Houdini’s Escape Room Experience Acton: A Curious Case at the Haunted Manor

By | December 29, 2022

by Houdini's Escape Room Experience Acton (website)

Royale Leisure Park, Western Ave, London W3 0PA

West London

2-6 players

Languages: EN

60 minutes

A Curious Case at the Haunted Manor is a surreal escape experience in which you must solve puzzles, find clues and collect items to find Lady Farringdon's last will and testament in order to gain access to her sizable fortune. Will you be the sole beneficiary or will you have to share?
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Overall rating

Rated 4 out of 5

based on ratings from 25 users
combined with 10 pro reviews

Your review

Player reviews

zchaaln rated this:Rated between 4 and 4 out of 5
Played: 24 Mar 2023 Team size: 2 Time taken: 49:02 Outcome: Successful escape!
cleverimmersivestory-driven
Alex Valnarov-Boulter rated this:Rated between 4 and 4 out of 5
Played: 24 Mar 2023 Team size: 2 Time taken: 49:02
cleverimmersivestory-driven
Stevie Davies expert rated this:Rated between 2.5 and 2.5 out of 5
Played: December 2021 Team size: 2
illogical
taleviooo rated this:Rated between 2 and 2 out of 5
Team size: 4 Outcome: Successful escape!
😨creepy
dave470003 rated this:Rated between 3.5 and 3.5 out of 5
Team size: 4 Outcome: Failed 🙁
immersivestory-drivenquite difficult
StaceyF expert rated this:Rated between 4 and 4 out of 5
Played: 2018 Outcome: Successful escape!
jakea256 expert rated this:Rated between 2 and 2 out of 5
Outcome: Failed 🙁
immersiveillogicaltiredquite difficult😨creepy

Tricky one to review as the set and immersion were very good. Some of the puzzles were very clever and unique but many were also illogical (sometimes with multiple seemingly valid solutions) and extremely tired. In one case it was difficult to tell what the answer was even after solving the puzzle. With some more TLC this room could live up to its prior reputation once again.

jazziew experienced rated this:Rated between 4 and 4 out of 5
Team size: 2 Outcome: Successful escape!
funnygreat hosting😨creepy
Joe Brown expert rated this:Rated between 2.5 and 2.5 out of 5
Played: 8 Apr 2016 Team size: 4
Great theming, but a small room, some unintuitive puzzles and an unhelpful host made our experience feel like a bit of a let down.
markb experienced rated this:Rated between 3.5 and 3.5 out of 5
Played: 15 Oct 2021 Team size: 4 Outcome: Successful escape!

Overall enjoyed playing this game GM was generally good, however, it does feel that a lot of the clue pieces and props had been inherited from when the game under Handmade Mysteries and could do with a refresh. It was also far too dark at times, making the game excessively difficult, I don't mind difficult puzzles at all, but puzzles shouldn't be difficult because you can't see properly what you are doing.

Alice Lucy rated this:Rated between 4.5 and 4.5 out of 5
Team size: 2 Outcome: Successful escape!
Mark Greenhalgh expert rated this:Rated between 2.5 and 2.5 out of 5
Played: 15/07/17
ratsontour expert rated this:Rated between 3.5 and 3.5 out of 5
Played: 29 Sep 2019 Team size: 3 Time taken: 59.59 Outcome: Successful escape!
immersivegreat hosting
Charly expert rated this:Rated between 2.5 and 2.5 out of 5
Outcome: Successful escape!

Dark and grubby, a couple of good puzzles. Didn't like the fact we were grouped with strangers - something that doesn't often happen in UK escape rooms

emspace rated this:Rated between 4 and 4 out of 5
Played: 2017-06-21 Team size: 5 Outcome: Successful escape!

Fun, but dark room and too many with 5 — I missed seeing a lot of the puzzles and how they were solved. Public booking meant I, as a rando, injected into a group of 4. We won the game and shared the bottle after—one of the best ways to end a game I’ve experienced.

🦡cipherdelic virtuoso rated this:Rated between 3.5 and 3.5 out of 5
furiouslycurious experienced rated this:Rated between 2.5 and 2.5 out of 5
🦡cipherdelic virtuoso rated this:Rated between 3 and 3 out of 5
Aine Morgan rated this:Rated between 4 and 4 out of 5
Darel Robinson rated this:Rated between 5 and 5 out of 5
Played: 2019 Team size: 2 Time taken: 59:54 Outcome: Successful escape!

Host was very good, she stayed in character the whole time and gave a great sense of immersion. Though it was our first room, we felt the pacing was just right (hence our time) and the help/hints were very good. Some physical effort needed, crawling through a low tunnel, but was ok even with my dodgy knees. I hope other rooms are as good. Theme was excellent, atmosphere incredible, and overall a wonderful experience.

Rhea Eris experienced rated this:Rated between 4 and 4 out of 5
Miss Geeky rated this:Rated between 4 and 4 out of 5
Roory experienced rated this:Rated between 3 and 3 out of 5
Played: 14/04/2019 Team size: 6 Time taken: 53.08 Outcome: Successful escape!
Lise Honsinger rated this:Rated between 5 and 5 out of 5
Jose Adrian experienced rated this:Rated between 3.5 and 3.5 out of 5
Played: Team size: 5:00 Time taken: Outcome: Successful escape!

Reviews by escape room review sites

Instead of trying to escape, you're trying to retrieve a bottle of wine; while that makes little practical difference, it's nice to vary the genre a little. The room is one of the physically smallest I've done, though we had a team of five and it felt cozy but not cramped.

The puzzles are structured as a set of tests, which gives a good sense of progression and makes it easier to tell how well or otherwise you're doing. It also means this is a fairly linear room, though I don't remember that be...

And here's your host, Gabriel… Outside the room Lady Chastity's Reserve is not something to be taken lightly. That much was obvious from the moment that I laid my eyes upon Gabriel across the bar. A stout man with a strong beard, this was not some run of the mill host, recruited from a student bar.
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How can you fit so much fun into such a small space?! A great in character GM and a bottle of wine to boot, made this room a winner for us!

Lady Chastity’s Reserve absolutely lived up to the hype for us, and I’m thrilled that we chose it for our very first escape room of 2022. Start the year as we mean to go on, eh?

We head into a pub in Clapham, London where there is an escape room that they say combines clues with comedy and immersive theatre. Will we be toasting a great room, or drowning our sorrows?
Lady Chastity’s Reserve is a wine. A wine of legend. A wine that, if you succeed in the game, you get to take home a bottle of. And by ‘home’ in our case I mean the pub the game is based in, where we drank it all. And now I have to remember enough of the game to write a review.
We ventured intrepidly into the wreckage of Lady Chastity's hedonistic final party, in order to try to retrieve a bottle of her legendary aphrodisiac wine. Did we leave with our thirst quenched?

A highly thematic room, let down here and there with slightly frustrating puzzles. I think it would have been more enjoyable with two or three people, so I’ll try my next one of their rooms with fewer people.

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