Tulleys Escape Rooms & Games: Nethercott Manor

We went into Nethercott with some trepidation about the difficulty, even though we had booked a 90 minute slot and were a large-ish team of mostly experienced players.

The theming and set design were great, on par with Tulleys' usual quality - with some small jump scares. Atmospheric music and sound effects help keep the spooky feeling. There are some sections with lots of flashing lights, so be aware if you're sensitive to that (I don't think they mention it before booking!).

We felt that the main reason for longer game times seems to be the sheer volume of things going on. A larger team is definitely better if you want to complete it first time. Aside from the amount of puzzles, only a couple of puzzles were particularly difficult to work out. 

The GM was great, offering us the option of hints at the perfect time, when needed.

A solid room, though not my personal favourite at Tulleys.

Challenging, as there is a lot to do! 

Really hard to know how to review this game: as a couple I would say we had quite different experiences of the game. Pretty similar theme  and look to playing a Mystery Case Files computer game. I got to do more of the smaller puzzles individually while the other half of the duo concentrated on some more physical skill puzzles. The game - if it had worked and had been well hosted - would have been absolutely great, I am sure. 

The good: it is HUGE and there is plenty to do. We apparently had one room to go at the end and hadn't quite finished the room we were in. There are some fun puzzles. The set looks fantastic - one of the best I have seen. There were some great a-ha moments and some mild jump scares. 

The bad: ultimately a frustrating experience - more so for Mr B who got stuck with a broken puzzle having been trying to do it for at least 10 minutes. We had 3 separate occurrences in the rooms where drawers or doors should have opened having put in the correct solution where nothing happened. I am not sure if this was down to mechanical issues with the puzzles or a failure to pay attention to manual release moments on the part of the GM  - but compounded by failing to get a response from the GM when asking for help or to confirm that the solution entered was correct on multiple occasions, it felt like we wasted a lot of time standing around not understanding why nothing had happened and why we couldn't progress. Given these faults, being ceremoniously shepherded out of the room exactly on the 60:00 mark - when we had starting playing around 10 minutes in advance of our listed game time - meant that we felt like we had not really got the full experience, and I can't say that the GM was particularly bothered about it. A real shame, given the potential the room clearly has to be one of the best in the UK. 

Update: we did return in Nov 21, and completed it this time. No issues with broken tech this time around, and the hosting was significantly better. Finished in 75 minutes, recalling very little of what we saw the first time. It is a beautifully designed set, but something about this game just doesn't spark joy in me - definitely prefer some of the other Tulley's games over this one. It is still a very good game though, just competing against some other very high quality games. Agree it works better as a 90 minute game as a 2 player so it's nice they have made that change.