Houdini’s Escape Room Experience Nottingham: Extinct

We visited at the end of July and played Extinct as it was listed as the most difficult room available. As a group we had all played a fair few escape room, so we were eager for the challenge. The host who greeted us was enthusiastic and friendly, and I will give them credit where due for the great dedication they showed remaining in character for the entirety of our room! 

Initially entering our room the set was great with immersive sounds and props- quite dark but this was due to the atmosphere and nature of the room theming. It was a little difficult navigating the space as a group of 4 with only 1 or 2 poor light sources, but I imagine this was to encourage us to work together. I do think the lighting affected the hosts ability to run the room for us though, as on completing a puzzle she had to wait for us to tell her we’d completed it over a radio. We weren’t aware that we had to do this so lost a little time standing around and didn’t get that instant sense of achievement after having solved something.

Without revealing any spoilers, travelling through our escape room we were starting to enjoy completing challenges and puzzles. Whilst the host was clearly very enthusiastic and passionate, it did feel like they were talking a LOT through the radio to us when we just wanted to be left to work through the room ourselves. We had plenty of time left so felt a bit puzzled as to why the games master was giving us so many nudges and talking to us so much. This felt a little frustrating after about 15 mins, especially when we’d be working through a puzzle and would sometimes feel as though we’d been cheated the satisfaction of coming to the correct answer ourselves. By about 20 minutes we’d stopped replying as much on the radio as it felt a bit too overbearing and was completely ruining the immersion of the game.

Whilst the room itself was themed well, it didn’t actually feel like there was that much to do. It felt like a lot of the game was padded out with films or audio and without this aspect- and interruptions from our games master- I feel that our team would have completed it in probably just under half an hour. Not a time that reflects the difficulty the room is rated at.