After winning a social media competition you are invited for a luxury weekend away, courtesy of The Crimson Lake Motel. Tired after your journey in, you arrive and see everything isn't quite what it seems...
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Crimson Lake
Motel is billed as a sequel to Vacancy. I really enjoyed that one (back in
2017!) and so looked forward to attempting the next chapter.
Story
The luxury hotel
you’ve won a weekend getaway at isn’t all that it seems.
Puzzles
This is one of
Breakout’s most difficult rooms, and the puzzles reflected that. While we
cracked a lot of them, there were occasions where we tried to figure something
out without yet having all the necessary items. This lost us a lot of time at
the start. I think a simple “You have to solve something else first” hint would
not have gone amiss.
Mise en scene
Run-down hotel
with the odd surprise- check. I much preferred Vacancy’s theming, though.
Towards the end, a space with some sort of air freshener was taking us out of
it- and catching our breaths!
Final Comments
Our team of 5
didn’t manage to get out in time! We were only a couple of puzzles away and so got
to complete the room, at least. Make sure there are experienced players and
lateral thinkers in your group!
It's been around 8 months since we last played a game from the Breakout franchise, and we were eager to try out Manchester's Crimson Lake Motel. The setting was immediately atmospheric, with a dark and dingy motel room that felt like something out of a Stephen King novel. The usual padlocks and coded solutions were plentiful, as expected from Breakout. Puzzles were also well-designed, thematic, and interconnected with a satisfying flow. Two puzzles deceived us in an entertaining way. I would recommend the Crimson Lake Motel if you're looking for a solid, quintessential escape room in the city centre.
The problem with doing 24 escape rooms in the space of a long weekend is that it tends to blur many of the details of the games in memory, such as individual puzzles. But if my recollection of Crimson Lake Motel is hazier than normal, that’s not because the game was forgettable; in fact it was probably the best of the half dozen games I’ve played at Breakout, across their various branches.
The story is straightforward; you’ve checked into what should be a luxury getaway but is actually a dubiou...
