by Houdini's Escape Room Experience Stafford (website)
Grey Friars' Pl, Stafford ST16 2SD
2-8 players
Languages: EN
60 minutes
As you drive through the night your car suddenly breaks down. With no other options, you and your friends decide to stay at a nearby hotel. The hotel is big and clean, there's just one thing. It has only one room available... that burned down 100 years ago!
Will the spirits within be friendly or are they looking for a few more permanent residents?
Escape before room 13 has you!
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Overall rating
based on ratings from 11 users
Your review
Player reviews
The decor and atmosphere was great. Puzzles were fun. Not too taxing but gave us pause for thought.
The GM was attentive especially when we struggled with a lock, which they heard us saying the correct number for.
The room could do with a bit of TLC though. Some props were a bit tatty through use - not the theme.
Am looking forward to doing more in future.
The place seemed a bit
Great host, however lack of countdown clock in the room or method of sharing clues remotely is somewhat immersion breaking.
This was the best of the 3 rooms at Swindon Houdini's and in my opinion is the only one worth doing. I really loved the decor - it does feel like you're in a hotel and it's a multi room experience which is always a winner. There was (as with all games we have played here) some broken tech so the GM game in as we tried to open the directional padlock just in case it didn't work.
As I've described in my other reviews at Houdini's, the clue system for the games games (at least in the Swindon branch) is the GM just appearing in the room to give you hints. It's very disconcerting and completely ruins the immersion. We only had 1 hint for this room so only saw the GM twice during the room but if I'm honest, one time is too many!
I still wouldn't really recommend doing this room - although I enjoyed it, Houndini's seems to have a lot of broken tech which takes them a long time to fix so it may not be very good on another day of the week.
Advice: wait a few weeks/months for the tech to be in place properly!
It's a shame because the room and puzzles were actually really good and immersive but the whole experience was ruined by the gamesmaster loitering in the room.
I don't think it was the gamesmaster's fault as he was clearly told to do this by his managers so that he could give clues if a team is struggling; as they don't have their clue system set up yet.
Overall good, solid escape room and logical fun puzzles - but the hovering gamesmaster felt extremely off-putting and awkward
See also
- Houdini's Escape Room Experience Thurrock: Room 13 (Purfleet) (closed)
- Houdini's Escape Room Experience Walsall: Room 13 (Walsall)
- Houdini's Escape Room Experience Greenwich: Room 13 (East London)
- Houdini's Escape Room Experience York: Room 13 (York)
- Houdini's Escape Room Experience Southampton: Room 13 (Southampton)
- Houdini's Escape Room Experience Doncaster: Room 13 (Doncaster)
- Houdini's Escape Room Experience Swindon: Room 13 (Swindon)
- Houdini's Escape Room Experience Milton Keynes: Room 13 (Milton Keynes)
- Houdini's Escape Room Experience Dundee: Room 13 (Dundee)
- Houdini's Escape Room Experience Worcester: Room 13 (Worcester)
- Houdini's Escape Room Experience Sheffield: Room 13 (Sheffield)
- Houdini's Escape Room Experience Chester: Room 13 (Chester)
- Houdini's Escape Room Experience Chichester: Room 13 (Chichester)