Author Archives: escapethereview

TimeTrap Escape Rooms: Station X

Reading, Feb 2020

Time Trap’s wartime game is based around Bletchley counter-espionage. Set in a railway station, it gives you the job of identifying which of seven suspects is a spy. You have an additional bonus mission – apparently the spy has hidden several cylinde… (more)

TimeTrap Escape Rooms: Pudding Lane

Reading, Feb 2020

Those who are less familiar with London history might assume Pudding Lane is confectionary themed – but of course this game is actually named after the place where the Great Fire of London began in 1666. Your team has been sent back in time, not to p… (more)

Knockout Escape Rooms: Curious Cabin

Reading, Jan 2020

Cabins in escape rooms have a tendency to turn grizzly – the ominous cabin in the woods trope. This one is an exception. It turns out to be a fairly normal miner’s cabin (normal other than being filled with puzzles, I guess); unfortunately, just at t… (more)

History Mystery: Secrets of the Tunnels

Norwich, Dec 2019

Most of the reviews I’ve written of games by History Mystery could start in a similar way, by saying: “this is the first game I’ve played inside…”. With Secrets of the Tunnels, that sentence ends with “…an underground medieval street”. This is a … (more)

Unlock!: Arsène Lupin and the Great White Diamond

Room-in-a-box, Jan 2020

Arsène Lupin is another totem of French culture almost completely unknown to me, but who seems to be a mysterious but gallant master thief. In Unlock!’s game you are not the legendary criminal himself but a group of street urchins to whom Lupin has s… (more)

Unlock!: The Noside Show

Room-in-a-box, Jan 2020

While each Unlock! game is a stand-alone story, fully half the boxed sets have included an episode featuring the closest thing the series has to a recurring villain. The Noside Show is the third of these, and its cartoonish style of illustration and … (more)

Escapologic: Robin of Lockskey

Nottingham, Nov 2019

I narrowly missed out on the chance to play Lockskey the first time round, when it briefly opened and then closed again due to problems with the underground location (since when it’s been completely revamped, so I believe is safe to play even if you … (more)

Make Your Escape: Utopia

Derby, Nov 2019

Utopia is the sister game to Dystopia, its complement and its inverse. Where Dystopia’s decor is urban decay, Utopia is all sleekly gleaming computer panels; where Dystopia’s puzzles tend more to the physical, Utopia’s use touch-panels and screens an… (more)

Make Your Escape: Dystopia

Derby, Nov 2019

Arriving at Make Your Escape for our booking, we were welcomed in by a sardonic overall-wearing janitor from a dystopian future. It’s always a nice touch when a game’s host is in character from the outset, and he maintained the persona throughout the… (more)

Unlock!: In Pursuit of the White Rabbit

Room-in-a-box, Aug 2019

If there’s a theme to Unlock!’s Heroic Adventures box, it’s superb potential that just doesn’t quite come together. White Rabbit is clearly intended as the flagship game in the box, with an extended 90 min play time and the maximum difficulty rating,… (more)