Exit The Room Manchester: Bomb

We arrived at Exit the Room in Manchester and the staff seemed pleasant enough. The lobby decor seemed very DIY which is generally fine but it was very basic and uncreative which made us a little nervous.

We played bomb at the same time that another team played a different game (i believe they played madness). Throughout the game we could clearly hear the other team in the next room as well as the game hosts laughing loudly. At one point we needed a clue and our host took a while to reply before giving us a clue to a puzzle we had completed some time before. We explained where we were actually up to. This happened two or three times with our host having no idea where we were up to. Puzzles having been reset incorrectly and even one set of puzzles being a lot of stickers which needed to be in a set order but were unfortunately not sticky so we opened a  ox and found a load of paper with absolutely no logic. All the props have "do not touch" stickers on which makes hunting for clues and puzzles impossible. There were a fair few more things we did not like but I can't write about those in case of giving away any spoilers. As a final note, when you enter the room, the piles of dust are NOT clever theming, it really just has never ever been cleaned. 

Just a room with props chucked in, barely any story, puzzles pretty illogical to the theme. Needs a good clean. Nearly everything is plastered with do not touch stickers that kill any immersion. Also the tech was broken and they replaced it with a paper version, but it was wrong, so we lost a load of time on the wrong answer to something. Also they tell you to take your phone in for a torch and a calcular.....buy some torches and calculators. I'll lend you a tenner for them.

Exiting the Room for the Final Time

My third and last trip here: time to score one more dirt-cheap escape.

Story

Neutralise a nuclear bomb before it explodes by searching through a rogue agent's secret bunker. Our Game Operator gave us a completely different tale: invited to a card game by Russians, they've actually hidden a bomb in the building that must be diffused. I'm not a fan of inconsistency, just one story per room, please!

Puzzles

A good selection using co-ordinates and the like you'd expect to see in a cold war 'stop the bomb' type of game.

Mise-en-scène

ETR's strongest room in terms of props and decor: based on my last two visits, I was pleasantly surprised. There's still a bit of work to be done, though.

Final Comments

A team of 2-4 should suffice. Always check out Groupon and similar sites for Exit The Room's vouchers/deals.