The Great Escape Game Leeds: Underworld

The Graveyard Shift

This is the first game I’ve played where you get less than an hour to escape. You only get 50 minutes instead, and there was no screen to track progress of time which always frustrates me. I got 15% off with my Escape Game Card.

Story

Enter The Underworld and retrieve its secrets as well as an object to prevent some secret society from taking over the world…? Too ambiguous and confusing a storyline, if you ask me. It also involved choosing characters to gain abilities e.g. 5 minutes extra time, an additional torch, etc. This was overkill for me.

Puzzles

They were mostly tricky and varied, with symbols to translate and riddles to solve. Teamwork played a big part as you progressed.

Mise-en-scène

When hearing ‘underworld’, I picture a vast dystopian landscape swarmed by beasts, whereas this was an unoccupied, compact graveyard. A convincing one, though! It was a little too dark, making one or two props trip hazards. I liked the action that had to be taken to lead you to the next section of this room.

Final Comments

We needed those extra five minutes to escape. Even though the puzzles leaned towards the more difficult end of the spectrum, Underworld wasn’t really big enough for a team of six.