Escape Peterborough

For starters it should be said that we are an experienced duo (150+ rooms) having only failed to escape once before in our escaping journey in a room that wasn’t really designed for two people, and this game now features in our top 5 most frustrating game experiences, both for needlessly nonsensical puzzles, and things that seem to be designed to eat up time. 

Odyssey 23 was designed by the same guy who made Escape the Seven Seas, and that features in our top 10 rooms of all time. Like Seven Seas, this room’s theming is awesome - clearly a lot of time and effort has been put into its design - and it could and should be brilliant… However…

It’s a very tech heavy game (probably 80%) and also linear for the first half, so if you get stuck on something early on (for example the logic puzzle) then you’re all just standing around waiting for someone to work it out. The opening puzzle is also ridiculous. Although we got the concept of what was required pretty quickly, the reality meant that the puzzle was needlessly difficult and illogical as it was a colour based puzzle but under red light. In the end we were so frustrated with it 15 minutes in we asked to skip it - we still didn’t really understand the actual logic of it when the GM’s explained it to us afterwards either, and even the GMs said the first puzzle often takes people up to 20 minutes, and they’ve had a lot of feedback similar to ours about how irritating it is. Considering that the game has been open a while it seems mad that nothing has changed; apparently the designer likes the fact all 6 players can be involved at the beginning, but it’s almost prohibitively difficult for 2 players. In the end we were only 2 small puzzles off escaping, but because there was so much time wasted early on we missed some of the good bits at the end.

There were some really clever and fun elements to Odyssey 23, but because we so irritated with the first few puzzles and how long they took, and the fact there was nothing to write on, it overshadowed the rest of it. It’s such a shame as a few tweaks would make this game incredible.

A nice pirate room with a lot of immersive decor that makes you believe for a moment that you are truly onboard a ship. 

There was a lot of interesting puzzles and tech, and when everything works it's an absolute pleasure. 

This game is underground in genuine old vaults, so it’s genuinely atmospheric (and cold). One of your party (minimum 3 to play) starts trapped apart from the others, so it’s highly recommended that an experienced player is chosen for it as you’re alone for the first part of the game. It’s well put together and the puzzles were pretty good, though not necessarily original in themselves.

Having just played Escape the Seven Seas and loved it we played this game as we had time to spare…and wished we hadn’t bothered. The theming is okay, like any other Sherlock/detective type room, but the puzzles are all a bit mundane, and there’s one in the second room that was both tedious and irritating. Not one we’d recommend.

Having played over 50 rooms, and compared to some of the others at this venue, as a whole this room was incredibly underwhelming. The theming wasn’t great, and the puzzles were often a bit illogical. We spent 10 minutes scouring the room for the code to unlock the first padlock - in the end we had to be given a hint, with the solution making us both a bit irritable as it was sloppy in its design. Some of the other puzzles were fine, but halfway through we came across another that didn’t make sense as it involved ambiguous symbol matching.

Perhaps we’re just fussier than we used to be as we’ve done some truly outstanding rooms, both in theming and with the puzzles involved, but we left the room feeling a bit irritated, and it was one of those we complained about the whole way home.

We really enjoyed the cabin. It’s not linear at the start, which was great for teams who like to divide and conquer. Theming was good, relatively padlock heavy with a clever/subtle puzzle we missed in the cabin itself. Recommended.

We didn’t know what to expect playing this game as we’d heard great things and sometimes games don’t live up to the hype, but it was fantastic, and still sits in our top 5 games played.

The theming was awesome, and the puzzles were clever. Lots of tech, but tech that worked thankfully. As two seasoned escapers we didn’t rush, just enjoyed ourselves, and still had over 5 minutes to spare at the end. I think if you’re new to escaping then you might struggle as a two to get out within the hour, but absolutely recommended.