Make Your Escape: Dystopia

This is technically a review for both Dystopia and Utopia as we feel they are best played together as the storyline follows on. We are glad we did it this way. Both rooms had a great story and were engaging. There was a good variety of puzzles and not just finding keys and padlocks. 

Good theming and production value.

Good flow with Utopia. 

Some big leaps of logic. 

#44

After completing The Signal and Spellbound in the morning, we headed back after lunch to tackle Dystopia and Utopia.  Having two rooms blend together like these two do with their stories is something I’ve never seen before and felt very original.

- The decor of Dystopia may seem a little lacking at first, but there is a story-based reason for it. This was a very fun room, but with a slightly frustrating final puzzle that even our host had admitted a lot of people (himself included)  had found difficult to see/comprehend. However it didn’t spoil our experience of the room.

- After completing Dystopia we headed straight into Utopia. The way you start the game was surprising and unique, although could have been tightened up a bit so that no GM interaction was required (players of the game with understand what I mean by this). This would also have added to the immersiveness of the game. 

After getting through to the main hub of the game, I can say the decoration of the room was fantastic, with a couple of things I’ve never seen before. The puzzles in this room are all very electronic-based, compared to Dystopia where it is mainly padlocks.

Unfortunately,  due to this reliance on technology, one of our puzzles didn’t operate at all, causing the GM to have to come in  and pause our time while he fixed it quickly.

The final part of the room was again very tech-dependant, with a couple of frustrating and lacklustre puzzles, with a poor way to interact with them. When we finally had the means to exit the game, our host came in to tell us while we had escaped, we couldn’t fully complete the experience because another team was in the area we escape to! (previous players will understand what I mean)

This was very frustrating as it would have been down to the GM’s poor time/team management, and it meant we couldn’t fully complete the experience. After a brilliant morning, this obviously left a very sour taste in our mouths, given that we had spent so much time and money at a venue and couldn’t complete the experience.

All in all, I would still recommend both rooms, and that you should definitely do them back to back, starting with Dystopia. 

Personal ranking of the rooms at Make Your Escape would be:

1. Spellbound

2. The Signal

3. Dystopia

4. Utopia

If you are visiting this venue playing Utopia and Dystopia back to back is a must.

Play this back to back with Utopia for the full experience.