Can You Escape York: Operation Contagion

15 Micklegate, YO1 6JH

2-5 players

Languages: EN

60 minutes

You have contracted a zombie virus, and the only known cure is located in a laboratory that was overrun by the infected. The scientists working on the cure were successful, but you must obtain it at all costs.

However, retrieving the cure is not your only challenge, you must also escape and get to the extraction point. You have 60 minutes to do so before the quarantine timer runs out. Can you escape?

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Overall rating

based on ratings from 28 users
combined with 6 pro reviews

how is this calculated?

Your review

Player reviews

NovemberGolf21 expert rated this:

gamesmaster13 experienced rated this:

Team size: 5 Time taken: 57:35 Outcome: Successful escape!

cleverpoor hostingunoriginalquite difficult

Some really clever puzzles in this room- we went in the first week it opened, but some tech was already broken 🙁 GM couldn't hear us so kept giving us clues to puzzles we had already done, and at the start, the room just looks like an office space filled with Ikea furniture. It does get better, but it's a shame the same amount of effort wasn't put into the beginning of the room.

Anonymous rated this:

Played: 23 Oct 2023 Team size: 5 Time taken: ? Outcome: Successful escape!

good themingbroken techpoor hosting

Our host was nice, but we'd been before so were all too familiar with how touch and go the clues can get here. Played soon after the opening, but a piece of tech was already broken and the venue did not look cleaned up (construction bits, wood, etc). We would wave for a clue only to be given hints about a puzzle we'd already completed. The room itself was nicely built and costumes for an immersion -- just a bit of a let down.

reviewed in Lincoln

liam and rosie experienced rated this:

Played: 15 Mar 2024 Team size: 2 Time taken: 46 Outcome: Successful escape!

😨creepy

reviewed in Ipswich

Dawne20 rated this:

Played: 10 Jun 2023 Team size: 4 Time taken: 56.22 Outcome: Successful escape!

poor hostingoverpriced

We have played a lot of escape rooms and we definitely prefer the independent escape rooms, the chain rooms just don't cut it. We did not get this room and did not enjoy it.

reviewed in Peterborough

A Blacksmith expert rated this:

Team size: 3 Outcome: Successful escape!

reviewed in Lincoln

Adrienne Ward rated this:

Team size: 2 Outcome: Successful escape!

illogicalquite difficult

Last clue was just ridiculously obscure.

reviewed in Peterborough

Kerrie Wykes rated this:

Played: 19 Mar 2020 Time taken: 47:10 Outcome: Successful escape!

reviewed in Lincoln

Anonymous rated this:

plainunoriginalsmall

This room is inside an active school. You walk through the school with kids in classrooms to get to the escape room. Very odd indeed. This room also had an internal window into the school corridor which the students sat on and we spent the whole game listening to petty childish squabbles and arguments about fornite. Not an ideal location for an escape room when you want to be immersed in the story. The room itself is tiny with basic puzzles. You can see there has been an attempt to make this game stand out but they've basically just crowbar'd in some irrelevant tech.

reviewed in Sheffield

TeamDenton experienced rated this:

Team size: 3 Outcome: Successful escape!

family friendly

This was a fun room, our main complaint was that it felt like we were given a bit too much information at the start. There weren’t loads of tactile interactive elements so this room was less about searching and props than it was about logic and puzzling.

reviewed in Leamington Spa

amywoof rated this:

reviewed in Lincoln

Lee Taylor rated this:

Played: 15 Apr 2022 Team size: 2 Time taken: 35:22

plain

Wasn't much in this room, it wasn't bad but I would recommend spending your money on another room.

reviewed in Sheffield

🎲A Jones experienced rated this:

Played: 2 Apr 2018 Team size: 4 Time taken: 41:17 Outcome: Successful escape!

reviewed in Newcastle upon Tyne

rachrvm rated this:

Team size: 2 Outcome: Successful escape!

reviewed in Sheffield

🤘The Pick of Destiny expert rated this:

reviewed in Peterborough

Anonymous rated this:

Team size: 2 Outcome: Successful escape!

broken techpoor hostingunoriginal

reviewed in Peterborough

Jordan Brown experienced rated this:

Played: 7 Aug 2018 Team size: 2 Time taken: 58:43 Outcome: Successful escape!

reviewed in Blackpool

Mark Greenhalgh expert rated this:

Played: 07/01/16

reviewed in Glasgow

WinglessArchangel experienced rated this:

Outcome: Successful escape!

plainquite easy

reviewed in Sheffield

Amy Lowson rated this:

Played: 18/02/2019 Team size: 4 Outcome: Successful escape!

reviewed in Peterborough

Tim Cooper expert rated this:

Team size: 2 Time taken: 35:00 Outcome: Successful escape!

plainunoriginalquite easy

reviewed in Lincoln

🔐James Bloodworth expert rated this:

Played: 08/08/2020 Team size: 2 Time taken: 59:57 Outcome: Successful escape!

How appropriate, a room based on finding the vaccine to a global pandemic! You are in a lab environment and have to solve some lab based puzzles, some clever technology is used to good effect and the perennial periodic table makes another appearance. I wasn't a fan of the final puzzle and we got out with 3 seconds to spare and it was literally a guess. Space is a little confined and some of the locks might be confusing if you've never seen the type before.

reviewed in Newcastle upon Tyne

🦡cipherdelic virtuoso rated this:

reviewed in Edinburgh

🦡cipherdelic virtuoso rated this:

reviewed in Glasgow

🦡cipherdelic virtuoso rated this:

reviewed in Blackpool

Scotus0 expert rated this:

Played: 31/10/2017 Team size: 5 Time taken: ~59:00 Outcome: Successful escape!

Lab Life

I’m sad to hear that Escape Blackpool is no longer open, as this was an impressive room.

Story

You and your fellow scientists have contracted a virus that’s killing the world. Create a vaccine and escape the locked-down laboratory before it’s incinerated! A scenario that I now know is very, very common in the world of escape rooms, but this was my first time saving the world from a deadly disease.

Puzzles

This was a very tricky room! There were several clever features and quirky uses of apparatus that you’d expect/hope to see in a lab-themed escape.

Mise-en-scène

Very white, very polished, very lab-like! The props provided appropriate touches: science utensils, reading material and gear. I love any room where outfits are given, and so the lab coats were appreciated.

Final Comments

We only received one hint from our Game Operator, and this was on how/where to use a particular tool. She clearly knew exactly what time(s) teams need a hint. It was a good room for a team of both beginners and more experienced players.

reviewed in Peterborough

Brian experienced rated this:

Team size: 5 Outcome: Successful escape!

reviewed in Dundee

Claire Stephens rated this:

Played: Team size: Time taken:

Reviews by escape room review sites

The premise of Operation Contagion is fairly straightforward. There’s a zombie apocalypse sweeping the globe and the world is in lockdown – not too hard to imagine post-2020, hey! – but this laboratory has developed a cure. Great! We’re saved! Only the lab is also in lockdown and there’s just 60 minutes before it self-incinerates. Ahh, not so great.

Humanity is once again in peril, this time from an epidemic that's swept the globe and left your team as the last scientists on Earth. Fortunately there is an antidote hidden somewhere in a laboratory, if you can reach it in time.

The Escape franchise has spread to something like 14 different cities in the UK now, with a couple more on the way, so they must be doing something right. I've now played six of their games, and they tend to follow a straightforward format based around a mostly linear...

reviewed in Ipswich