Ellie

Rating based on playing this back-to-back with Dystopia.

My rating is based on playing Dystopia followed by Utopia back to back. Individually, these rooms are very good - played together, amazing because this really allows you to fully immerse yourself into this world for a couple of hours. I played this a few months ago and it still sticks in my mind. 

I loved that this room felt like it had been inspired by the original Jurassic Park novels (I am a huge fan!), rather than just trying to rip off the films. Everything in the bus felt very much in line with this theme and I can see how much effort has been put into creating this. The ending is also superb. 

The thing that let this room down for us slightly was that some of the puzzles were time-consuming and frustrating! There was also one I would be interested to hear if people ever completed without hints.

Still - if you want to live out your childhood fantasy of being Dr Ellie Sattler or Dr Ian Malcolm for an hour, I would highly recommend.

The set is gorgeous and surprising, and there is a good range of puzzles.

However, this game irritated me because, with a minor tweak, our experience would have been incredible. The final room is beautiful but very very very dark, so dark that we couldn't see the padlocks and had to resort to the lights on our watches. A few other minor gripes too, but this was the biggest issue for us.

Despite this, I would definitely recommend this game because we had a great time, but I would advise a light source unless you have been loading up on the carrots!

A beautiful game with a good use of the space. For once it was impossible for me to forget the story and mission! Clever use of tech to create the magic and plenty of puzzles to keep us busy throughout. 

It is clear that so much effort has been put into creating  this room so am really glad we played before it has to be taken down. Hope it can return again in future.

I think it took over an hour for our heart rates to return back to normal after this one! Because the reputation of this room precedes it, we went in with trepidation, which gave us foggy brains for even the most straightforward of puzzles but we were expertly guided by an enthusiastic games-master. The setting was simple, but unusual. I am glad we played in a pandemic so nothing could get too close but, even with this restriction, the room was definitely terrifying enough! If you like a scare, go for it! Only reason it is not 5* is because one puzzle in the first space was quite fiddly and irritating!

Such a good laugh, we also left this room with big smiles on our faces! A fab set, quirky characters and clever use of some spaces. Be warned that there is a bit of crawling if you have dodgy knees, but no tight scary spaces. This was a nice soothing balm after the terror of Edith ;-D

Our favourite of the Escape Hunt games played so far. Gamesmaster was friendly and the Cheltenham venue is open and welcoming. Lovely props, decent puzzles and good links to the Alice in Wonderland story. Only complaint would be that there were some bits were a bit stiff or not in the best condition (one was sticky :->), which is surprising for such a newly opened venue.

A great range of puzzles (liked how each section utilised both printed and online tasks), excellent value for money. Loved the touches of humour throughout. Used the hint system a couple of times and this was great - just the right amount of advice to point you in the right direction, without giving away too much.

We played across a couple of evenings so would sometimes struggle to remember who was who in the story and what exactly was going on (to be honest, this happens to me a lot in live 1 hour escape rooms too!), but this didn't hinder our progress. 

Can't wait to play The Cyphstress! 

Great mix of puzzles - some require internet searches. It helps to have a printer for one puzzle, but not essential. 

Story is sweet and the puzzles keep to the theme. 

A good one to play individually or as a pair. You can come back to it if you don't have time to complete it all at once. 

Clearly a lot of effort has gone into this and there is the option to donate afterwards.

Things we really liked about the game: the theme felt very original (I had never heard of the Oklahoma land rush, so I learnt something new as well as enjoying puzzles), letters being read out (definitely worth playing these to add to the atmosphere), some beautiful illustrations on a few puzzles.

Why not 5* for us:

Working out what to do with the puzzles took us very little time (and we aren't the most experienced/fastest puzzlers), actually then completing the puzzles to get the code felt tedious at times (working on 2 screens would probably help this a little). 

It advises not to play at peak times (Friday/Saturday evening) - absolutely! We had to abandon the game and come back to it because it stopped loading properly. It was good that we were able to do this, but you do have to reenter all the puzzle details.

I would recommend for some of my friends new to escape rooms due to the accessibility of the puzzles, if they are happy to pay £15. For us this is expensive for what it is, but we are happy to support the industry at this time. 

Definitely worth bearing in mind the split team element on this particular game when deciding who to play with. I imagine this would be more enjoyable with more than 2 people. Tripped us up for a long time in the game because we did not have the ability to check silly mistakes!

Some clever puzzles, object combinations made sense, few hidden objects (we are terrible at finding these so this is not a bad thing!) After completing the game, we flipped over the remaining cards and found 2 that did not fit anywhere into the narrative (like the game should have continued past the last door, but it didn't, very odd!)

Really like the Unlock! games, need to order another box now...