No summer lull this year! There are plenty of new rooms to get excited about, including several from some heavy hitters – here’s the full list.
Greater London
🔒 Escape The Power Cut is a new game at Control Room B, a cocktail bar in the converted Battersea Power Station. It’s running on Saturdays only, and the ticket price includes two cocktails; I hear it’s built in partnership with Bacardi.
🔒 AIM Escape open a new room tomorrow: Hotel of Horrors is a supernatural horror theme.
🔒 Breakin’ also have a new room listed – but I believe The Joker’s Trap is actually a renamed version of Blackwing’s Cave.
Other new August games from last month’s update:
🔒 Time Run Presents (West London): The Mind of Moriarty
Southeast England
🔒 Pier Pressure have a new room: Tea Party is their take on the Alice in Wonderland theme, and is located at Gloucester Road along with The Smuggler’s Secret.
🔒 Also in Brighton, The Lift are revamping their original game The Lift Shaft, extending the runtime from 35 to 45 minutes and giving it modular gameplay with variable difficulty.
🔒 New at CTRL ALT ESC is Behind Number 7, which as you probably wouldn’t guess from the name is a heist game; as usual for the company it’s a bumper 90 minute room.
🔒 Unsolved Mysteries launched The Basement, “the next chapter in the story of Bill Tanner” following The Cabin.
🔒 Major Mind Games (Horsham) opened bookings not just for a Halloween room (The Haunting, available throughout October) but also a Christmas room (The Scruffalous Has Nicked Christmas, from late November).
🔒 Escape Hunt Woking added Alice in Puzzleland to their line-up.
Other new August games from last month’s update:
🔒 The Lift (Brighton): Lock and Rock
Southwest England
🔒 House of Frankenstein in Bath will open The Shallows in mid-September, their second full-scale escape room.
🔒 Live Escape Salisbury announced The Medieval Games. This isn’t an escape room, it’s a two hour themed competitive games experience for groups of 8-16 people, available on Fri/Sat evenings from the 22nd, and sounds like a bag of laughs.
Wales
🔒 Beyond Breakout win this month’s ‘best pun’ badge with their new feline spy themed game, Shaken Not Purred.
West Midlands
🔒 Escape Time‘s Burton branch are getting their Jurassic on with new dino room Xtinction.
🔒 Not new, but new to me: Mini Mind Quests provide mobile games based out of a caravan for events. They currently have two shorter games, Mad As A Hatter and The Pirates Leg, with plans for longer games to follow.
🔒 Experimental Escape have a new outdoor city trail experience, Lost & Found; “kids and dogs encouraged”.
Other new August games from last month’s update:
🔒 007 Escape Games (Wolverhampton): Toy Store
🔒 The Puzzle Room Cannock (Cannock): Cage Fighter and Murder in NYC
East Midlands
🔒 Escape Coalville opened two new games, The Heist and The Magician’s Apprentice. These might seem familiar, because they are in fact a welcome return for games created by Thinking Outside The Box.
🔒 Talking of welcome returns, Reactorvate from Escapologic‘s closed Leicester branch is now available again in Nottingham.
🔒 One Way Out have a new pirate game, Yellowbeard’s Treasure. Like all the company’s rooms, this one is 70 mins long.
🔒 Trapp’d‘s new Chester House location opened a mobile game called Amazonia. It’s aimed at families, with their easiest difficulty rating.
🔒 Spy Missions, who do escape-room-adjacent games mainly but not exclusively for kids and families, opened a new branch in Leicester.
🔒 And ESC Rushden are now Rushden Escape Rooms.
Other new August games from last month’s update:
🔒 Break Escape Nottingham (Nottingham): Story of the Sorcerer’s Sword
🔒 CypherQuest (Boston, Lincolnshire): The Bank Job
🔒 Deadlock Escape Rooms (Mablethorpe): Galaxy Z
East of England
🔒 Clued Up! runs escape rooms and city trails in Norwich; they’ve now opened a city trail in Great Yarmouth too, called The Silver Darlings.
🔒 Pier Pressure‘s Welwyn location will be running A Christmas Carol this winter again.
Other new August games from last month’s update:
🔒 DesertEscape (Hemel Hempstead): World War II – Desert Combat
🔒 Great Yarmouth Escape Rooms (Great Yarmouth): Conjured – Spirits & Demons, and Wizards & The Potion Master
Northwest England
🔒 Is it that time of year already? Compendium in Bury are taking bookings for a new Christmas game, Bad Elf and the Key to the Sleigh.
🔒 …as are Lucardo Rawtenstall. Their room is called Seriously Elfish.
Yorkshire & the Humber
🔒 Long awaited and open at last: Area 51½ at The Escaporium is now open for public booking.
🔒 Stuck In The Riddle in Huddersfield are about to open TestRun, which seems to be puzzle-centric score-based game.
🔒 Sheffield’s Crack The Code opened A Discovery of Dragons, a fantasy theme in which you’re searching for the last remaining dragon’s egg.
Other new August games from last month’s update:
🔒 The Great Escape Game Leeds (Leeds): Necromancer
Scotland
🔒 The Houdini’s chain spreads north of the border: they’ve opened a branch in Dundee, offering their games Alcatraz, Titanic and Room 13.
Other new August games from last month’s update:
🔒 Divergent Games (Falkirk): Baddie Academy
Play at home
📦 Housetrap added a new play at home game to their shop; Totality consists of a set of 30 puzzle cards, playable digitally or as a printable PDF.
And also…
🗞️ The Coventry Telegraph declares that an escape room is the worst choice of activity for a first date – discuss? 😛