Reykjavik, Jan 2018
Reykjavik Escape is, at time of writing, the only escape venue in Iceland. Located a little to the east of the main tourist district, they have a set of four rooms with fairly standard themes, and we picked the science-themed one over the prison, kidnap and hangover games. This one involved finding a cure for cancer – not through humanitarian-minded research, but by stealing it from its discoverer before he can publish it, to claim it for yourselves.
This isn’t a huge room, or one where they’ve invested a lot in decor and atmospherics – it’s primarily utilitarian furniture with plenty of disconnected office equipment and laboratory apparatus to provide theming.
The venue listed this as one of their harder two games, but despite faffing around for the first ten minutes because of a search fail, the two of us finished in half an hour without clues. I find that hard to reconcile with their stated 35% escape rate for the room, but perhaps their location means their customer base skews heavily to inexperienced players. Either way, enthusiasts shouldn’t come expecting a challenge here.
Other than the basic decor and easy difficulty level, The Scientist had very little wrong with it. The puzzles were free from unwanted ambiguities, and some of the later ones tied into the story. For a group of first time players it ought to provide an entirely enjoyable game. Enthusiasts however won’t find much to get excited about – the main reason to play it is the paucity of alternatives. 
