Lincoln, Jul 2024
Our second game at Project Mayhem was accurately described as their most traditional escape room experience, in the sense of having the most puzzles. Even so, it’s definitely more a horror experience than a puzzle room.
The premise is a horror classic, involving a dead child and some demonic possession. It also uses an abandoned hospital style setting, making great use of hospital curtains to reduce your visibility of your surroundings. The decor style is creepy, dingy decay; the steps we tended to stumble on were searching and finding things.
As in all of the Project Mayhem games, there’s a live actor. This is an important part of the experience, but is used rather less than in the other games here – which is quite effective, since sometimes it’s what you don’t see that’s most frightening. And the story elements draw together to a nicely dramatic climax.
You could easily make a case that for enthusiasts this is the strongest of the three games at Project Mayhem, in that it has more puzzle content tied into an atmospheric story. I actually found the other two more memorable because of the ways in which they’re different to ‘normal’ escape rooms – but even more than at most venues, which of these three will appeal to you is likely to come down to personal taste. 
