Houdini’s Escape Room Experience Chester: Room 13

By | February 28, 2024

by Houdini's Escape Room Experience Chester (website)

Old Seals Way, Chester CH1 4RY

Chester

2-6 players

Languages: EN

60 minutes

As you drive through the night your car suddenly breaks down. With no other options, you and your friends decide to stay at a nearby hotel. The hotel is big and clean, there's just one thing. It has only one room available... that burned down 100 years ago!

Will the spirits within be friendly or are they looking for a few more permanent residents?Escape before room 13 has you!
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Overall rating

Rated 3 out of 5

based on ratings from 11 users

Your review

Player reviews

roberts0502 expert rated this:Rated between 3 and 3 out of 5
Played: 3 Sep 2024 Team size: 4 Time taken: 41"13
great hostingtraditional puzzleswhodunit puzzling
Hailstone experienced rated this:Rated between 2 and 2 out of 5
Team size: 4 Outcome: Successful escape!
illogicaloverpricedunoriginalquite easy
spbc expert rated this:Rated between 3.5 and 3.5 out of 5
Played: 26 May 2024 Team size: 2 Outcome: Successful escape!
great hostingfunillogical
Shrapnel rated this:Rated between 4 and 4 out of 5
Played: 2 Apr 2024 Team size: 4 Time taken: 39
value for moneyquite easy
Our team of 4 had never done an escape room before.  And we did it without any hints and accidentally skipped a clue. Was it easy? Were we simple great? Both?
The decor and atmosphere was great. Puzzles were fun. Not too taxing but gave us pause for thought.
The GM was attentive especially when  we struggled with a lock, which they heard us saying the correct number for.
The room could do with a bit of TLC though. Some props were a bit tatty through use - not the theme.
Am looking forward to doing more in future.
The place seemed a bit
Riot Games rated this:Rated between 3.5 and 3.5 out of 5
Team size: 3 Outcome: Successful escape!
immersivestory-drivengreat hosting😨creepy
The hosting really made our experience, and if every host is as committed to the immersion as ours was you’ll definitely have some fun! Some solid puzzles, nice design and a good atmosphere.  
samsham experienced rated this:Rated between 3.5 and 3.5 out of 5
Played: 4 Jun 2023 Team size: 2 Time taken: 59:40 Outcome: Successful escape!
immersivestory-driven
Tatticorn rated this:Rated between 2.5 and 2.5 out of 5
Team size: 2 Outcome: Failed 🙁
immersivestory-driven😨creepy
Very thematic room, however, bad lighting, should be provided a torch as it's essential for some of the dark corners you need to look in. Multiple locks of the same type mean you have to try each code in multiple places to find the correct one.
Great host, however lack of countdown clock in the room or method of sharing clues remotely is somewhat immersion breaking. 
TheCLAMS expert rated this:Rated between 3 and 3 out of 5
Played: 20 Aug 2023 Team size: 4 Time taken: ~39mins Outcome: Successful escape!
nice decorbroken tech😨creepy

This was the best of the 3 rooms at Swindon Houdini's and in my opinion is the only one worth doing. I really loved the decor - it does feel like you're in a hotel and it's a multi room experience which is always a winner. There was (as with all games we have played here) some broken tech so the GM game in as we tried to open the directional padlock just in case it didn't work. 

As I've described in my other reviews at Houdini's, the clue system for the games games (at least in the Swindon branch) is the GM just appearing in the room to give you hints. It's very disconcerting and completely ruins the immersion. We only had 1 hint for this room  so only saw the GM twice during the room but if I'm honest, one time is too many!

I still wouldn't really recommend doing this room - although I enjoyed it, Houndini's seems to have a lot of broken tech which takes them a long time to fix so it may not be very good on another day of the week.

StaceyF expert rated this:Rated between 2.5 and 2.5 out of 5
Played: 6 Dec 2022 Team size: 4 Outcome: Successful escape!
funny😨creepy
🤘The Pick of Destiny expert rated this:Rated between 2.5 and 2.5 out of 5
Played: 20 Mar 2023 Team size: 2
clever😨creepy

Advice: wait a few weeks/months for the tech to be in place properly! 

It's a shame because the room and puzzles were actually really good  and immersive but the whole experience was ruined by the gamesmaster loitering in the room. 

I don't think it was the gamesmaster's fault as he was clearly told to do this by his managers so that he could give clues if a team is struggling; as they don't have their clue system set up yet. 

Overall good, solid escape room and logical fun puzzles - but the hovering gamesmaster felt extremely off-putting and awkward

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