Breakout Manchester: Madchester

14a Brazennose Street, M2 6LW

2-5 players

60 minutes

closed

Zack is a passionate collector of anything Manchester related. As a group of thieves, you wondered in his bedroom and find yourselves trapped. You have 60 minutes to steal Zack's valuable collectables and escape before he comes back.

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Overall rating

based on ratings from 7 users
combined with 2 pro reviews

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Player reviews

MerseyMarauders expert rated this:

Team size: 3 Outcome: Successful escape!

plainquite difficult

Adam S experienced rated this:

Played: 28 Nov 2014 Team size: 4 Outcome: Successful escape!

Anonymous experienced rated this:

Team size: 2 Outcome: Failed 🙁

great hosting

The staff member was lovely and gave us a lot of extra time to get us out. There was a lot to do in the hour though.

Simon (The Overthinkers) expert rated this:

Played: 22 Apr 2019 Team size: 2 Time taken: 51:30 Outcome: Successful escape!

Mark Greenhalgh expert rated this:

Played: 24/10/14

Scotus0 expert rated this:

Played: 10/10/2017 Team size: 2 Time taken: 53:54 Outcome: Successful escape!

Pilfering & Puzzling

I was nervous at doing a five-star room with just one other person, but you’ve got to face your demons!

Story

Steal valuable stuff from the room of an avid collector of Manchester memorabilia and break out before he gets back. I’m not quite sure what the hoarder (Zack) has actually done to deserve this.

Puzzles

It was all about negating possibilities relating to what the final code could be. There are a LOT of answers to be solved, calculated and found- absolutely no time for hesitation- hidden behind almost every type of lock. I did my first compass lock here, which was immensely satisfying.

Mise-en-scène

While it definitely presented itself as a Manchester-inspired bedroom, being a ‘90s child relatively new to the city, any ‘Madchester’ references went over my head. I appreciated the fun, brightly coloured décor, though.

Final Comments

If you prefer a solid hour of difficult puzzles over the story, this is the room for you. Prior knowledge of the city wasn’t needed (phew). With just two people, your work’s cut out. I’d have felt under less pressure with a bigger team…bear this in mind, unless you really like a challenge!

Barry Crossley rated this:

Played: 16/4/2016 Team size: 3 Time taken: Outcome: Failed 🙁

First game, hardest difficulty!! Looking back, too many red herrings

Reviews by escape room review sites

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So to the big one: my 50th game! No game is going to stand up to that level of pressure so rather than pick something recommended to me as great, I picked the one game in the entire country that had the most interesting theme to me: Madchester. It’s the one musical movement I feel any sort of identification with, even if I only really got into it later in the 90s, moving backwards out of Britpop rather than the other way around.