Category Archives: UK

Escape Nation: Incognito’s Secret Lair

Stafford, Mar 2024

Incognito opened not long after my first visit to Escape Nation, and I’ve been meaning to play it ever since, on the strength of their first room, so was delighted to finally get a chance.

This is a light hearted secret agent game, decorated in brig… (more)

Escapism: Legacy

Plymouth, Mar 2024

I’m very overdue a proper trip round the escape rooms of Devon and Cornwall, but in the meantime I’ll take whatever brief chances I get to try them. So on a fleeting visit to Plymouth I picked a room at random at Escapism and booked in.

In Legacy yo… (more)

Enigma Rooms Wakefield: Séance

Wakefield, Oct 2023

Of the UK’s scary games, Séance is one of the most highly rated by enthusiasts, so we were always going to include it on any visit to the area; it was pure coincidence that we found ourselves there on Halloween. The premise is classic supernatural ho… (more)

The Escaporium: Area 51½

Halifax, Oct 2023

It seems like Area 51.5 has been tantalisingly under construction ever since I first visited The Escaporium, many years back; it’s been through quite a catalogue of setbacks, but is finally open and receiving considerable acclaim. In it, you’re tryin… (more)

Escape Quest: Henry Fortune’s House of Illusion

Macclesfield, Oct 2023

There are vanishingly few occasions in which I’ve replayed an escape room, and I’m not sure this counts as one of them. This new version of Henry Fortune is part of Escape Quest’s Chapelgate Mysteries, an overarching time travel setting that now incl… (more)

Escapable: The Great Loudini

Wakefield, Oct 2023

When rating escape rooms I’m not exactly generous, and I’ve sometimes been asked before, by the owners of exceedingly good games, what persuades me to give a 5* score. My usual reply is that it needs something beyond just all-round excellence: some w… (more)

Escapable: Outatime

Wakefield, Oct 2023

My knowledge of classic 80s movies is clearly lacking, because it took me quite a few months after hearing of Outatime before I realised it’s inspired by Back To The Future.

As you’d expect from a time travel theme, this is a game that spans differ… (more)

Cryptology Swindon: The Tortured Soul

Swindon, Jul 2023

The Tortured Soul is the newest room at Incarcerated (which is currently partway through turning into Cryptology Swindon). It’s a supernatural horror game involving the ghost of a child; for calibrating whether it’s a scare level you’re comfortable w… (more)

Cryptology Swindon: Conspiracy – Agenda 21

Swindon, Jul 2023

Six years ago (how time flies) we played the rooms at Incarcerated, and wrote some fairly critical reviews of them, which the owner at the time was good enough to not hold against us. So I was very pleased to find that the current two games were a bi… (more)

Co-Decode: Sub Terra

Swindon, Jul 2023

We may have been the very last team to play Sub Terra in its original location; Co-Decode will be relocating to a more central spot in Swindon, and it’s not yet certain whether Sub Terra will be rebuilt there in quite the same form, or at all. But if… (more)