Cannock, Mar 2024
The Puzzle Room Cannock is a company that changes its lineup of escape rooms quite frequently, but rarely gets reviewed on this site. So we were curious to sample their offerings, and started with Emergency Landing, in which you’re on board an automated aircraft and need to stop it crashing.
The website states that the style of this room is “traditional lock and key”, and this is an accurate summary; most of the puzzles can be tackled in any order, and resolve to a padlock code or padlock key.
There’s nothing wrong with basing a room around padlocks. The venue also seems to explicitly aim to offer cheap escape rooms, aimed at beginner groups, and so are building on a budget; that’s also completely reasonable. I’ve played some extremely low budget games, created on a professional or amateur basis, which were built with care and passion and which provided great experiences.
That wasn’t my impression here. There are some touches of authenticity and atmosphere, but nonetheless the room looked knocked together cheaply and carelessly, with sawdust in corners, gaps between walls and floor, and the occasional protruding nail.
The puzzles passed a minimum standard of acceptability, in that they were solvable without hints (we did need hints for a couple, but with better searching / observation we could have got them). Still, we spent quite a bit of time trying codes in hope that they might be the answer, whereas with a well-designed puzzle you know you’ve solved it before you even try the code. And since each code could typically be used on multiple possible padlocks, there was quite a bit of dial-spinning.
I completely get that I’m not the target audience for this room, and I’m sure the venue gets plenty of first-timer groups who enjoy it thoroughly. But still – I wouldn’t recommend experienced players do this one, and I’d recommend beginners look elsewhere too. 