Author Archives: escapethereview

Grand Escape: Paranormal Room 1409

Birmingham, Mar 2019

Grand Escape’s second game is a very different beast to their first. Closely inspired by a 2007 horror movie with a similar name, it swaps Grail’s cheerful medieval decor for a modern hotel room that’s less showy and more realistic, and has a set of … (more)

Grand Escape: Quest for the Grail

Birmingham, Mar 2019

Having booked both games at Grand Escape, we’d originally scheduled Grail second, but the owners encouraged us to swap the two games round to start with Grail as an easier game. That turned out to be excellent advice, with Grail being an uncomplicate… (more)

Salisbury Escape Rooms: Wessex Cold Case Unit

Salisbury, Mar 2019

As their website will tell you, Salisbury Escape Rooms is the “only U.K. escape room run by detectives”, which is true to the best of my knowledge. And their current game does seem to draw on that, with a description that talks about investigating pa… (more)

Escape Hunt: Worlds Collide

Oxford, Feb 2019

While there are any number of escape rooms that carefully skirt intellectual property laws with thinly veiled ‘homages’ to popular franchises, fully licensed games are much rarer, and so it was with much fanfare that Escape Hunt announced their offic… (more)

Escape Hunt: Escape The Wild West

Oxford, Feb 2019

Picking a game for the afternoon slot at Escape Hunt’s Oxford branch was a choice between pirates and cowboys, and we chose the latter. Wild West casts you as lucky but imperilled miners: having discovered a rich seam of gold in a remote and dusty fr… (more)

Enigma Emporium: Blowback

Room-in-a-box, Jan 2019

Blowback, Enigma Emporium’s second play-at-home puzzle game and a sequel to Wish You Were Here, is at time of writing about to launch on Kickstarter. It works perfectly well stand-alone, though I imagine most players will tackle it having first tried… (more)

Enigma Emporium: Wish You Were Here

Room-in-a-box, Jan 2019

The boom in physical escape rooms has brought with it an increasing range of play at home puzzle products in various formats. Enigma Emporium’s first such product, Wish You Were Here, is notable for the efficiency of its design: an envelope containin… (more)

mostly harmless…: Escape The Jacket

London, Feb 2019

February in London means the Vault Festival is back, with a smorgasbord of theatre, comedy and more experimental shows; and escape room company Mostly Harmless return with another pop-up escape game. This one moves away from their previous sci-fi des… (more)

London Escaped Ltd: School of Magic

London, Dec 2018

Both of London Escaped’s first two rooms struck me as promising and enjoyable game designs, being operated in a way that didn’t bring out their full potential. School of Magic is similar, except that the underlying quality of the game appears to be s… (more)

MCCY x Kult: Collab & Conquer: The Art Heist

Singapore, Jan 2019

Collab and Conquer is a 30-minute museum-themed escape room experience developed jointly by Singapore’s Ministry Of Culture, Community and Youth, and Kult, a collective of multidisciplinary artists. This popup game, which runs until 17th February 201… (more)