Clue HQ Birmingham

A fun game. Nice logical progression and not too many padlocks. Mix of solutions. Relied on the screen a little too much in some ways I feel but we had fun

A really magical room, we loved this. It took us a hint to get started but then we were off and running and ate the puzzles up. The "big room" section was beautiful and clever and it was lovely to have a bit of a "girl power" room, too.

The first puzzle is very badly lit (and a bit worn, which didn't help) and some of the items could do with a fresh layer of sharpie but it didn't impede us too much. I can see why this is a popular game (and we had booked to do it a wee while ago but it was broken so I am glad to finally have played it).

Great hosting from Kasey, too. Clue HQ is a great venue.

We didn't escape, it was confusing at points. We didn't escape, but the premise was there. Love the theme and the twists and turns. Millie was awesome. Wish we had more time to get there. Struggled with one particular rope not behaving 

It was very dark, but it really gets you involved. Lots of interesting puzzles and padlocks 

A decent pirate themed room. Linear puzzles that were well suited to 2 people

This was a good high tech room that we gelled well with. High quality effects with lots to do. 

A busy room but where you can progress fairly fast despite the amount of puzzles. Also, the second part of the room is a lovely surprise

This is a futuristic take with a lot of codes to break. It feels a little heavy on the code-breaking side of things as you don't always get a reward for finding one code before there are still so many more to find just to gain access to the next part of the narrative flow. 

Also, the only room I've seen where you get entirely clued on a Morse code line, and where they have to clue so frequently that they already have the text pre-saved in the system. I'd have improved the puzzle rather than adding more clues, but I guess it wasn't an option. 

Honestly, this room contains more padlocks than needed. It's very padlock-driven, with puzzles after puzzles, which leaves little room for immersion, story, originality, or even a sense of enjoyment. The logic isn't necessarily an issue, there's no room for it. It's all about cracking obscure (both literally and figuratively speaking) codes as fast as you can, so it gets rapidly draining and repetitive. 

If you love opening dozens of padlock in semi darkness in what is supposed to be an Egyptian tomb, this may feel like heaven for you. For anyone else, this should be a pass. 

That being said, we had an amazing game master, who cheered with us when we escaped. But even she wasn't enough to save the room. 

Quite maths heavy and small room. One of the puzzles was extremely annoying to do as it involved listening to a tune. But the audio was very quiet. Good hosting but puzzles were quite forgettable 

This game used a lot of tech and only 2 padlocks. Usually I'd like that but in this game it didn't seem to gel with us. A lot of times we did something and a sound would play but we were unsure what happened, leading to a bit of frustration early on.

The room itself had great set design, with multiple different spaces to explore and nice use of projectors etc. Visually stunning, except they hadn't hidden any wires which is always a disappointment to me because it looks slightly lazy (they were also all within reach so I worry what kids would do if they just yanked them)

Sound effects in the 'main' room were really loud and at times slightly overwhelming when trying to think and figure out answers. The 'pond' wasn't reset sadly so we didn't really have to go inside it to find anything as they were just placed on top. Our host wasn't very enthusiastic and sort of just shoved us in the game.

Overall it was a good room, just didn't gel with us! 

Enjoyed this room, lots of padlocks but were signposted well. A clever use of space which we hadn't seen before in a room and were pleasantly surprised with. We really clicked with the room and as a team of 2 just happily quietly got on with puzzles with no frustrations or clues needed (sections are sort of non linear so can be done at the same time).

The room needs a good clean though, the dolls stank badly and could do with a wash! There was also times when we opened boxes and their hinges entirely came off, and padlocks were rusty - it could really do with a week of maintenance just to put everything back to a good standard (it was 30pp after all!) so cannot rate it any higher because of that. 

Very good room, technology made it one of the most memorable I’ve been to!

I have done a few pirate themed rooms over the years so I wasn't sure how similar this one would be. There was a good story line behind the game and a variety of puzzles to be solved. It wasn't too challenging but was fun none-the-less. We also visited the board game cafe, which is attached to escape room, before our game. This was a fun extension of our visit.

The game took place mainly in one room, but when out of this room there was a long corridor that answered some more puzzles in the main room, it did not smell great.
At the end of the corridor is a lit room where it was clear you were meant to be able to see into it. but the game ended abruptly with a "WELL DONE" (or words to that effect) and this room is no longer part of the game. But, it's on full display?! 

Interesting use of AV,  I found some thing's a little frustrating, but that was probably just us. We still had good fun, and this was an enjoyable room.

Lot's of tech, animations, and soo much to do. Kids/Families would absolutly love this room. Was great fun and well worth it. 

Great use of video and some lovely quirky moments in this game.

Loved the way that they've incorporated the tech into this game and how it interacted with one puzzle in particular. Small play space but lots to do in the time!

Intense game, very immersive, was frustrating to have to keep going back to the first room for clues.

Really nice room with something a little different! 

Fantatstic tech and engaging puzzles!

Set was impressive. Host Sophie was really lovely. However a bit too much tech for me but that’s a personal preference. Find it frustrating when you are stood around watching tech/videos before you can move on with another puzzle. 

Fantastic room. Definitely in our top 5. Such good fun

Getting a bit bored of pirate rooms now but this one was quite immersive and we really enjoyed the puzzles. Would definitely recommend!

What a game!  We had so much fun during the second part of this room. This is definitely a top 10 game for us so far!

Game is past its prime, very rough around the edges. Game play was great if you get past the 30 minute intro video...

Still one of my favourite games - They really managed to capture the magic here. So original and great puzzles. 

A really beautiful and well designed room with a lot of high tech puzzles - I do prefer there to be more physical locks but the tech worked perfectly with some nice physical elements and was very impressive! Some really fun and surprising elements which I’ve never seen before too, and I really enjoyed the theme. It was a little dark in places with no torches to help which was sometimes a hindrance but we could cope. Hosting was great too!

Great idea for a theme but this room really needs some TLC. The puzzles were great, but things were broken to the point you couldn't complete the puzzle and the theming looked tired.

Also, the video intro goes on wayyy too long.

New to reviewing, but played a while ago with the wife and figured it was worth noting. Some of the other games at Clue HQ are hit and miss but this one is definitely a hit!

Great puzzles, lovely effects in the room. Magic theme done differently and very well. This game has  lot of charm.

Although Myialock seems to get better overall ratings we definitely preferred this room as the puzzles were more interesting.  Myialock has an excellent, immersive set which is, I suspect, why it tends to get the better reviews, but for those that appreciate the puzzles as much as the set, I think this is the room to go for.

A wonderful set but some of the puzzles were a tad proceedural for an enthusiasts.  I think this would be an excellent room for newbies and families though.

We suffered tech problems with this game in addition to a long wait for it to start, and we weren't crazy about the game design either. A shame because the other games at ClueHQ Birmingham have been great. But these things happen and we were offered a free game to make up for it. 

The game itself was great once we got in, however, getting into the escape room proved more challenging than getting out.

Upon arrival at 10:40am we were told that a GM hadn't attended work so there was no one to run our game. The options presented were to have one person run two games at once which might mean things were slower and the experience hampered, come back later, or take a refund and come back another day.

We opted to come back later at 2:00pm and upon re-arrival there was still no one to run our game, we were half way through the safety briefing and our game GM showed up. We finally got into the game, the game itself was very good technically, the amount of clues given felt slightly too many, but are optional if you don't look at the screen. I think we were presented 8 clues, but only actually read 2 or 3. The room layouts and use of space and tech were good and flowed well and the set theming coming into the item storage area were a nice touch. It wasn't always clear when to proceed into next room however. 

A full refund was offered however for the inconvenience and the rescheduling of the day. 

Had so much fun. Anyone who plays this should enjoy it! Only critique would be there are a few hidden things which are hard to find or realise what you should do. It’s still so immersive it doesn’t matter

Qunite a tough room for 2 but very enjoyable and unique. Similar premise to Curio (almost) but much better looked after than curio

This room honestly blew my socks off. The theming and puzzles really shine, I was giddy with excitement and impressed the whole way through. One of my favourites so far.

Our host set the scene well. Great atmosphere and very immersive. Unfortunately though the dim lighting made it hard to see some puzzles, the speech we listened to was very unclear & the sound effects were a bit overwhelming for this autistic player. I absolutely loved some of the clever reveals and had good fun. Thank you.

The best room that Clue HQ have. Play this. The set is amazing, the puzzles are solid and challenging, and the storyline is good.

Unique and well worth a visit. 

Really enjoyed playing this. It's a little creepy with a few jump scares but once you're past the long video intro nothing is as scary as the evil Dr Psik in the video (so scary!). The whole idea is cool and the lift itself is very clever. They're are a lot of padlocks and it's not obvious which padlock goes with which answer but we honestly didn't mind that.

It's getting a bit tired and the doors could do with a better seal but these are minor issues. 

A lot of fun, nicely silly-scary, really loved this. We only played it because Miyalock wasn't working so we'll be back. 

An incredibly immersive game, bound to get your blood pumping in the second half.

All but one of the puzzles I found to be entirely logical, with the other requiring you to look somewhere which didn't really make sense to me. It can also be a bit dark at times so make sure you have at least one person on your team who has decent vision.

There is also a small issue where if you are colourblind (as I am) one of the puzzles is impossible to complete without teammates that aren't. This won't generally be a problem though so it doesn't affect my rating.

Our host was fantastic, giving us suitable clues to keep the pace of the game on course without resorting to hand holding.

The tech is pretty great, a step up from other games I have played and always implemented without it being intrusive.

Probably the best of the admittedly few escape rooms I have played, and I would highly recommend it to people debating on a room to play in Birmingham.

Story is a little long at the start of the game and we did get a little bored which isn't really what you want. 

Game concept was great though and unique which is a plus. 

There were a couple of elements that were broken in our room however, one of which did make a puzzle unsolvable without having a partial answer from our host.

A good classic prison escape. I had done a few before coming to play this one and it held up as one of the better ones. Very traditional but its good clean fun!

Didn't care for this game. Mostly linear game with pretty standard puzzles, so most of the game was bottlenecked, so not really fun for a group of 4.

I really liked this room, unfortunately as its time in life its looking very tatty and loved, which didn't affect our game play, it just damped the "wow" moment when walking. 

This aside this is a really well designed room. 

Such a phenomenal  game. Great use of story telling, theming and game play was all incredible.

The only down side and this is  in my opinion, CLUE HQ tends to over do the story videos, to the point where you're bored. 

Dark, gritty and a bit psychologically intense.

Impressed how much they crammed into the space! Intro was good and really painted the theme well. The special effects suit the room perfectly.

Puzzles - Lots of padlocks and codes. Some good interactive bits. Mostly linear. Some puzzles I instantly clicked with, some I didn’t. Loved the tilting puzzle - very clever!  I don’t think I’d have ever solved the pipes pressure puzzle without a clue.

Lauryn GMd this for us and did a really great job of letting us explore and make mistakes but always got us back on track when down a rabbit hole.

Overall a good game.

My wife and I played this as a two and really enjoyed it.

Theme - magic theme is a common one, but this room has an immersive story and the story is well integrated.

Puzzles - lots to do in an hour - especially the 2nd half builds tension nicely. Nice variety of styles. We had a tendency to overthink a few puzzles!

Tech - I think this is a good example of how to integrate tech into a room. You could see the dedication to the design with the way the lighting worked with the story.  We had one small puzzle that malfunctioned but this was released externally and didn’t upset the game flow.

Age - you could take kids and they would have things to do. Some nice crawling and other hidden spaces.  There’s PG level mild peril but nothing outright scary. The only thing I would say is they keep the volume of the dramatic music and general sound effects high, this might be a bit much for some children ( and adults!).

GM - Lauryn GMd for us. She is super enthusiastic and did a fantastic job. She knew when to let us stew and when to give us more direct clues to get us back on track. The clues come written on a screen and were timed really well for us.

Overall I thought this room was excellent and probably in the top 10 of the 50 or so We’ve done. Highly recommended.

#51

Our second room of the day at Clue HQ Birmingham, again this was incredible. The theming was really on point, this room is more padlock-based which didn’t bother us after the padlock-less Miyalock (that being said there is more than just locks in here). Really fun and on theme puzzles,  nothing was out of place. We were laughing the whole time during this, and we really feel like we got our money’s worth.

A couple of original touches in this room, the middle part especially was a real delight. The end had us rushing around even though we had time remaining, something that always gets the adrenaline pumping! A couple of people have noted about lighting issues in the final part but we had none of that so I’m assuming it is a problem that’s been rectified recently. 

Will definitely be going back for Hellevator and Core!

Updated top 5:

1. The Legend of Miyalock: Forbidden Magic - Clue HQ Birmingham

2. Viking - Extremescape

3. Mr Copplestone’s Curiosity Shoppe - Escape Quest

4.  UI-55 - Compendium

5. The Legend of Foole’s Gold - Clockwork Escapes

#50

Our 50th room has gone straight to the top of our list! The whole experience of this was brilliant. Our host Ryan was very attentive and interacted with us just the right amount, little nudges if we needed it without giving too much away. The decoration is on a par with Copplestones and Viking. Really fun interaction with some of the puzzles, and the whole experience seemed to just keep going and going! Also the story was brilliant and incredibly immersive, something very original considering magic is a common theme. From the first puzzle you can tell that it is going to be a great experience. 

There was no clue in particular that was ridiculously hard, just quite a bit to do, and if you forget about something very important (no spoilers!) then you’ll definitely add on a couple of minutes! Don’t miss this, it was a knockout.

Updated top 5:

1. The Legend of Miyalock: Forbidden Magic - Clue HQ Birmingham

2. Viking - Extremescape

3. Mr Copplestone’s Curiosity Shoppe - Escape Quest

4.  UI-55 - Compendium

5. The Legend of Foole’s Gold - Clockwork Escapes

Absolutely loved this game! This has to be my favourite room ever! Went as group of 2 enthusiasts, just on a whim and were blown away. Not your run of the mill “magic school” room. Some surprise elements I’ve not seen in a room before which will be loved by both adults and kids alike! It’s a must play with a beautiful flow, great theming and storytelling!

One of if not my favourite game I've ever played. Actually did it alone as it was due to close and my teammate was unavailable. The host was superb, there's a never ending sequence of surprises and the story telling is just wonderful.

#4

Well our host Ryan was amazing and really  added to the experience. It was a real thrill and everything had its place. The finale section was wow on effects. I personally found that the sound was fine in the room and didn’t interfere with our communication. Sometimes it was a little funny with placement of items but that was due to fact it was tech orientated. Must play. 

Was fun theming, but for sure had more people than needed, especially for a relatively small room - often had 2 people just waiting, or feeling in the way during certain tasks. 

Also one of the puzzles involved a computer with a wireless mouse that massively lagged, meaning the wrong things were clicked, and certain buttons were off the screen that the host had to let us know there was an issue. That one puzzle took about half our time, which was a bit of a pain.

I have mixed feelings about this - it is almost a great game, but wasn't quite there for me. Good points: beautiful set and videos, really enjoyed the interactive equipment you need for the game. Some good puzzles although nothing too individually challenging. Progress is linear for the most part. 

Bad points: the audio is loud to the point of damaging your hearing. I couldn't hear my partner even when we were shouting at each other at close range. This was very off putting, detracted from the experience and meant we had absolutely no way of solving an audio puzzle which we were then stuck on for some time (but also couldn't really attract the attention of the GM, again as so loud). It becomes very linear later on so I spent quite some time doing nothing due to the small spaces things were located in - again this may have been better if we'd been able to communicate, but volume precluded this. It's a shame about these issues as we ended up not enjoying a game that I think is probably better than our experience. 

I really enjoyed this game - it's so cleverly done. A couple of illogical thought processes going on with a couple of puzzles but you can forgive it given the amount of fun and adrenaline the game gives. 

Set is lovely and there are plenty of puzzles. Our GM (and her trainee) were excellent. I had a couple of niggles - there was one puzzle that clearly did not work that we wasted quite a bit of time on (to be fair, they did then allow us to finish the game after time) and the low lighting in the final room made it really difficult to actually achieve one of the tasks. But overall it's a lovely game and would definitely recommend. 

The set is gorgeous and surprising, and there is a good range of puzzles.

However, this game irritated me because, with a minor tweak, our experience would have been incredible. The final room is beautiful but very very very dark, so dark that we couldn't see the padlocks and had to resort to the lights on our watches. A few other minor gripes too, but this was the biggest issue for us.

Despite this, I would definitely recommend this game because we had a great time, but I would advise a light source unless you have been loading up on the carrots!

A beautiful game with a good use of the space. For once it was impossible for me to forget the story and mission! Clever use of tech to create the magic and plenty of puzzles to keep us busy throughout. 

It is clear that so much effort has been put into creating  this room so am really glad we played before it has to be taken down. Hope it can return again in future.

The latest game to be launched at Clue HQ and it’s safe to say it’s brilliant. 

This has quickly become my fav game at CLUE HQ. 

With some clever technology, great story and a few things I’ve not seen before, this room adds to a great lineup of games. 

There is a lot to do in this room so don’t be fooled by the starting space. It was frantic and we left sweating. Although fairly linear, there seemed to be something for everyone to do and I don’t feel anyone was standing around.

Fantastic game 

My favourite from the Clue HQ franchise.

Free flowing, great story and immersive!

Fun game don't get me wrong but not as good as Captain Riddle or Hellevator. 

A small room - either do this with 2-3 people max. Lots of locks. Teamwork required but sad there wasn't a second room. Good intense ending.

Fun room, started blindfolded and then wow when it comes off, divided and unsure if you'll ever escape...but we did!

It was an intense game but incredible tech - don't want to give the game away but it moves.

Fun pirate room with multiple rooms. Great scenery, scents and game flow. 

One of our favourite rooms so far! (played 14 rooms). Much better than Clue HQ's other offerings. Sturdy construction, outstanding theming and great story. Nothing particularly, individually challenging- just so much content to get through! Our only criticism was the lighting levels caused us issues at more than one point throughout the game - including the finale in which we had to have a clue (which we try to avoid) as to where the item(s) even was that had already been revealed as it was too dark for us to see.

I think this is my favourite game so far (ever).  The theming is very well done, and it's just really good fun.  The puzzles were the right amount of annoying!

Only minor quibble is that we did manage to irretrievably lose a component that meant we had to be given the solution to that puzzle, although I imagine they've addressed that since we did the room.

Honestly, we played this with too many of us.  Do it either with a small team, or inexperienced players.  We're relatively experienced, and there are lots of parallel puzzles.  I don't remember how long we took but our host appeared breathless at the door 30 seconds after we escaped as he hadn't quite paid attention and didn't expect us to finish so fast!

As a guide, we turned up exactly on the dot of when we should have but somehow still missed the communal briefing with all the other teams.  Then after we got out, we had our victory photo, a nice chat with out host, a bit of a wait while they worked out if there were any free slots for other puzzles later in the week (they try to sell you a reduced rate voucher for another game afterwards, but as we were only around for a week there was no point if we couldn't use it), chatted some more, and still didn't see a single other person (we could hear them!) before leaving.

We escaped... Debatably. We were there to test the game, so having worked out all the puzzles and through some technical issues, we were apparently the first team to complete this room. Based on our feedback to them I can only assume they made radical changes, as I've since seen a lot of photos on Clue HQ's Facebook page of people escaping this room. When we did it, this was hands down the hardest room we had ever done. We're not terribly experienced - I've done about 10 - but this was definitely the toughest. 

A couple of potential spoilers, so you might not want to read further, but some people might be intrigued to know; there are no padlocks in this room! I think that's pretty cool. 

My first escape room. It was awesome. We did however manage to accidentally circumvent a puzzle. We didn't know, as it was our first Escape Room, but I don't feel like that should have been possible. Hopefully that will have been fixed by now, but because of it, I can't give a 5 star rating. 

I loved this. This has been my favourite so far (our of 6). There was a nice big surprise for us in this room, which I don't want to spoil here! There was one puzzle that annoyed me, as the maths involved ignored BODMAS, so I feel like it was dumbed down. I really like that this game has an option to escape, or stay to win treasure!! We stayed. We nearly got locked in because of it, but we did escape with the treasure! 

This is so atmospheric - but not too scary. We were all screaming at other by the end because we knew we were close!! Eventually escaping with just 3 seconds to go!! It was awesome. 

Heavy on content, also heavy on locks. Good visual theming and use of audio. On a number of occasions, very good prop/puzzle theming.

Was very dark to begin with, not certain if it became lighter because of story progression, or our GM realised we were overlooking a couple of obvious things in the room (we were told to ask for more light if we were struggling before the room started).

The entry door notes that the door stays locked until 5 minutes before the room booking time. It is possible that I may have missed it in the correspondence, but I wasn't aware of this, and it left us awkwardly standing around in the train arches until the unlock time.

Certainly worth a visit if nearby, would recommend more than 2 people as there is a lot to do. Just don't turn up too early!!