The Escapologist Castleford: Vertic Ally & The Parlour of Secrets

Where to start with this game. There where screws sticking out all over the place even in places where you may put your hand. Spelling mistakes in the writing. Many pieces of broken tech including what should be the ending of the game which we were told wasn't working and the staff knew it wasn't working and they still didn't activate the door when we had completed the puzzle which we believe prevented us from beating the record time for our amount of players. Also on arrival it seems that our time slot was given to someone else as when we arrived on time the group before us was still in and had 20 minutes left and then we had to wait for the staff to reset, seemed like a perfect opportunity to push us towards their bar. At two points in the game the reset of the room wasn't done right as a padlock was already left open and the actual exit door was also left wide open and we decided to shut it so we could actually complete the rest of the game. The hosts didn't seem to be watching us as they were slow to activating things including the exit door which we had to complete the puzzle several times before the host opened to door and let us in on the secret that "Oh yeah that just doesn't work" and then moved on as if this hadn't happened. Overall a shocking experience which leads me to not want to go anywhere near any of their games again including other locations 

There's some flawed logical leaps within this one and a couple of puzzles that didn't quite work and some that seemed to work too easily. The escape part is supposed to be a nice puzzle but I understand it's done manually except the staff weren't paying close enough attention so it didn't work as it is supposed to. There were other elements that when questioned were confirmed as being reported regularly by other players.

From arrival, this was a bad set up. Now, allow me to make this clear, I do NOT blame the staff, they are clearly undertrained, and over run (I blame the owners for this).

We had a room booked for 6pm. We showed up at 5:45pm to be told there was still someone in our room with 20 minutes left on the clock, so we went into this room late. The brief wasn't great, and after it happened we were told to watch a video which basically repeated the information that was already told. 

The theming was pretty good to be fair. Credit where its due, it was good and expected, at times a bit too busy, but that is a personal preference. You'll note I suggested this game was dangerous, lots of loose wires, and screws just poking out of things. Not very safe.

The game itself flowed fairly well, and honestly, with a bit more signposting, wouldn't be half bad. A lot of spelling mistakes on stuff, which normally doesn't matter, but we all know if absolutely does matter in an escape room. 

There was a lantern in there for us to use in the dark bits of the game, didnt work, so had to resort to using our phone (which we hate) as we tried to gain the attention via camera of the staff, but gave up trying after a while. 

The ending of the game didnt work. It was a place item on this sort of thing, and we tried for at LEAST 10 minutes (and asked for clues over and over, but nothing) eventually the door opened and the host was there congratulating us, why, we didnt know, but they then explained that it was broken so he had to over ride it, so time wasted there. 

I've heard bad things about this company, and we still wanted to give them the benefit of the doubt. We shouldn't have done. 

This needs very few tweaks and a good manager to ensure its staffed correctly and it will be as good as most rooms in yorkshire. Shame really. 

Possibly one of the worst games I’ve played and experiences I’ve had. To start with when we arrived at 5.55 for our 6pm booking we were told there’s another group in the room at the moment, they have 5 minutes left then we’ll get the room reset and get you in. No story build up at the beginning to set the scene just here’s the room, go solve puzzles. Several of the puzzles had the next clues available within reaching distance of fingers so no need to solve a puzzle to open the lock to get at them although we still did as we didn’t want to cheat ourselves out of it but this felt very poor. Some of the puzzles the logic was also quite poor and/or very little signposting which is always frustrating.  Also some of the theming for the puzzles didn’t really make sense - why is there a clock face on a cauldron? When we got the one clue we needed in the game it stayed on the screen for the next 15 minutes. And finally when we got to the end of the game we did the final thing we were meant to do and nothing happened. So we though we were wrong and tried multiple different things. We then waved for a clue for about a minute and nothing happened and then the exit door opened and the guy said we did it. When we asked how, he said by placing that item there. When we said we did that about 5 minutes ago and nothing happened he basically shrugged and we left. 

I would not recommend this game to anyone

Best looking wizard room I’ve played but so many broken parts to the room. It really needs a mini makeover to repair certain parts. A couple of puzzles had no signposting but managed to escape so wasn’t too bad

2 parts just really didn't flow. Nothing to point you in the right direction. Themed well but as with most rooms in this franchise, the rooms fall to bits in your hands. 

The Escapologist at Xscape Castleford has a  new beautifully designed entrance area containing an almost steampunk vibe bar and cafe. There is a great variety of rooms on offer at this location that are suitable for all audiences. The experience began promptly with a briefing inside the first room of the game. you are welcomed by and incredibly well themed alleyway set outside of a magic wand shop. The first part of the game is to figure out how to get inside. The rooms were beautifully themed throughout and offered a few truly challenging moments. Don’t be fooled by the magical ‘Harry Potter’ inspired theme, this is not an easy game only designed for kids! Although younger wizards will likely love this game, certain puzzles are certainly fooling and take some serious thinking about! We managed to get through the first section and and into the wand shop quickly with ease but then hit a road block not entirely sure where to go next. I particularly rooms where you progress through different areas and this rooms layout made that especially fun. You really do need to look at everything and take some of the wordings on signs and posters very literally. Some of the props where very fragile and unfortunately already a little damaged in a few places due to previously heavy handed players.

We did need to ask for a hint at one point before we were able to progress through into the next room. We generally don’t like the ‘standing in front of a CCTV camera and waving your arms about’ approach when needing to ask for a clue. Unfortunately this was the method used here. I feel this very distracting from the otherwise immersive experience and also makes you feel rather silly. A much more magical and clever approach could be utilised here. The response time after asking for the hint was also extremely slow during our game. Hints appear on a standard TV screen in the first room.

The overall experience did a good job of mixed old school riddles, classic escape room tricks, logic puzzles and even elements of technology very well. There was a section that stumped us that we feel maybe had a very misleading red herring or two, however we still very much enjoyed the whole experience and would recommend to any Harry Potter fan that has maybe done at least an escape room or two before.