Robert Storey

Everything you'd expect from Hounds - theatrical, OTT and funny. GM was brilliant and in-character the whole time. Even included our little team mascot in their interactions (I'm sure they don't talk to a frog plushie every day !)

A good range of puzzles, nothing too taxing. There's a fair amount to do but I would say 3/4 is a good team size for this game - 5 felt a little crowded at some points, i would not want to play this game as a 6. 

Not a fan of the new briefing system at hounds but i'll let that slide for the rooms :) 

What an introduction to Mindworks! Fogg was a brilliant host/GM and was perfect in his analysis of our team, and thus pitched his briefing just right (this is the first room I've taken over the briefing at one point (as a GM myself) and Fogg took a seat as if he was part of the team. It's the small touches ;) ).

Room wise all the puzzles flowed nicely with good signposting. We overcomplicated a couple of things but some.... tactical clueing from Fogg (or perhaps a rouge gust of wind.. inside) came at just the right time to keep us moving along, on something we would have otherwise spent a wee bit of time on... .

Would have been good to have some sort of note-taking device for this room, though for the theme of the room perhaps harder to fit in. 

Well worth a trip down to the coast!

Game number two of the day and it smashed expectations.  Brilliantly designed such that you always have something to do, and from the information given to us by Jamie, it's rare a team will get through everything available in the room. 3 felt like a good number, but an extra pair of eyes would not have gone amiss. Everything was signposted just the right amount, and the story felt a part of the room in terms of the puzzles. 

Jamie was a brilliant producer of the show, and more than did justice to the show with his suit jacket (if you know, you know).

Probably the best executed split start I've played (and I'm a sucker for a split start), brilliant puns and logical puzzles to boot. 

Neat collection system with plenty of signposting for the 30 odd locks in the room. 

We had the dynamic duo of Kelly and new GM Sam and couldn't have asked for anything else from them :) 

EO keep smashing it, and this time with a wonderful padlock-heavy room! A great use of the old scarlet space. Great hosting as always, thanks Kelly!

Get down to play this before Joey runs away again in Feb 

It was time to return to the Darkmaster, for their third birthday offer was a great opportunity to get back down as we were passing through. Shamley's is a massive game, and certainly is a 90-minute game and not a 60-minute game disguised as a 90-minuter. Puzzles were mostly coherent, with a number of aha moments. We were stumped by one non-puzzle aspect of the room which felt like poor design upon reflection rather than just us being silly. If that aspect would have been different, I would have felt much more satisfied with the room as a whole. I also felt the ending, whilst unique, was also quite weak. One puzzle is in the wrong place in the room and so the pacing felt off from the start. Good puzzle, wrong place in the room . This puzzle's answer was also not quite satisfying since it didn't feel clear and found ourselves working out the answer from the most solid pieces of the answer (yes slightly confusing but if you play you'll understand).

This is now the second visit to DarkMaster, and the second time we have left feeling like the GM could have had a little bit more enthusiasm and just felt like with a little more oomph, it could have really made this room. Briefing was very, well, brief, the greeting was fairly standard, and the end of game entry and debrief really felt forced and a little on the awkward side. It's for this reason I can't give any more than the 3.5 stars here.  It's probably a high 4-4.3 star room, with slightly more from the GM.