Clued Up! Escape Rooms Norwich

A really good fun room, especially with kids. Dougie was a great host.

Really fun collector game, something there for everyone. Highly recommended. 

A fun and eerie room with a range of exciting multi-step puzzles that got everyone in the room involved.

An absolute joy of an escape room. The theme was incredibly fun and there was a huge range of clever puzzles. Very very enjoyable.

We've played all the Clued Up! games and, while they won't blow you away or win any prizes for originality of set design, we've always had a good time playing them, and I'm pleased to say this was true of Carnival Collection too.

As a "collection"-based game, this room basically consists of a massively-parallel set of mini-games. This makes it ideal for a mixed ability group, or to play (as we did) as a family with kids, because it's pretty guaranteed that every member of the team will be able to contribute something to the overall team's success. In this case, that means finding 50 ducks and returning them to the duck pond (if I'm totally honest, I can't quite remember how that linked to the carnival narrative, but it didn't realy matter)

It's an independent business, and the elements are all completely original. The decoration was  basic, but everything worked as it should, and the hosting was excellent - delivering a funny in-character briefing (with some terrible groaning dad-jokes) to start us off, and tiny nudges when required as we played.

Probably our favourite clued up game, lots of fun!

Apsolutely brilliant definitely kept us guessing until the end. Good fun an value for money an our host Jaz was amazing with us so thank you for a fun experience 

We really liked the theming in this room. Everything you'd want from a Casino theme. A couple of trickier puzzles that made us think for a while but nothing unsolveable. Some normal locks and codes puzzles as well as some techy bits which were fun and some puzzles that required good communication which we love. 

Host was fantastic, super lovely and only hinted if he could see we were totally on the wrong path and we really enjoyed the game 

Definately recommend. 

As a team we aren't huge fans on Heist style games however this one was different. We had a ball with this game and I was so excited when we were playing. We each quickly found our skills and worked well as a team to grab as much as we could. We laughed, we felt the pressure, we loved the way the game worked and we'd highly recommend this Heist to anyone. 

We escaped with £2,300,000 not bad!

Small room, decorations were quite sparse so not very immersive, but some tricky puzzles which kept us on our toes.

We have done quite a few rooms now, and my wife and I took on this room knowing that it was a bit of a challenge and we soon found ourselves in an immersive prison Break situation! The hosting for this one is brilliant we are of the opinion that games start in the briefing room and this is no different. Well done clued up another great room can’t wait to come back and do your others!!

Brilliant room and we escaped as a team of two. A really immersive story and quite a few original puzzles, great host (Andy), great venue

A casino-themed room containing everything you'd expect from the Las Vegas strip - poker chips, roulette, cards, criminals, and fruit machines. Good mix of "classic" ER puzzles and some more modern tech. The gameplay is fairly linear and the space is not huge, so I'd say that this room is best enjoyed with a team of 4 players or fewer so you don't get bottlenecked (we played as a family with 2 adults and 3 kids, which was perfect) - at least one player will need to demonstrate some agility too....

If I was being critical, I would argue that a few of the puzzles were a little anatopic or generic, but they were all logical, the tech all worked flawlessly, and there are some nice twists before everything comes together at the end. Also must mention fantastic hosting from Andy, who gave us just the nudge we needed at the right time to unstick us (and I immediately kicked myself for not seeing the solution to the puzzle), and happily talked us through the components of the room and answered any questions afterwards. Overall, a very satisfying room.

Very fun room that will keep you busy for the entire hour!

Nuclear Countdown is the oldest of the escape rooms at CluedUp's Norwich location, and we played it having already enjoyed the others. It's fair to say that it's perhaps not as impressive as their other rooms; it takes place in a single, medium-sized room, and the decor is functional, but fairly plain. There is a section of the game that must be navigated by flashlight, but fortunately this does not continue for the whole game. The locks are mostly numeric, alpha, or directional combo locks, and the puzzles are fairly code and cipher-heavy. There's no Hollywood-style flashy moments.

That said, even though it might not have been considered state-of-the-art or stand out "wow!", there is still plenty to commend about this game:

- although there was only limited tech involved, what tech there was all worked flawlessly.

- the puzzles themselves were solid, and in-keeping with the theme: chemical formulas, locations of missile sites, access codes, that sort of thing. There was not a single puzzle that we felt was unfair, misleading, or out-of-place.

- Our GM was attentive and gave just the right level of nudge when needed

- There was some suitable background ambience music track which helped set the mood

- The room, lobby area, and entire building were well-sanitised, there was fresh air and hand sanitiser available throughout, and staff wore masks (as did we in those areas, but we removed them in the room itself)

So, all in all, still a very solid room, but if you only play one room in this location I'd probably recommend trying their Bank Heist or Prison Breakout rooms first.

Another really enjoyable, solid game from CluedUp. No fancy tech, no surprises, and no absolute "Wow!" moments, but just a really solid set of well-structured, satisfying puzzles.

GM was very attentive, and there was a nice bit of in-character scene-setting as the prison guard before we began our stay in HMP Norfolk. From there, the gameflow to achieve our escape was pretty flawless - and everything just *worked the way it should*....  I know that seems like an obvious thing to say, but I'm sure we've all had experiences that have been slightly soured by things that shouldn't have happened, and there was none of that here at all: No broken tech, no sticky directional locks, no need to arbitrarily spin the final digit of a lock, no faded UV ink, no "Well how the heck were we meant to work that out?!" moments. Just a satisfying continuous flow, and the padlocks fell to the floor with reassuring regaularity - we never felt lost, or stuck, or "cheated" by the game.

There was a slight anticlimax at the end, as we hadn't realised we'd solved the final puzzle (there were two puzzles still remaining in the room, but it turns out these were optional), but overally definitely recommended.

I admit it's hard to write an objective review right now, because it's hard to know how much enjoyment is due to just being able to play a real-life escape room for the first time in over a year, but this was just an absolute joy to play.

Well-structured, lots to do, and with a nice scoring system that meant that you don't just "escape" or "not" - rather you decide how much risk you're going to take by stealing as many valuables as you can from the bank vault, right up to the last minute before making your escape (we *just* got out with seconds to spare, but with a perfect score 🙂 ). We played as a family with two adults and three kids (8yrs, 10yrs, and 13yrs), and there was something for everyone to do.

Attentive gamesmaster was on-hand to deliver hints if necessary, but doing so incurs him taking a cut of your earnings and therefore affecting your post-game score, which is a nice risk-reward mechanic. The theming for a "bank" scenario is not particularly tricky, but it was done nicely and utilised a range of suitable props and knowledge that you might expect to find.

The whole experience felt well-managed, very Covid-safe (hand sanitiser inside and outside the room, masks worn (although that actually helped with the "bank robber" theme...), some props placed in additional plastic wrapping), and was just an hour of thrilling puzzle-solving fun.

If I had to be critical, I'd say that the gameflow was fairly linear, so if you *did* get stuck on a puzzle, you might find it hard to proceed - but then, that's what the hint system is for.

Recommended.