Escape Hunt Oxford: Escape The Wild West

Disappointing room, a couple of puzzles hadn't been reset properly, some had to be over ridden by the game master and some just didn't make any sense or flow at all. 

One of the worst we have done as a team. Some puzzles were physically broken and thr majority of the puzzles were not intuitive or mechanical They were activated by the gamesmaster from a separate room. This means you don't get thr satisfying clunk of locks opening or magnets uncoupling. It made the whole experience feel like we were performing rather than solving puzzles. 

The whole experience felt like it was made to cash in on the escape room buzz rather than embracing what is so fun about them.

I think this is the only Escape Hunt room I can truly say that I enjoyed.

There was some great ideas and clever moments throughout this room but most lacked signposting. Disappointing to see some props that used to be used still in the room. 

I Need to go Looting for Gold…

…because this escape room left me with no money! If you bring a team smaller than 4 during peak time, you pay the price. Concessions aren’t valid during this time, either.

Story

Grab the town’s newly-discovered gold, fix up an old train and escape on it before bandits arrive to steal the gold and kill you.

Puzzles

Related to the theme, but clumsy mechanics were littered throughout. We failed to do one particular task properly the first time and was told to essentially cheat it in order to continue.

Mise-en-scene

It looked run-down even for a town in the Wild West. The wooden interior did give saloon vibes, and a train segment added a little change of scenery.

Final Comments

My friend and I only got out with 10 seconds left, so at least we got as much value for money as practically possible! This one is a soft pass.

This was one of my favourite rooms 100 rooms or so ago as it was the first room we'd ever done where the objective wasn't just to escape. Although it looks from current reviews that it might be run down. I remember we were super impressed with Escape Hunt Manchester as they decorated everywhere for our big birthday escape weekend. Tbf it's still the nicest thing any venue has ever done for our group.

 This room was reasonably fun and there were some clever moments. The set design too was cool and creative, with there being a lot fit into the space. There were a few issues though with red herrings and padlock sign posting, which is never a good look. There were a couple of puzzles that we ignored at first because it looked like we would have to unlock padlocks to access them, but it turned out the puzzles could all be completed quite simply and without unlocking the padlocks as they were  padlocks used to reset the room - there was nothing on the padlocks signposting this, and it was not addressed in the brief.  Additionally, there were a few things that looked like puzzles but weren't. A particularly egregious example was framed like a word puzzle, complete with a bullet pointed list, but was actually not a puzzle at all.  Additionally, some of the puzzles were a little illogical and again lacking signposting, and there were a couple of moments where the tech didn't work and our overstretched host didn't notice. 

 Additionally our host, whilst cheerful, was clearly overstretched and having to run multiple games at once - which is a little insulting at the price we payed. She was uninterested in talking to us before or after the game, not even seeing us to the door, and got us mixed up with the other group that she had! She also made the error indicative of an inattentive host - giving us no clues at the beginning, and then rushing us around in the last ten minutes once she noticed we perhaps weren't going to finish on time! The accent, however, was pretty top notch. 

Aside from those few hiccups, however, this was a pretty fun time with some interesting puzzles, and a good option if, like us, you happen to be in the area for the day and are booking last minute. 

Had some awful experiences in EH, but was pleasantly surprised here. This is like a early take on the collection genre. We managed to escape with everything! Choo choo!

The host was lovely but the game was very bad. We paid £99 for the experience and it only took half an hour, we were not trying to be quick. A few ‘misdirects’ (puzzles with no solution to throw you off). Too many padlocks requiring 4 digit codes, not enough variety. The host had to activate some releases, including one where we just had to tell the host the answer to a riddle, which didn’t really work narratively. When boxes released there was no springing open/other indication of the door being released- you  had to pull on the door (which we didn’t try too hard as we didn’t want to use undue force). The puzzles weren’t satisfying to complete. The final puzzle required coal collected from previous puzzles throughout the room but there was seemingly no mechanical purpose for it so it wasn’t a satisfying conclusion. We didn’t even need to use all the coal collected. Overall we were really disappointed and feel very ripped off. We bought it for a birthday event and it provided 30 mins entertainment. We’ve done quite a few escape rooms before but we’re not very good at them, we usually take the full hour. 

A completely cynical cash grab with clearly no desire to design a fun or challenging escape room. Would not recommend. 

One of the puzzles relies on you getting the equipment to work and is very tricky to operate, otherwise escaped with all coal and one less gold than max

Poor hosting not reflective on host himself, customer service and friendliness was good. Seemed to lack training/knowledge and was running 2 games at once which meant clues/activation of puzzles upon correct answers was delayed. Left feeling disappointed and a little overlooked.

This room was severely let down by one puzzle (without spoilers)

- We completed it logically and were told that we had to complete it a different way to count (fair enough we did kind of skip the puzzle)

- We then completed it the intended method only to be told we weren't "enthusiastic" enough in completing the puzzle so had to do it again

This was one of the last puzzles so severely soured our experience. The rest of the puzzles were fine, especially for the 3 first timers with us

At least 3 mis resets. 

Everything was broken, everything had to be overridden and we always had to wait for it to happen

Then we completed everything and threw all the final pieces in, then we got told that we hadn't solved a puzzle and we're missing pieces. 

So we went back to the puzzle they told us to go back to and we told them that we'd already done it. 

Then they overrode it, so obviously weren't watching. 

The GM was very keen to offer us 50% off next time

Oh and everything was tatty as hell, there was meant to be some writing on a cloth that you needed to read, but it was completely unreadable too. 

For £100 for 4 people, pretty terrible value really. 

Where to begin…. I was so disappointed with this room/experience. To be fair the host was trying to manage a number of rooms all at once due to staff shortages and this did show. 

The game started late. 

The noise from outside the room from the reception/bar area was a bit off putting. 

A number of the puzzles were not in keeping with the theme and required psychic ability to work out how to make a couple of ‘now completed’ puzzles work. 

Some puzzles are still in the room even though they are no longer part of the game and don’t work. 

The door into the second room did not open with the key unless you turned the key to a particular point of the lock. 

Two padlocks had been accidentally swapped when the game had been reset and consequently as the padlock code clue was heavily reliant on the item it was attached to plenty of time was wasted trying to open them. 

The room is very tired with a number of broken parts. 

I wouldn’t recommend. Even though we successfully escaped, we came out feeling unfulfilled and deflated. 

The magnet to the main door to the game wasn’t working so was left open throughout with the noise of the bar underneath being quite off putting. Some of the tech and props were broken with us spending a lot of time on one large looking puzzle struggling to work it out only to find out when asking the GM afterwards it was broken some time ago. We would have preferred to have been told. Another prop required wasn’t working and when asking the GM during the game we had no response. The final puzzle had three broken parts to it. Very disappointing 

Non-linear escape room that was quite easily solved as a 2, so I can imagine it can be breezed through as an 4. Very pretty and immersive set

Very interesting looking room but some puzzles were not put back together properly so we had access to a box when it should have been locked. Some parts didn't make sense either. Host was very in character but kept giving hints when they weren't needed or asked for and we felt rushed to finish even though we had plenty of time and didn't even access some puzzles. Not sure if the host knows how some of the puzzles work to be honest.

This was so fun! We took the Mother/Mother-in-law to do this one and she had such a good time! Great hosting too 🙂 Would recommend! 

Friendly host, in character hints/voice over.

Some props were a bit broken but overall a good experience. 

Multiple paths and options of how to finish rather than the standard linear so less standing around with larger groups.

Some broken tech, tired puzzles and it was soooo HOT!

As always with Escape Hunt, no effort has been spared making sure the theme is on point; some great challenges and quirky problems to solve.

We had a few mishaps with the room with a puzzle not reset and elements that once complete weren't activating. The theme and set are good but didn't transition that well between rooms. Not a room I would recommend

Everything was broken, poor hosting. Really disappointing.

Escape Hunt Liverpool is such a great addition to Liverpool ER scene. While I have the tendency to avoid chains when booking escape rooms, I will highly recommend Escape Hunt Liverpool to anyone looking for an escape. There is real attention to detail and immersion that other Escape Hunt in the country didn't deliver. Escape the Wild West is no stranger to this, the atmosphere, the décors, the puzzles, the flow and logic were spot on. You do feel like you're in in to find the gold and escape in board of the District 1 train. Our game master, Sarah, was a true ER enthusiast (so enthusiastic that she forgot the hot drinks we ordered :)), she stayed in character throughout the whole game with a perfect American accent, we did feel like we were after Bill French's gold. I would highly recommend the room but would not suggest it for less than 3 people as we escaped with 6 seconds left on the clock after receiving 2 clues. The whole flow made sense but a couple of puzzles felt as if we didn't have all the instructions necessary to solve, as if they made sense to the designer when it was first created but the logic would not easily come to mind to most players. Another one was solved by us by skipping a step which didn't give the same feeling of completion as it was designed to. And finally one puzzle had a typo that made me wonder if it was a clue...   We did feel the pressure on the last puzzle, so much so that we did sit down to recover from it! Another brilliant room. Thank you for bringing Escape Hunt to Liverpool.

Played with a group of 6, including two newbies. This room works well with a larger group as there’s plenty to do in parallel, and a wide variety of puzzle types so there’s something for everyone. The themeing is nice - although I’ve seen games with better theme/puzzle integration, the set here was attractive,

One gripe: while our GM was good (and in-character) throughout, he disappeared at the last moment, leaving us stranded for an anticlimactic couple of minutes until a completely different GM showed up to take us back to reception.

Decent ideas but a few flaws made it a bit frustrating