Author Archives: escapethereview

Escape Plan: Roll Out The Barrel

London, Nov 2019

There are any number of games set in WW2, but I’d hazard none others that share the premise of Roll Out The Barrel: set immediately after the end of the war, you’re trying to break into the officers’ mess to get at their private stash of booze… (more)

404

Room-in-a-box, Dec 2019

Ever since Journal 29 there’s been a boom in similarly formatted puzzle books, each with one puzzle per double page spread, where the first challenge of solving is often in working out how to approach the cryptic illustration. 404 is the latest such,… (more)

The Cult Experience

Room-in-a-box, Nov 2019

Many play at home escape games use an online component, usually for hints and/or answer verifications. The Cult Experience goes much further, and the larger part of the game consists of video snippets, each usually a few minutes long. You purchase th… (more)

Exit: Mysterious Museum

Room-in-a-box, May 2019

In Exit’s ever-expanding range, Mysterious Museum is pitched to be less challenging, intentionally one of their easier games. Puzzle difficulty is a very subjective matter, but Museum is made more approachable by being much more linear than their nor… (more)

Exit: Sinister Mansion

Room-in-a-box, May 2019

Exit follow a very consistent, well-defined style of puzzle game, and after reviewing eight or nine of them there’s not a whole lot to say about a new one unless it differs from the others in some significant way; and Sinister Mansion does not.

The … (more)

Exit: The Catacombs of Horror

Room-in-a-box, Oct 2019

For those who enjoy lining up all their Exit games in a neat little line of matching boxes on the shelf, it will have come as bad news that Catacombs of Horror is a double-size game, packaged in an outsized box that completely fails to match the othe… (more)

Modern Fables: Hypersomnia

London, Oct 2019

When I played Modern Fables’ first game they were based down in south Bermondsey, but they’ve since moved to the east side of Shoreditch. Our confirmation email came with extensive instructions for how to find their entrance, and yet we still ended u… (more)

The Clockwork Door: Alice In Wonderland

Dublin, Oct 2019

The second game I played at Clockwork Door was the older of the venue’s two games, Alice; which of course has a Wonderland theme. There’s no information about backstory on the website, and indeed not much in the way of plot in the game, but your task… (more)

The Clockwork Door: Witch House

Dublin, Oct 2019

Of all the escape room lobbies I’ve seen Clockwork Door’s was one of the most inviting, thanks to the board game café they run in the same location. We were welcomed in, offered biscuits and hot drinks, and encouraged to dip into the board games whil… (more)

Pier Pressure: Preston Manor

Brighton, Oct 2019

Despite having been to Brighton any number of times, I was completely unaware of Preston Manor. It seems it’s an Edwardian manor house well preserved as a museum piece, with a relatively unimposing exterior but rather stunning inside, interesting for… (more)