Lucardo Manchester: The Prison

Lucardo's Prison is one heck of a game. It's obvious that the team have gone further than the extra mile to create an immersive, unforgettable game. 

The immersion starts straight away. Having to put on an orange shirt, you feel very much like a prisoner, over more of an 'observer', just trying to complete puzzles. Next, the cell you start in is bare, again, to make the whole situation realistic. 

And finally, ending in the guard's locker room, it's yet again obvious that they make sure this is immersive, primarily through the use of guard lockers, and a gang-sign 'cheat sheet'.

Overall, a very satisfying game, and really wish I could play it again!

Fugitives!

I was excited to try Lucardo's newest room. In our brief, we were advised that there would only be one code to solve, and all the other puzzles would be hands-on...interesting!

Story

As convicted criminals, your fellow inmates are staging a riot, giving you one precious hour to escape. A common storyline, but executed brilliantly. Wait to see how it unfolds during your endeavours!

Puzzles

They were all practical, encouraging us to think like prisoners, utilising whatever tools were at our disposal. We struggled with a couple of them: without locks to work out codes for, sometimes it was tricky to ascertain what to do next. This kept us guessing and thinking creatively, though!

Mise-en-scène

The journey was impressively portrayed as a real prison-break through the equipment, clothing, props and decor. It was delivered like a piece of immersive theatre. Very, very good!

Final Comments

This was a funny, inventive and engaging room. Highly recommended!

A great experience which immerses you in to a slightly different and more realistic prison break based more on practical tasks rather than solving puzzles for a code to padlocks. The GMs add to this experience and stay in character when checking in on their convicts and cell. A cleverly executed game with a fun end. 

I liked this game a lot. It's puzzle-lite but that's because it's much more physical/story driven than a lot of games.

Has so much funn in this room. Not your traditional room, but would recommend if you like a twist. 

This room was super fun, intense and exhilarating! Prison/jail break is quite a common room theme but the immersive nature of this game with the guard coming to do cell checks places it higher than other games of the same theme and had us running around like headless chickens trying our very best not to be caught. Lucardo recommends a 3-person minimum as players can be removed from the game if they are caught trying to escape (not a spoiler as this was told to us over the phone when booking), however you can play as a team of two if you call up and ask. This really heightened the intensity of the game as we desperately didn't want to get caught and leave the other player alone in there. We were extremely sweaty by the end of it! Shoutout to Rick who was an awesome GM and really did an amazing job in character as the prison guard.

The puzzles themselves are nothing particularly impressive and there are not that many of them due to the room being more story-driven but the immersion and atmosphere really made the game very exciting regardless. Super cool ending as well!

One thing I will say is that the room on here has an accessibility symbol but this room is definitely not suitable for wheelchair users or anyone with mobility issues.

We booked this game with the recommendation that it's a different experience but it's fantastic  - unfortunately, this isn't what we got.  For those who have played this game, you understand how the staff member plays an important part in this game. ... our staff member clearly didn't want to be there.... we had grunts and no interaction.  Shame.

Lucardo never fail to impress. The amount of effort that goes into their rooms is un-rivalled with any other escape rooms I have been to so far. The Prison is our 5th room with Lucardo and again, did not disappoint. This is a great game for people who like to play a role / get really immersed into a game. It involves using/investigating your surroundings more than trying to solve puzzles. We really loved it and came out with our best time yet!!