Escapable: The Great Loudini

When rating escape rooms I’m not exactly generous, and I’ve sometimes been asked before, by the owners of exceedingly good games, what persuades me to give a 5* score. My usual reply is that it needs something beyond just all-round excellence: some way in which it stands out that’s specific and distinctive. Loudini has that.

The premise is that you’re sneaking into the dressing room of the conjuror The Great Loudini, in search of the magician’s notebook and also the notebook he may have stolen from Houdini. This theme is what makes the game special, for not only is it designed as a fond tribute to the world of conjuring, it was designed and built by a professional magician, who will also be the one to run your game; and it will definitely be him not a different host, because his skills are an integral part of the experience.

Loudini is not the only escape room to blend in conjuring; I have in fact played another quite recently (outside the UK), which was also outstanding but for quite different reasons, making for an interest contrast. That one built an extensive and immersive world, in which actors are part of an elaborate storyline into which the puzzles are woven. Loudini is more modest in presentation: essentially a single room game where the majority of puzzles are built around padlock codes. And still, I thought Loudini compared favourably to what’s presumably a much higher budget game: because the conjuring elements don’t just book-end the game, they’re woven through it, and give it a real sense of wonder.

Maybe some of the thrill comes just from novelty – no doubt I’m less jaded about magic tricks than I am about escape rooms. But I found it better than the sum of the parts: the conjuring enhanced the escape room, but also the escape room added to the conjuring, because we felt involved in the tricks not simply an audience for them.

Take away the conjuring elements and there’s still a top notch escape room, with a plethora of smart puzzles. It’s the style of room that places solving ahead of story, but there’s a visceral enjoyment to scrambling open one lock after another, and it neatly balances giving you a whole lot of things to look at with strong signposting that keeps you in the flow.

The owner might (or might not) open a version of Loudini that can be run by other people. That would still be a game well worth playing, but would lose what makes it really unusual; play this version if you can grab one of the infrequent slots when it’s available.