Category Archives: Reading

TimeTrap Escape Rooms: Curiouser and Curiouser

Reading, Jan 2023

Curiouser and Curiouser is the sequel to Time Trap’s previous game Imaginarium. There are any number of Alice in Wonderland rooms available, but Imaginarium was unusual in combining Wonderland theming with a section set inside Lewis Carroll’s mind. T… (more)

Escape Reading: Age of Magic

Reading, Jan 2023

The previous two games from Escape Reading are both, in different ways, tense and fast-paced games which need effective co-operation and teamwork. Age of Magic is a different beast altogether, a dreamy fantasy that leads you through a magical cave fu… (more)

Escape Reading: Ram Raid

Reading, Feb 2020

Many venues invest greater amounts of money and tech in each new game they create. I think that’s true of Escape Reading too, but they’ve also shown something rarer and more important: an ever-improving ability to make their games engaging, logical a… (more)

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)

Deadlocked Escape Rooms: The Time Machine

Reading, Jan 2020

Time Machine is definitely the first game I’ve seen that claims a 60 second time limit – but of course there’s more to it than that. The time-warping plot actually has a 90 min limit in total; I won’t spoil details of the 60 second thing, but … (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)

TimeTrap Escape Rooms: Imaginarium

Reading, Aug 2018

Quite a number of escape companies use a time travel premise for their games, and the first game I played at TimeTrap demonstrated a stronger than average grasp of historical detail. So it was a surprise to find that in Imaginarium, although it theor… (more)

Knockout Escape Rooms: Prison Break

Reading, Aug 2018

Prison Break was Knockout’s easiest game and their best-decorated. A prison setting often means cramped cells, usually with a split team start, but they’ve instead used a much larger space here, which combines prison bars with a more open layout. The… (more)