Locked in Edinburgh: The Cutting Room

Really great game that stays in my memory.

Really enjoyed the original setting here - we really appreciate when the game is created around the fixtures and fittings of the original building. The theme lends itself to the odd scare but this room is definitely creepy, rather than scary and nothing detracts from the puzzle-solving.

It wasn't as intuitive a game as Secret Lab, which we played first, but there were some quirky puzzles that fitted in well with the theme and a lovely surprise that we weren't expecting (no spoilers)! We like a game that sees us running from place to place and this provided a lot of to-ing and fro-ing. We also saw a couple of not-seen-befores, which is such a delight when you've done quite a few rooms.

Our host, Alex, was a real delight and pleasure to talk to. 

A good room with lots to do but some parts felt illogical and the solutions obscure.

Another fantastic room at Locked In. We played this as a team of 2 which is really difficult as the room has a lot of puzzles to solve. Great story and immersion too. 

Another great room at Locked In. 

This was fun, fast faced and hands on. We got stuck a couple of times but managed to work past these. 

Played as a two, but this room would easily house a large team as it's set in a very large space. 

An all-round excellent room. Nice puzzle design, logical progression and theming was great.

Hosting was a little vanilla if I'm being hypercritical, but the aesthetics of the room certainly made up for it. 

Again, if I'm being extremely harsh, there were sometimes not enough puzzles to go around for a group of our size (all experienced players), but we all came out feeling like we contributed to the win.

One contraption was broken, which was a slight shame, but our host helped up to navigate around it smoothly, which served to maintain the overall immersion.

We loved the game and got a sneak peek at their upcoming one too which looked incredible. We'll definitely be back for that.

My team and I did enjoy this room, but found it to be sometimes a little illogical, with one part in particular (although an exciting discovery!) making no sense in terms of the theme. Some solutions were rather obscure and others incredibly simplistic. We found quite a few moments of confusion and frustration in this room. That being said, the situation in an old dissection room was really cool, and there was some fun drama and set pieces, with various great props and some lovely set dressing and one or two neat little mechanics that we hadn’t seen before. Unfortunately (contrary to our experience in The Secret Lab on the same day, which we went though with a different host) we felt our hosting wasn’t that great in this room - although our game master was chatty and pleasant, we felt he was a little hands off and rushed on our visit. We still had a great time though, and I would recommend this room - especially to more experienced teams. We all just liked The Secret Lab a whole lot more. 

We came back to Locked In Edinburgh after escaping from their other room The Secret Lab, which didn't convince us at all. Similar to The Secret Lab, the theming was using the old vet surgery room and the clue system was so well themed that some of us didn't even realise it wasn't a decoration. There were a high number of puzzles that we haven't seen before and which gave us high satisfaction when solved. I did miss a bit of background audio or SFX to feel completely immersed. This room was really enjoyable and we understood what our aim was, and we let ourselves being carried with the story that the room was delivering without losing us at any point. Similar to The Secret Lab, I wouldn't recommend this room for more than 4/5 as some of us in our group felt as if they didn't participate enough as some times only one or two puzzles were available but 6 of us would gather around it. I understand that Locked In wants to open it to a large number of people to attract Hens and Stags Do but I wouldn't recommend it. There was a fair amount of surprises in the game and 'ah-ha!' moments. But similar to The Secret Lab, the ending was anticlimactic, while we were waiting to deliver the last organ in its receptacle, the door opened with the game master congratulating us before we completed it, resulting in the immersion to break as we didn't feel like we fully completed the room yet and instead of revealing a big finale, we just had the game master informing us that we won. Another low point we raised was one of the puzzles that can be solved by skipping a step, which isn't a solve as rewarding as it should be. Overall, a nice room with some nice clues and puzzles, not sure I would rate it as the 31st best in the world in 2018 (as ProjectEscape did) but still very enjoyable and would recommend to do it.