Escapologic: Contraption

By | March 20, 2019

by Escapologic (website)

21 Castle Gate, NG1 7AQ

Nottingham

2-5 players

Languages: EN

60 minutes

Strange machinery breathes in the stillness of the laboratory. Bubbles rise in a mysterious green liquid. Cogs click. Gears clank. And in the air, the unmistakable sound of fear...

As your breathing stills and your pulse slows to normal, you take a look around. What happened here? Somebody left the room in a hurry. But why? Your eyes grow accustomed to the dim, dusty light, and you begin to make out the discarded pieces of arcane mechanisms. There has to be a pattern, a code, something to show you the way out.

Contraption was the first of our Nottingham escape rooms, and its fiendish ingenuity has given it legendary status. Can you put the clues together before the clock hits zero?

Employ a combination of wits, nerve and inspiration to beat the machine and find your way out. With false steps at every corner, willing you to fail, the only way to outwit Contraption is to work together. Use your team's individual skills to solve physical and mental puzzles, crack cryptic codes, and unravel the secret escape route left by the mysterious inventor.

Solve the riddle, or the last sound you’ll hear will be the cogs of the lock, as they turn and seal you in forever. 


show full description
Thank you for helping keep Escape the Review up to date!
Let us know what needs changing:




If you own or manage this company, you can also claim the listing and update it yourself

Overall rating

Rated between 2.5 and 4 out of 5

based on ratings from 36 users
combined with 12 pro reviews

Your review

Player reviews

spbc expert rated this:Rated between 3.5 and 3.5 out of 5
Played: 27 Jul 2019 Team size: 3 Outcome: Successful escape!
beautifulgreat hosting
d.green26 expert rated this:Rated between 3 and 3 out of 5
Played: 19 May 2024 Team size: 2 Time taken: 32 Outcome: Successful escape!
immersivegreat hostingfamily friendlyquite easy
liam and rosie experienced rated this:Rated between 4 and 4 out of 5
Team size: 2 Time taken: 46
Team Jophie experienced rated this:Rated between 3.5 and 3.5 out of 5
Played: 7 Aug 2023 Team size: 2 Time taken: 39:50 Outcome: Successful escape!
beautifuloriginalquite easy
Wesley Mead expert rated this:Rated between 3.5 and 3.5 out of 5
Played: 12 Feb 2023 Team size: 2 Time taken: 51m Outcome: Successful escape!
Anonymous expert rated this:Rated between 3.5 and 3.5 out of 5
Team size: 4 Outcome: Successful escape!
originalimmersive
jakea256 expert rated this:Rated between 3 and 3 out of 5
Played: 17 Sep 2022 Team size: 3 Time taken: 25:49 Outcome: Successful escape!
cleverpoor hostingquite easy

This game was let down by a very uninterested GM for me - Otherwise, the puzzles were easy but interesting and the uses of some items were fun to interact with.

Schteeeve experienced rated this:Rated between 4 and 4 out of 5
Team size: 5 Outcome: Successful escape!
immersivegreat hosting
BenMill experienced rated this:Rated between 3 and 3 out of 5
Team size: 5 Outcome: Successful escape!
PurpleB expert rated this:Rated between 3 and 3 out of 5
Team size: 2 Outcome: Successful escape!

A bit dark and dingy for my taste but a solid room.

imrahil experienced rated this:Rated between 3 and 3 out of 5
Team size: 2 Outcome: Successful escape!
dark
TheSinger expert rated this:Rated between 2.5 and 2.5 out of 5
Team size: 2 Outcome: Successful escape!
dark

Fairly easy, straight forward game. Couple of issues for me…

We played the game completely in the dark as there was no indication or help given as to how to turn the lights on. The hindered us ALOT and made the game not as much fun as I feel it could be. 

There was also a puzzle toward the end of the game that was basically down to trial and error/guess work in order to be solved. Didn’t enjoy that bit…

The Monkey expert rated this:Rated between 3.5 and 3.5 out of 5
Outcome: Successful escape!
poor hosting

The room itself was good but poor hosting let it down, required 1 clue all game but that clue took almost 10 minutes to be delivered. 

Mrs G expert rated this:Rated between 3.5 and 3.5 out of 5
Team size: 3 Time taken: 34.32
immersivegreat hostingquite easy

We very much enjoyed this game. Theming was great with lots of great puzzles 

Jemileh experienced rated this:Rated between 3.5 and 3.5 out of 5
Team size: 2 Outcome: Failed 🙁
abunai expert rated this:Rated between 3.5 and 3.5 out of 5
Mark Greenhalgh expert rated this:Rated between 3.5 and 3.5 out of 5
Played: 22/08/16
escape_possum experienced rated this:Rated between 4 and 4 out of 5
Team size: 2 Outcome: Successful escape!
MissLoopyLou93 experienced rated this:Rated between 4.5 and 4.5 out of 5
Played: 15 Sep 2020 Team size: 2 Time taken: 43:20 Outcome: Successful escape!
beautifulclevergreat hosting
The most unique clue system I’ve ever seen and some great puzzles. Great theming too! 
Sharon Nowik experienced rated this:Rated between 3.5 and 3.5 out of 5
Played: October 2020 Team size: 2 Time taken: 44 Outcome: Successful escape!
Anonymous rated this:Rated between 4.5 and 4.5 out of 5
Arjay Henshall expert rated this:Rated between 4 and 4 out of 5
Played: 19/09/2020 Team size: 3 Time taken: 45 Outcome: Successful escape!

a really nice looking room (not literally), some ingenious puzzles, great concepts and a great clue system. Really on theme all the way through

🦡cipherdelic virtuoso rated this:Rated between 3.5 and 3.5 out of 5
Durkules rated this:Rated between 3 and 3 out of 5
Outcome: Successful escape!
Daniel Dano Waite rated this:Rated between 3 and 3 out of 5
Aine Morgan rated this:Rated between 4 and 4 out of 5
Escapetopus experienced rated this:Rated between 4 and 4 out of 5
Played: 08/06/2018 Team size: 2 Outcome: Successful escape!

A couple of equipment fails prevent this room from scoring more highly for me. 

A clever central concept and a fun steampunk-laboratory setting (complete with on-theme clues) tie all the puzzles together. The original room at Escapologic but it (mostly) belies its age.

Matthew Canner rated this:Rated between 4 and 4 out of 5
Tim Cooper expert rated this:Rated between 2 and 2 out of 5
Played: Team size: 2 Time taken: Outcome: Failed 🙁
gaia00 expert rated this:Rated between 3.5 and 3.5 out of 5
Played: 12 Jun 2021 Team size: 5 Outcome: Successful escape!
immersive

An atmospheric and immersive room with decent puzzles. The texts found in the game have voice-over which is a nice touch.

Darren Miller expert rated this:Rated between 3.5 and 3.5 out of 5
Played: 9 May 2021 Team size: 2 Outcome: Successful escape!
msilcox expert rated this:Rated between 4.5 and 4.5 out of 5
Played: March 27, 2021 Team size: 3 Time taken: 51 minutes Outcome: Successful escape!

I'm really sorry I didn't get a chance to play this one in person.  VERY cool set, extremely immersive.  One element that I have never seen  in an Escape Room before, which would have been particular fun in person, at least for whoever in the group wanted some exercise!  Extremely nice GM who kept things moving along without giving any overt hints.  I think we slightly preferred their Heistakes room, but both are definitely worth playing.  My teammates are musicians, and particularly liked the final puzzle (not to give too much away!).

Anonymous rated this:Rated between 4 and 4 out of 5
Charly expert rated this:Rated between 4 and 4 out of 5
Team size: 5 Time taken: 52 Outcome: Successful escape!

Clever room with lots to work out - our team took 10-15 mins longer than we normally do to get out of a room, so it was a good challenge

🔐James Bloodworth expert rated this:Rated between 4.5 and 4.5 out of 5
Played: 15/01/2021 Team size: 5 Time taken: 53:49
Escapologic’s oldest room has been converted for remote play, does it work?  Resoundingly Yes!  They use the increasingly popular combination of Telescape and Zoom but the Telescape inventory is managed so when things have been used they disappear.  Video was good and stable and the room is well lit.  Our Avatar was Ed and he was great fun to interact with.  I have a couple of minor niggles with the interface but they are massively minor.  There’s an awful lot to like here, puzzle flow is good and we were rarely stuck.  Recommended.
🦡cipherdelic virtuoso rated this:Rated between 4.5 and 4.5 out of 5

Reviews by escape room review sites

Contraption is Escapologic's original game, the first of what is now eight different escape rooms at their Nottingham location, and it's clear why the venue made a splash from the outset. The game is a steampunk-y fest of cogs and pipes and machines that dispenses with padlocks in favour of an array of imaginatively different mechanisms.

Your first task on entering the room is to turn on the lights. It's not pitch black, fortunately (there are enough metal doodads around that the room might be ...

A game that turns the usual escape room setup on its head by having a smaller number of larger puzzles. As with most Escapologic rooms, don't expect a plethora of padlocks but instead a mass of mechanisms - in fact, as the name suggests, expect even more than usual!
Like most of the rooms at Escapologic this was a linear room with very strong set design. Don't get distracted by all the funky items and you should be fine
We’d heard such good things about Escapologic, hence a Nottingham trip to play five of their games, starting with their very first: Contraption. Or Con-trap-tion as it’s styled in the logo. And it was good. It was fine. It was al-righ-t.
On the 6th of March, we headed back to Escapologic in Nottingham to take on another of their escape games, We had already tackled the likes of Butcher, Howitz, Robin, EPICentre, Cryptic and Curio which are all stellar games with mostly success but this time around we were there to face the first game this amazing company ever created, that being the dark and intricate Contraption.
My first escape room – a well themed room with lots of flowing puzzles.

Escapologic in Nottingham, UK is one of those must-play venues and has been nominated in the TERPECA’s every year, so when I heard that they were opening a remote avatar room, I was rather curious to see which one it would be. I guessed it would be one of two, and one of my guesses, “Contraption”, was correct.

While I did enjoy Contraption more when we played in person, the online-avatar adaptation was still great fun, and well worth considering for your next remote escape.
Read the full, detailed review at EscapeMattster.com ⬊

Lists

This game is part of the following user-created game lists:

See also

Other versions of this game:(Different copies of the same game sometimes have significant differences.)