One Way Out

Who doesn't love an escape room crossed with a murder mystery?! Slightly different from a normal escape room as you are trying to find a murderer and motive, the room was about half puzzles and half just finding things that were hidden in devious places. A lot of fun, original puzzles but the room lacked a little bit of the flow the other rooms we played here had. Certain things we were able to find but not use until an arbitrary point in the game, which led us a bit astray.

A nice effect starts the room and reinforces the story and a great mix of puzzles that utilised some real science rather than just being set somewhere science-themed. The game was non-linear, which we normally struggle with but used a nice mechanism to link puzzles to the thing they solved which offered some coherence to how elements of the room fit together which is sometimes lost in non-linear games. There was plenty to do for an experienced team of 4. We finished in just over 50 minutes

We had a lovely stay at Curious End Cottage! The first overnight escape room I have played and it was great. I was a bit worried how we would keep track of all the different things to do but it offered an overarching story with six independent sections, each with a clear path to follow. There were about five and a half hours of puzzles to do which kept us occupied for the evening.

Outside of the escape room element, the cottage was well equipped and beds were comfy. Only watch out was that searching for the cottage on Google maps shows the location of the overall escape room company and not the cottage itself. We had therefore made plans for food and other activities while we were there based on being in Oakham. The cottage was actually about 20 minutes away and food options, supermarkets etc required driving.

First of three rooms we played at this venue and we loved all of them. I thought this room looked cute, was really fun to play and used loads of puzzles we hadn't seen done elsewhere which is always a bonus. Definitely in the top ten of all the 70 odd rooms I have played.

Loved this. A well conceived room with humorous flourishes and a great host. 7 of us made it manageable, but could have been more of a challenge with 2 or 3. Will definitely be back for some of the other rooms.

We had such a fun time staying at Curious Cottage. As a family group, we decided to stay for a couple of nights and have a weekend away. 

The way the story is set up, with six different puzzle strands, means that you get a great mix of puzzles. You could work on multiple at once, but we wanted to take our time and do them all as a group. The teenagers wanted breaks after each completed puzzle strand, while I poked around the house finding things that I desperately wanted to solve. (“Mum, why are you like this?” from Teen One)

We didn’t need to use the hints system as it seemed to flow naturally. It’s not a hard room, but the joy often came from the clever use of the house which makes it a bit different. 

This is our first ‘escape house’ but we’ve done 50+ rooms. All four of us had a brilliant time and wanted to give it 4.5-5 stars. Teen Two decided it might be his favourite ever escape room within about half an hour! 

It’s also a comfortable (and quirky!) place to stay, in a very sweet and quiet village. I think it would have been a rush to get it done in one night as a family though - two nights meant we could relax. One night would be fine for groups of friends happy to stay up late though. 

We had such a good time in the cottage. 6 different paths of puzzles to follow and a small finale connecting everything together. Lots of fun puzzles and tricks throughout- we enjoyed how elements of this house felt particularly like a normal ish escape room too. Read everything carefully as it is possible to break a puzzle or two if you don’t! Only downside is that generative AI has been used for the posters throughout the experience - would look a lot better with something home-brewed instead!