Escape Hull: Darker Side of Hull

Another well themed out room perfectly linked the rooms backstory. I would imagine this would be a better room with smaller team sizes, as we found that most of the time required us to search for things linked to the puzzle we were solving, a lot of the time two or more of us were walking around with not a great deal to do. Great to see an original room that links to local history though. 

Museum Mosey

Another room with links to the local area- great!

Story

You're on the night shift at Hull's History Museum but your colleague has disappeared...um, so I think you just had to get out? I'm still none the wiser having played the game.

Puzzles

The vast majority were to do with ships (I expand on this in the next section). A bit of teamwork was needed at the start, after which our group was reunited to crack on with the rest. We needed a couple of hints, but the last part of the game was certainly the easiest compared to some of the preceding tasks. I took an educated guess for one of the puzzles; when I was shown the proper way to work it out, it made sense but seemed a bit too inconspicuous. Information in the game is provided by a local historian, which is a lovely touch.

Mise-en-scène

It was a museum, yes, but...a nautical one. The finer details such as an opening plaque and donations box were included, and the paintings, models and other objects on display were authentic...but they were entirely ship-related. I understand that Hull has a rich maritime history, but, from the title, I was expecting to be solving puzzles in a dark, gruesome and sombre set of exhibits. There was a mere trickle of this genre shoved in. Two of us being locked in the caretaker's closet at the start was my highlight, but this doesn't say much about the rest of the room.

Final Comments

'The Darker Side of Hull' is a misleading title. However, if you want a fun, agreeable escape, take a team of three.

An escape room themed around history, especially the gruesome parts of history? Sounds good to me!

A fairly low-tech game but lots of content and some atmospheric touches, showing that you don’t need fancy tricks to make a decent escape room. It’s also good to see a room with a locally-specific theme rather than something generic.