with a lot of puzzles to solve.

A relatively creepy room using all of the tropes you might expect of a haunting of this nature.  We had a couple of reset/prop fails in this room but it didn't impede our process too much.  Clue system was in keeping with the room and we only needed them for out search fails.  As someone else has noted, this is more of a scooby doo room than outright scares.

A veritable wall of puzzles and padlocks awaits here in the Versus game.  There are various victory conditions but all of it can be tackled in a non-linear fashion, stuck on one puzzle, move on to another and then come back to this one.  

This is a clever idea and I an appreciate what must have been a huge piece of work to conceptualise, plan, build and program but I have issues.  Some of the puzzles need more signposting as things happened and we had next to no idea how to respond as the onscreen instructions were vague at best.  We had two big tech failures on this game, for one the GM came into the room as something hadn't opened correctly and another time she wasn't watching us as (we could hear her) she was on the phone to another customer so we used the option to skip the puzzle.  We had the same host for every game here and she was very good but stretched by running multiple games at once.

They say this is their most difficult room, I would say its not (but only by a slim margin) but there is a lot to do and some tricky searching to complete.

I would say this is the hardest game at this venue with some tricky puzzles, I think we had the most clues of any game we played here.  Mostly we had search fails as they are some tricky search puzzles to find the items you need to progress.  Once again, theming and scenography were on point and the puzzles were mostly relatively straight forward in execution.

Whilst not as strong as part 1, I would still definitely play this game, there are a couple of puzzles that are just there to slow you down by their physical nature but mostly there are very good and completely in keeping with the theme.  This game does end on a bit of a cliff hanger but apparently Part 3 is coming soon.

In my opinion the best game at this venue and the best game in Basingstoke!  Theming is very much on point with both the puzzles and the story.  The story does take an unexpected turn but this segues directly into the Part 2 (I would definitely play these back to back!)  It feels rare to get a triumphant end to a game but this one definitely did.

We are in another time zone here, looking to swap important documents for fake ones.  Once again the puzzles are mixture of logic and search based (including a couple that might defeat younger players as they have no concept of how it might work!).  Theming is good but there is a possibility of an insta-fail on the last puzzle so take care.

Relatively straight forward room with you infiltrating a police station (as opposed to breaking out of one!) and trying to find proof of treason.  Theming is relatively on point with the usual mix of puzzles, couple with a couple of physical ones where communication is essential to success.  This is good fun executed competently, nothing here will surprise you but neither will it infuriate you.