Beverley Breakout: The Goblins of Toadsmead

I had a great time in all four of the rooms at Beverly Breakout, but one game was a clear stand-out: this one. The Goblins of Toadsmead is a magic school / wizarding world type of story in which you’re trying to prevent magic from fading from the world, and combines enough tributes to the Potter-verse to keep fans happy while also doing its own thing.

This is a game with distinct stages, each with its own style of decor and each putting you in a different part of the story world; each stage was a step up on the one before it. Beverley Breakout aren’t afraid to use padlocks for their puzzles, and there are plenty of them here, but used well in a way that I thought didn’t clash with the setting. And other puzzles use more ‘magical’ mechanisms.

It shares with the other rooms at Beverley Breakout the kind of very solid puzzle design where you quickly learn to trust that the puzzles will make complete sense; as well as skilful hosting and an energetic charm to the gameplay. The beautiful build in Toadsmead adds on to that to create a lovely game that deserves the acclaim that it gets.