Excape: E = MC Scared

Excape Exmouth- E=MC Scared

Overview

This was our first visit to Excape Exmouth after conquering other local escape rooms. There were two rooms to chose from but we decided to take on the E=MC Scared room since it was supposed to be the slightly harder of the two.

The company is located right in the centre of Exmouth and there is a big car park just outside of the town centre, making it about a 5 minute walk to the building. You walk up one flight of stairs where we were greeted by our game master and we were given a brief in the reception area. The briefing was as you imagined, a science experiment gone wrong with a supposed slight horror twist. We were given a walkie talkie to ask for clues and taken into the room to start. It was a strange opening due to having to “break in” to the main room and this was where the majority of our frustration came from. One of the team appeared to figure out how to break in relatively quickly but due to a slight technical glitch, we didn’t get through and this resulted in us being in there for a lot longer than we should have done. In hindsight, it would have been nice for the GM to have hinted to us to go back and try what we had previously had done to get into the room. Once we were in the main room, it did flow nicely and the puzzles were if a decent standard for us. 

Room impression

As mentioned above, the first impression of the room was slightly strange in having to break in to the main room. Once we got through that break in, the room seemed to be of a good standard. All the props were in good working order and it made for a pleasurable experience. The main room was set out as a funky science laboratory and the theme of the room flowed nicely because of the layout and design. 

Puzzles

The break in part of the game frustrated us immensely as we appeared to have figured out the break in very early on but it didn’t work for some reason so as previously mentioned, this took a lot longer for us to get in than it should and this dampened our mood for when we got into the main room. Once we got into the main room there was a good mix of padlocked puzzles and some science based puzzles which were a nice addition considering the rom you were playing. Towards the end of the game another puzzle frustrated us in the time taken for us to complete it but this probably down to our attention more than the type of puzzle it was. We were in the process of inputting the code into the final puzzle as the timer ran out which is frustrating to say the least. Another10 seconds and we would have escaped. 

Game Master Clues

The game master gave us a walkie talkie but there was no way in which he gave us a hint/clue without us asking for one which was slightly frustrating and it’s nice to have that if a GM can see where you are and if you are close to solving to something, they can tell you you’re in the right direction before you go off piste. None the less, when we did ask for a bit, which didn’t happen that much in this room, the hints were helpful and got us back into the swing of things. 

Round Up

Although we didn’t escape, only our second ever fail, we all agreed afterwards that this was a really good fun room and we did enjoy ourselves. Again, the beginning was strange and was frustrating but the theme of the main room and the puzzles made it a really enjoyable room and we were glad we attempted it. The puzzles and props are good and the science theme was the first one of it’s kind that we had tried and we did enjoy it. This room is definitely worth a try if you are in the South Devon area and although there is a lot to chose from, E=MC Scared at Excape is worth the trip to Exmouth. 

The theming in E=MC Scared! was done to a decent standard, but the puzzles were unsatisfying. I feel the creators, while enthusiastic, could have done with some more beta testing before opening to get the experience pinned down better. Playable, but unfortunately I can’t recommend it for enthusiasts.