Lakes Escapes

Played this here first before I accidentally played it again in Bracknell, and I much preferred this version as the spacing and layout was much better for gameplay here and the added puzzles really enhanced the gameplay.

Bright, fun and family freindly, this is a great room to play and I defy you not to end up talking to at least one gnome during your hour in there!

This game is a bit different! The first half consists of a GM-guided series of physical/dexterity mini-challenges, very much in the style of Crystal Maze. These earn you "clue orbs" that you can then use in the second part, which is more traditional escape room codes and locks.

I imagine this could divide players looking for a "traditional" escape room audiences somewhat, but it worked perfectly for us - a family group in a large team of mixed age and abilities, who welcomed the opportunity to play some more light-hearted carnival-style games rather than all be thinky puzzles.

Excellent, attentive hosting kept us on target thoughout.

We played while staying at Keswick on a family holiday in the lake district, and would definitely recommend the half-hour drive to Workington if it's poor weather or you fancy a break from fell walking or mountain climbing.

We played Casino Heist immediately after Diamond Mine in the same location, and would happily recommend them both. The Casino Heist scenario starts off with a brilliant set piece, and then settles into a typical escape room format. There's lots of content - our team of eight players of mixed experience levels were kept busy throughout the whole hour, and only just secured the final loot within the last few minutes, so would definitely recommend this as suitable for larger groups.

There's no single stand-out moments, but a solid mix of observation, deduction, assembly and physical manipulation puzzles thoughout.

Excellent, attentive hosting by the GMs delivered a few clues to nudge us along when we requested, and happy to chat afterwards.

This was superb fun, and something a little different. The hosting was fantastic too! A little on the easy side on occasion, but a really great experience!

Great Christmas room where you search for the lost presents. Nice mix of puzzles and great for families. Lakes escapes do great Christmas rooms, its well worth the journey to visit them.

Wanna build a snowman???  Then head to Lakes Escape for a lovely festive room which is packed with a nice variety of puzzles and plenty to do so even enthusiasts will enjoy. 
Great to have a second Christmas room here, Lakes are great at making their seasonal popup look like a major installation and not a temporary game. 
Great fun! 

Lovely room to play, it's a linear room that is specifically designed for families, so the signposting is spot on and the puzzles are pitched at both adults and children. As long as you don't overthink things in this room then enthusiasts could breeze through this very quickly.

But it's a lovely room, and it's well worth taking your time and enjoying it. Also it is worth playing for the finale alone! Great fun, we loved it. 

Very enjoyable and very different. The mini games are excellent and the time in the diamond mine is frantic. Worth the long drive. If you’re in The Lakes definitely worth a trip to Workington to play this. 

The first part of this room is just pure fun. After that, we were so stressed 😂 This room is quite hard. There is a physical puzzle which is quite difficult and took us ~10 mins to complete which really threw us off. I'd still recommend this room, just be prepared for a challenge.

The fact that Molly Minerva managed to successfully escape in a team of 2 is actually unbelievable and her team must be a force to be reckoned with!

I really enjoyed this room and the concept of it was unique. Some cool tech at the end!

Enjoyed this room although I think there could have been a bit more to it. Probably our least favourite room here but some cool puzzles. These guys definitely think outside the box with each of their rooms

This was a fun room with some really cool tech at the end. We love Lake Escapes!

We really enjoyed this room, there were some fun puzzles we hadn't encountered before

Oh wow! What an experience! The first 30 mins are a crystal maze type experience where the GM guides you through different challenges. Then you go into the mine and the escape room begins! This is such an amazing experience and a really fun escape room. We did 11 escape rooms whilst in the Lakes and this was definitely our favourite.

A few clever puzzles in this game.  But it had that very frustrating characteristic of Gen 1 rooms that you didn't know which lock each combination was for, so it was hard to know if your solution was wrong, or if it was the wrong lock, which was magnified in the online context.  I needed quite a few clues since the logic didn't really flow for me.

A tricky one to rate, this, because while it's incredibly straightforward for enthusiasts, it would be an absolute winner for families with children. The puzzles are really lovely and it's all designed with care, with plenty of tactile elements to keep younger players happy and some decent padlock puzzles for escape room fans. 

There are some delightful elements to this room that made us smile; we would have liked a lot more of them but that's not a criticism at all because this room is designed to be the most straightforward at the centre.

It is very cute and very family friendly so, while it won't provide too much challenge for enthusiasts, it is a really lovely room for beginners or family groups and the staff at Lakes Escapes are so welcoming.

This one seems to divide opinion somewhat and I can see why: there's an elevated level of challenge in here that makes it a tricky room, particularly if tackling it as a two and I can see how it wouldn't be everyone's cup of tea.

The start of this game is superb - it really adds to the immersion and is such a novel way to kick off a heist. Once in the casino, this is a game where subtle details count and we missed a few things because they were quite leftfield. Saying that, the 'a-ha!' moments were therefore all the more satisfying!

Diamond mine is a ridiculously inventive concept that we absolutely loved! To say it's fun is an understatement to be honest - the concept of mini games to get yourself a step ahead in the mine itself is such a great idea and the execution of this concept is just superb. It's definitely one of the most adrenaline-filled rooms we've done in a while.

We had a lovely GM and that's important for this game - huge credit to Lakes Escapes for really thinking outside the box and offering something different.

A fun room with some nice puzzles and one particularly cool feature that really made it for us. Hosting here is great, which makes all the difference.

Good tech and christmassy online game however I played by myself and most online escape rooms take me well over an hour, this was over and done with in well under an hour which was a bit underwhelming.

Would love to have done this in real life (except the puzzle on the table), but the telescape version made this a bit painful. Didn't help that it ran very clunkily on my companions computer, so that he had an even worse experience than I had. 

There were puzzles I really like, but the whole experience was so painful we had to take a break in the middle of playing this. We also played this when we were pretty inexperienced and that could have been the source of much of our frustration together with the tech problems. 

We did like their other games ok. 

This is superb. The less you know the better. One of my favourite games ever.

This one's perhaps the least 'immersive' game at LE but we loved it as we just clicked with it and felt like mega geniuses all the way through.

Nice use of a small space and some really clever theming at times.

Lots of fun and some very fun special effects. We fell foul to search failure a few times!

Amazing game - very difficult but we relish that these days. The start is absolutely brilliant!

Good fun - the most padlock-y game I'd say in the venue. 

I do prefer the other games at this venue, but this did not let them down. 

Some nice puzzles that we hadn't seen before. 

Lots of fun from start to finish.

Some nice set pieces to really tell the story. Not a scare room.  Family friendly. 

Fabulous hosts who are always happy to chat and make you feel welcome. 

Great fun, but some of the clues were more interactive which would have been easier to solve.  

This was very entertaining and they did a great job of setting this up. Clever puzzles, some left us scratching pout heads but when we got the answers it felt like a solid achievement

This was an okay room but we felt it didn't really work very well as an online format.

Interesting beginning and mechanics. Theming could be better as feels like a room with casino things stuck on the wall rather than a proper casino

Christmas - lots of decorations, cookies, christmas cards and gifts.
This online game was a bit underwhelming. Over quite quickly (and we didn't hurry) and not any impressive puzzles. The theme was well executed though. 

The game is played on a 360 degree view of the room with hotspots you can interact with. The interaction mainly consists of you writing in a text field what you wanted to combine. 

Built on telescape but only one room. 

I'd heard good things about the in-person version of this game but, if that's the case, I can only conclude that sadly it does not transition well to being online, because this was just confusing and frustrating...  felt a bit like a point-and-click adventure that had been made during a 12hr game jam - the potential was there, but the user interface was awful, large parts felt unfinished (hotspots didn't work, graphics were low resolution and you could clearly see the camera in reflections in objects in the game etc.) and ultimately it just wasn't fun to play.

Loved this game, it blends the 'crystal maze' style short games with a traditional escape room wonderfully with equal emphasis on both styles of game. The aim is to win glowing orbs which will transform into hints for the mine.

The short games are inventive and make great use of the space. John, our host, was great at getting the whole team excited and interacting, and we had great banter with him throughout the game. Some of the mini games are rather deceiving, they look simple but aren't always (especially with the time pressure!) and you'll definitely get an adrenaline kick for each game you play. The mini games make a wonderfully fun warm up for your team so they're ready to enter the Diamond Mine. 

We loved the transition from the mini games into the escape room, its a definite wow moment and gives the whole team a real sense of movement from one area to the next. 

The escape room portion is a 30 minute game and theres lots to do as you find the diamonds, so no worries if you're a team of 2 or 6, you'll all be kept busy. Theres a good variation of puzzles to solve, from dexterity to visual, and all are very well themed.

As with all Lakes Escapes games the build quality is there, from the smallest of details to the build of the mine it all looks and feels right. 

We've also got to point out that great efforts have been made to make the games accessible, lighting is great, and the escape room floor is even with no steps. 

Most of the mini games can be played by everyone (one game has a small step, and one is quite 'active'). Theres also a couple of others may be slightly more difficult for wheelchair users) but they will be doable with additional time. But with so many mini games theres plenty to play.

We loved it, one of the team said its the best game he's played in forever! 
Its a full hour of fun and a must play, so put this on your wish list.  

We particularly loved the method of which game you play, theres none of that awkward silence as someone has to be picked, and this keeps the engagement level high. The games are all doable by (almost) everyone, so its perfect for families / multi generational teams. 

Good game

A clear mission and fun steps to get there. We really liked Dr. Frankencraft's Monster - the digital version. The room was digitized on the platform telescape which make sure we can use an inventory (a crate at our feet) and combine items by using keywords. This was well digitized though it was an early version, and we did not have technical problems during the game.

This was a very family friendly room with the only creepyness being bodyparts and lightning sounds - and of course bringing a monster to life. 

We really liked the puzzles here. Weighing, connecting wires, snakes, magnets and so on were great. We did think that there was a bit of information overload with all the locks visible (a very lock-based game), a diary and a book, but with a few of those puzzles out of the way, we were happy again. We did jump the gun on a few puzzles since we could solve them without the clue given later. Since the game was multi-linear (you could say non-linear), that was easy. 

We think the game could be improved by using proximity more as sign-posting. That the code found/extracted/calculated should be used near the items that gave the code. We did have to use some time trying out the different locks. 

The theme was well executed and we loved the ending. Well done. 

We needed to take a pause in this one - not usual for us. Missing one single searched item and that could not be found through the hinting system. Made it a bit of a frustrating room to play. 

It was very lock-heavy but the story was good enough. We liked the puzzles, but there were too many possible answers and that made this a bit painful for us. 

It was fun but took us way too long - probably better if you are more people in the room. 

Extremely clunky interface.  Unclickable areas, confusing hint system. One of the poorer Telescape adaptations my team had played.

Not a bad room - bit of strange logic behind some of the puzzles. The mix of collecting evidence / opening locks was a bit clunky at times compared to other online only rooms, but we still had a decent enough time and will try their other rooms.

Best of the Lakes Escape telescape games and perfect for team play. Nearly as good as the real life game and actually being there.

This room is well worth the drive to Workington, if you're a team of two then hype up on caffiene and/or sugar as youre going to need the energy, plus its got one of the best game openers I've experienced, its an absolute cracker.  Then to top it all its been specially built to be accessible. Its the must play room in the venue, but don't leave without playing the others!