Terraverte

Wish Upon a Star is Hourglass Escapes’ Festive collection game. The theming is fun, with a lot to do within the hour, but difficulty is never over the top, which makes it ideal for newbie duos or people wanting to bring kids along. Mostly analogue hunting/padlocks too, which means there’s very little chance of things breaking on you! Recommended 

Collection games can be a bit hit or miss, but Joey’s Christmas Wish is brilliant. There’s plenty to do for a team of 4, and things that kids can also get involved with too. It’s more like a traditional escape room in its feel than some collection games, and you can see that thought has been put into the puzzles and theming even though it’s only a temporary game. Recommended!

Slightly easier than some of their other rooms, Backstage Reloaded is nonetheless fun with some great puzzles and quirky things to keep you entertained. As always, the tech just works and the hosting was great - Kelly (owner and GM) is ace and our GM for this game Sam was once again very entertaining. Recommended

As someone who enjoys fantasy theming Keyper’s Secret is absolutely on point. The start is fun, and there’s loads to do as always - you’re never short of a puzzle in EO rooms! Our host Sam was hilarious, and the whole experience was just fab. Recommended

We played Karma Club after Keyper’s Secret and have to say it’s just brilliant. The theme is madness, totally original, and all the puzzles are (once again) unique and clever. You can’t go wrong booking any of Kelly’s rooms, but this one is particularly fun. Highly recommended!

For starters it should be said that we are an experienced duo (150+ rooms) having only failed to escape once before in our escaping journey in a room that wasn’t really designed for two people, and this game now features in our top 5 most frustrating game experiences, both for needlessly nonsensical puzzles, and things that seem to be designed to eat up time. 

Odyssey 23 was designed by the same guy who made Escape the Seven Seas, and that features in our top 10 rooms of all time. Like Seven Seas, this room’s theming is awesome - clearly a lot of time and effort has been put into its design - and it could and should be brilliant… However…

It’s a very tech heavy game (probably 80%) and also linear for the first half, so if you get stuck on something early on (for example the logic puzzle) then you’re all just standing around waiting for someone to work it out. The opening puzzle is also ridiculous. Although we got the concept of what was required pretty quickly, the reality meant that the puzzle was needlessly difficult and illogical as it was a colour based puzzle but under red light. In the end we were so frustrated with it 15 minutes in we asked to skip it - we still didn’t really understand the actual logic of it when the GM’s explained it to us afterwards either, and even the GMs said the first puzzle often takes people up to 20 minutes, and they’ve had a lot of feedback similar to ours about how irritating it is. Considering that the game has been open a while it seems mad that nothing has changed; apparently the designer likes the fact all 6 players can be involved at the beginning, but it’s almost prohibitively difficult for 2 players. In the end we were only 2 small puzzles off escaping, but because there was so much time wasted early on we missed some of the good bits at the end.

There were some really clever and fun elements to Odyssey 23, but because we so irritated with the first few puzzles and how long they took, and the fact there was nothing to write on, it overshadowed the rest of it. It’s such a shame as a few tweaks would make this game incredible.

We booked last minute as we were stuck near Cambridge due to train issues and the owner was very accommodating with fitting us in and working around us time-wise, with our host Buzz being also very friendly and welcoming. We’re experienced escapers preferring non-linear rooms, and found that Tarot was well themed and fit the bill - the puzzles made sense and the room flowed nicely with both things we’d seen before and ideas that were quirky. A few bits of set felt a little flimsy around the edges, but it didn’t detract from the puzzles themselves. There was one logic puzzle we got genuinely stuck on, but people who are more logic minded might be fine. Overall we enjoyed ourselves, recommended.

Your team is split as the beginning which is always fun, and there are some interesting puzzles. Decent theming, and great GMs as always at Hourglass. We enjoyed it.

Some interesting puzzles, but also one in particular that’s incredibly tedious (involving counting) that I really did not enjoy. Overall a decent game, good for kids.

There were loads of puzzles in this room, though I’d say maybe six people was too many to fit in the space physically. Not a linear game, which we like, and we thoroughly enjoyed it!

Doctor has a great beginning, and was pretty fun to play. A couple of puzzles towards the end were a bit illogical and we needed help, but overall a solid room.

This game is underground in genuine old vaults, so it’s genuinely atmospheric (and cold). One of your party (minimum 3 to play) starts trapped apart from the others, so it’s highly recommended that an experienced player is chosen for it as you’re alone for the first part of the game. It’s well put together and the puzzles were pretty good, though not necessarily original in themselves.

Having just played Escape the Seven Seas and loved it we played this game as we had time to spare…and wished we hadn’t bothered. The theming is okay, like any other Sherlock/detective type room, but the puzzles are all a bit mundane, and there’s one in the second room that was both tedious and irritating. Not one we’d recommend.

Having played over 50 rooms, and compared to some of the others at this venue, as a whole this room was incredibly underwhelming. The theming wasn’t great, and the puzzles were often a bit illogical. We spent 10 minutes scouring the room for the code to unlock the first padlock - in the end we had to be given a hint, with the solution making us both a bit irritable as it was sloppy in its design. Some of the other puzzles were fine, but halfway through we came across another that didn’t make sense as it involved ambiguous symbol matching.

Perhaps we’re just fussier than we used to be as we’ve done some truly outstanding rooms, both in theming and with the puzzles involved, but we left the room feeling a bit irritated, and it was one of those we complained about the whole way home.

We really enjoyed the cabin. It’s not linear at the start, which was great for teams who like to divide and conquer. Theming was good, relatively padlock heavy with a clever/subtle puzzle we missed in the cabin itself. Recommended.

Scary Tale was awesome  and is still in our top five rooms - we loved it with its suitably creepy dark/atmospheric theming. There’s a lot in this room with a combination of well placed tech and padlocks and puzzles that just make sense. We escaped as an experienced two with time to spare, but as with all the rooms at EO you get a lot for your money and inexperienced players might benefit from having three+ in the room. Recommended.

This was the first of EO’s rooms we played and it was brilliant. The concept and how it’s implemented is really clever - no spoilers but I’ve still never seen another room quite like it, and there’s a lot of seamless tech that fits the theme too. I played with someone who’d never done a room before and took the lead, but we still got out with a little time to spare. As with all Kelly’s rooms, inexperienced players might benefit from having a team of three or more, but the puzzles all flow and make logical sense. Recommended.

Kelly’s rooms are always great (everything is designed in house), and it’s a shame Scarlet is closing as we had an awesome time playing it. As always the tech is on point, though this room is more padlock heavy than some of her others, and the theming was great. Can definitely be played with two, but inexperienced players might benefit from having three or four. Recommended!

We didn’t know what to expect playing this game as we’d heard great things and sometimes games don’t live up to the hype, but it was fantastic, and still sits in our top 5 games played.

The theming was awesome, and the puzzles were clever. Lots of tech, but tech that worked thankfully. As two seasoned escapers we didn’t rush, just enjoyed ourselves, and still had over 5 minutes to spare at the end. I think if you’re new to escaping then you might struggle as a two to get out within the hour, but absolutely recommended.

Firstly we played The Curse of Captain Kraken on an evening when they wouldn’t normally be open - they opened specifically for us, which is always great and appreciated. The game itself was pretty immersive with lots of set dressing, and as seasoned escapers the puzzles largely made sense. Lots of fairly unique concepts or unusual tech that we hadn’t seen before. The flip side was we managed to completely miss 3 locks by either luck or initiative (probably born from having done so many), though the GM did say it’s never happened before - us rather than the game, and she also let us do the bits we missed after to get the complete experience.

Despite this we both enjoyed ourselves, and came away talking about all the fun and unusual things we’d liked (sometimes you come away from rooms irritated about the puzzles or things that didn’t work, and this definitely wasn’t one of those). Recommended.