Category Archives: UK

Break Escape: Boiling Point

Loughborough, Aug 2018

As might not be instantly clear from the name, Boiling Point is set in a police station. Your task is to retrieve the critical evidence needed to put away each of a gang of ne’er-do-wells; however, since the gang in question are understandably not ke… (more)

Break Escape: Nerve Klinik

Loughborough, Aug 2018

First, a disclaimer: we played a bowdlerised version of Nerve Klinik, due to a teammate’s aversion to jump scares. Since this is a game designed from the ground up to scare its players and keep them nervous of what might happen next, that removed an … (more)

Break Escape: The Sands of Time

Loughborough, Aug 2018

Don’t make a room unnecessarily dark; or if you do, make sure every player has a satisfactorily strong source of light. That’s a subjective opinion, and not everyone agrees with it, but it’s one I’ll argue for until I’m blue in the face. If it’s an o… (more)

Cryptic Escapes: The Treasure of Green Beard

Norwich, Aug 2018

Since this review is inevitably going to degenerate into a rant about ‘good’ difficulty versus ‘bad’ difficulty in escape rooms, let’s start on a more positive note. The Treasure of Green Beard is nicely presented, a traditionally structured escape r… (more)

Puzzlescape: Sleight of Hand

Norfolk, Aug 2018

On my last visit to Puzzlescape eighteen months earlier, Dereham in Norfolk seemed an exotically obscure location for an escape game; with the way the industry has expanded since then, it now seems entirely normal. In the meantime they’ve expanded fr… (more)

History Mystery: Body of Evidence

Norwich, Aug 2018

Where History Mystery’s first game is situated upstairs at the Norwich Guildhall, their second is in the basement of the same building, in what used to be gaol cells right up to the 1980s. The booking confirmation warns players that the cell graffiti… (more)

History Mystery: The Merchants’ Vaults

Norwich, Aug 2018

Having located their previous games in Norwich’s Guildhall and in a historic church, History Mystery’s latest is set the medieval undercroft below Brideswell Museum. This is a ghostly grey space of elegant ancient arches and crumbling walls, simultan… (more)

HMS Belfast: Damage Control

London, Sep 2018

One sign of escape rooms being increasingly mainstream is the way they’re appearing as add-ons to other, more traditional tourist attractions. The latest example of that is Damage Control, a 30 minute pop-up escape room hosted on the HMS Belfast, the… (more)

AI Escape: Project Delta

London, Aug 2018

AIEscape’s previous game Kill M.A.D. has been the London escape room I recommend most often and enthusiastically for a little while now, so to say I’ve been eagerly awaiting their new sci-fi game would be an understatement. Project Delta casts you as… (more)

Escape Reading: Blown Away

Reading, Aug 2018

While there are a handful of hard-core enthusiasts who might attempt to play solo, for most players solving as a team is one of the joys of escape rooms. A disproportionate number of my most memorable moments in games have involved tasks that require… (more)