Clue HQ Wirral: A-I-9

#46

I don’t normally like to criticise a room without giving it a few decent points, but this was not a good experience. Easily in the bottom 5 of 40+ rooms we have completed. Some of the puzzles were infuriating and boring, the host even came in at one point (something I’m not a fan of unless asked first), because our logicaL solution to a puzzle was wrong, yet the real solution was so convoluted. A  shame as it’s our first trip to Clue HQ, I wouldn’t bother with this one.

A typical ClueHQ game, with plenty of variety in the puzzles, good set and enjoyable game play.

First off I played this game at Clue HQ in Birmingham and that was a decent experience.  I played this renamed game as we were mean't to play Quarantine (now called "Ostracize") but it wasn't working correctly (this was our second attempt to play) so we were offered this room and the two people I was with hadn't played it before.  It didn't go well.  This branch of Clue HQ has recently been taken over by Break Free and it feels like we're still in a changeover period.  Two puzzles were broken and taken out of the game, one was quite broken but in play (I spotted how it was broken and was able to solve it but apparently I was the first person).  A year ago we played the "Vault" and I think I said then the room felt quite tired and in desperate need of a refresh.  This room is worse than that and is desperately in need of some TLC, it's a shame as there are some clever puzzles here (as I saw when I played the Birmingham version).  I never like writing bad reviews, the GM did her very best and was great throughout and nothing was her fault but it's hard to recommend this room in this state at this time.

My first escape room. It was awesome. We did however manage to accidentally circumvent a puzzle. We didn't know, as it was our first Escape Room, but I don't feel like that should have been possible. Hopefully that will have been fixed by now, but because of it, I can't give a 5 star rating.