Happy Halloween! 🎃 This month’s bumper round up of new escape rooms includes a few monsters that enthusiasts have been eagerly awaiting – and the trickle of Christmas rooms is starting to turn into a flood.
Greater London
🔒 Having opened their arcade challenge experience, Enigma Quests are about to launch the three escape rooms at their new Shoreditch location: Inventor’s Odyssey Through Time, The Billion Pound Heist, and The World of Witchcraft and Wizardry.
🔒 Scare specialists Horror Escape opened a third room, dark fantasy Twisted Tales.
🎄 And Room Lockdown in Hornchurch want your help preventing another Christmas disaster in Santa’s Grotto.
Also new, from last month’s update:
🔒 Enigma Quests (Central London): Escape Room Arcade
South East England
🔒 Deadlocked’s two hour immersive horror room is here – The Reading Witch opened at the beginning of October to rave reviews.
🔒 Another new room at Escape Kent in Canterbury: Sub Zero is of course an underwater submarine game.
🔒 Epsom Escape Rooms (the Horton Park Golf Course one) have (re)opened Challenge Chambers.
🎄 High Wycombe Escape Rooms are running two Christmas rooms, both familiar Know Escape ones: Christmas Candy Chaos and Elf Isolation.
🎄 Horsham’s Major Mind Games announced a Christmas version of The Show Must Go On, which is suitable for play even if you’ve played the non-festive version.
🔒 New in Other World’s line of 15 min games at their Sip & Solve bar is Detective’s Office.
🎄 Brighton heavyweights Pier Pressure also have a Christmas room this year: Mince Spy Mystery, available at Preston Manor not in town.
🎄 Elf School is back open at Sneaky Dog in Southampton.
🎃 TimeQuest in Paddock Wood have Halloween themed versions of three of their normal rooms with all new puzzles (Ghoulish, The Coven, The Crypt) and if you’re very quick you might just be able to get to them before they close. Otherwise, they’ll have a Christmas room as normal during December.
Also new, from last month’s update:
🔒 Butlins Bognor Regis: 221B Baker Street, Area 51, Escape the Seven Seas, Witchcraft & Wizardry, Detention
🔒 Elusion Rooms (Southampton): Monster Hunter Puzzle Box
🎄 Escape Plan LIVE (Chatham): The Naughty List
🎄 Mythologic Escape Rooms (Gillingham): Sneaky Santa
🔒 The Panic Room Dartford: A Great Escape
South West England
🔒 Here’s a game that’s been years in the making – Roomsmiths in Plymouth have now opened their second room The Rubicon, and it has an extended 90 min playtime.
🎄 Escapism Plymouth will open Showtime!, a festive game with a pantomime theme instead of a rescue Santa story (and it will also be available in Chester).
🎄 11th Hour Escape Rooms are combining Christmas with pirates for this year’s festive game, in Yo Ho Ho Ho!
🎄 An Elf’s Journey is a more traditional style of Xmas game from All Stars in Weston-super-Mare.
🎄 Lock & Code’s Taunton branch are keeping it cool with A Frosty Christmas.
🎄 Escape The Game in Bovey Tracey regularly put on a Christmas game, and this year’s is Santa Escape – Santa’s Christmas Star.
🎄 In Dorchester, The Great Big Escape will run Tincleton’s Twisted Christmas from late Nov, saving Xmas from a naughty elf.
🔒 And Escape Hunt Bristol replaced Worlds Collide with Eye of the Sun God.
Last call for:
❗️ Salisbury Escape Rooms: Death at the Lab (closing 31st Dec)
Wales
🎄 Beyond Breakout are running a festive one day only puzzle event Christmas Adventures and the Magic Potion on 7th Dec, in Llanidloes.
🎄 In Porthmadog, Paniq Rooms are running Christmas Chaos.
Also new, from last month’s update:
🔒 Beyond Breakout (Powys): Smuggler’s Cove
🔒 Caerphilly Escape Rooms: The Witch in the Woods
🔒 Mansion of Mystery (Carmarthenshire): The Time Machine
West Midlands
🔒 Amidst the Christmas mayhem, Escape Brum have a new non-seasonal room: The Barrington’s Job is a jewel heist game, which appears to have an optional ‘secondary objective’ section for enthusiasts and those who like a challenge.
🎄 Plenty of Christmas spirit at Kidderminster Escape Rooms, who will be running both Elf School and Jingle Joyride, previously seen at their Worcester branch Top Escape Rooms; and at the latter, there’s the brand new Santa’s Lost His Marbles as well as Elf Who.
🎄 Telford’s XscapeNow are getting punny with Locking Around The Christmas Tree.
🎄 In Shrewsbury, LevelUp Escapes will shortly be opening Snowbound Express.
🎄 In Ross-on-Wye, Escape Quests have opened both a festive room Christmas Chaos and also a normal one, Norse Code, a Viking theme in which you must retrieve the sacred War Hammer.
Also new, from last month’s update:
🔒 Exciting Game Birmingham: Shelter Z
East Midlands
🔒 Gamesaints is a new company who have taken over Escape Lincoln’s city centre location. They’re running four games: In The Slammer, Judge & Jury, Mystic Alley and Ripper’s Road; I’m not sure what degree of overlap these have with the Escape Lincoln rooms that were there before.
🎄 Santa’s Final Checklist is the Christmas room from Chesterfield Escape Rooms, available from late Nov.
🎄 Operation Save Christmas by Mission Classified in Grimsby is now available.
🎄 And in Lincoln, Tension Twisted Realities will run The 12 Days of Christmas from the end of the month.
Also new, from last month’s update:
🎄 Cryptology Nottingham: Ho Ho Hurry Up!
🔒 Horton’s Emporium Daventry: The Castle of Memories
🔒 Horton’s Emporium Nottingham: The Wizard’s Chest
East of England
🎄 Cluetopia have a new branch at Braintree – their first game is the Runaway Rudolph (previously available at Ipswich), with a brand new game also under construction.
🎄 In addition to that, Cluetopia’s Walton branch will shortly open North Pole Hotel, along with the festive rooms they’re offering in Harwich and Ipswich.
🔒 Locked Escapes replaced The Great Train Robbery with Secret Bunker, previously available at their Dunstable branch.
🎄 Chelmsford Escape Rooms’s Christmas room is Christmas Candy Chaos, one of Know Escape’s staples.
🎄 Cryptx in Knapwell have (also) gone for a more unusual sort of Xmas theme with Pantomonium (oh no they haven’t!…)
🎄 In Wickford, Keylock Games will shortly open The Grunch, with a rather purple version of a familiar villain.
🎄 Principal Escape Rooms in Ely will be running Snowy Sleighs from mid-Nov.
🎄 Suffolk Escape Room in Saxmundham have temporarily swapped out Superbugs for Xmas room Operation Mince Pie: Countdown to Christmas.
🔒 Sudbury Escape Rooms are opening The Crazy Cat Lady, one of Know Escape’s classics.
🔒 Eschewing the festive spirit, Ware Escape Room’s latest is The Madman.
🔒 Fingers on the zeitgeist, Escape Colchester have rebranded their room Boudicca’s Uprising to Gladiator: Seize the Eagle.
Also new, from last month’s update:
🎄 Cluetopia Harwich: Elf Academy
🎄 Cluetopia Ipswich: A Christmas Catastrophe
🎄 Exit Rooms (Cambridge): Victoria’s Christmas Challenge
North West England
🔒 The Escaporium’s new Liverpool branch is open, with its first room Wee W.I.L.L.I.E. WinKey! With the combined talents from The Escaporium and Wirral Escape Rooms, it’s not surprising that it’s rapidly rising up the ranking table.
🎄 Lucardo have a Christmas room at each of their branches: Elf Control in Manchester, and Inspector Christmas in Rawtenstall.
🎄 Escapism Chester will open Showtime!, the same pantomime room as their Plymouth branch.
Also new, from last month’s update:
🎄 Compendium Escape Rooms (Bury): Bad Elf 2: The Key to the Sleigh
Yorkshire & the Humber
🔒 Enigma Rooms Wakefield is already a firm favourite on the enthusiast circuit, and their new 75 min collect-’em-all dark fairy tale room GRIMM – Up North looks likely to cement that further.
🎄 And Wakefield’s other heavyweight Escapable have an Xmas room, Jack Frost in: No Globe, open from mid-Nov.
🎄 Cluedini’s Yarm branch are now running festive room Scrumdiddlyumptious – try saying that five times quickly after your fourth sherry.
🎄 Project Escape Middlesbrough will open their Xmas room Last Wish of Christmas in late Nov.
🎄 Cryptic Escape Rooms Hull are combining two familiar strands of pop culture for their Despicable Grinchmas.
🔒 The Great Escape Game Sheffield replaced their underwater head-to-head room Submerged with a new underwater head-to-head room, Quest For Atlantis.
Also new, from last month’s update:
🎄 Cryptology Sheffield: Ho Ho Hurry Up!
🔒 Escapable (Wakefield): Prank Heist
North East England
From last month’s update:
🎄 EXIT Newcastle: Help Save Christmas
Scotland
🔒 Escape Glasgow have moved to a new address in Renfield Street, and have overhauled their line-up at the same time; they now offer Magic Emporium and Ocean’s Escape.
Glasgow is also the location for this month’s new Escape Hunt branch; they’re running Aladdin & the Magic Vault, Curse of the Pharaoh, Excalibur and Eye of the Sun God, as well as their outdoor city trails.
🔒 Escape Stirling opened a second location, with two new games designs for the chain; McRaven’s Revenge is a sequel to Escape The Seven Seas, and The Wizard’s Apprentice is a magical adventure.
🔒 Case Closed launch the first of their ‘Brief Cases’ next week, “smaller scale mystery games”; this first game is Director’s Cut.
And for the list of Xmas rooms (updated as more open), use this page: https://escapethereview.co.uk/location/xmas. 🤶🎅