Kelly Archer

Really enjoyed playing this. It's a little creepy with a few jump scares but once you're past the long video intro nothing is as scary as the evil Dr Psik in the video (so scary!). The whole idea is cool and the lift itself is very clever. They're are a lot of padlocks and it's not obvious which padlock goes with which answer but we honestly didn't mind that.

It's getting a bit tired and the doors could do with a better seal but these are minor issues. 

A lot of fun, nicely silly-scary, really loved this. We only played it because Miyalock wasn't working so we'll be back. 

I love Deadlockeds style so much. This is one of the most creative games I have ever played in terms of the timing and style - never seen anything else like it. They manage to make immersive, clever spaces with the bare minimum of money but once you are playing all you see is, say, a spaceship. They are so good at creating sets, that spotting a cupholder or a plastic food tray will not at all impact on the immersion (if anything it makes it even more impressive). The hosts are fully in their role from start to finish which adds to the excitement. You will also fall in love with Wexie, the robot and helper <3

The puzzles are ace, the storyline is brill and there is a reveal at one point which genuinely had us excited about what they had done. So clever, bloody love this company.

Blooming brilliant game. The set is incredible, totally immersive. The safe itself is really impressive - the effort they have gone to to recreate it is really top notch. 

The music is brilliant - all really well picked tunes with the tempo and style ramping up as time goes on. Our GM was a huge amount of fun, too, really playing his character as well. 

Genuinely loved this game, it was so much fun with some clever puzzles. This is one of those rooms that when you come out you are totally buzzing.

A nicely themed room with lots of great puzzles. The styling was very nice, with great immersion. I think this is one of their easier rooms, so would be great for beginners but with a few mind benders to keep the experts interested. 

(Identical comment about GM/clues as per my Decade Runner review follows)

As lots of other people have said, the GM function is a bit different. There is a flow chart on the wall which makes it clear what order everything needs to be done (not necessarily good) and each puzzle has a number. In this one help is automated through an AI system by pressing the number of the puzzle. The GMs will only come in if you get really stuck though I can't see why you'd ever need this since the clues will eventually give you the answer you need. 

From the comments afterwards it is clear that there are no microphones in the room. It's a clever clue system but it does feel like a bit of a shortcut to minimise GM effort and possibly mean that one GM can look after more than one room. It works, don't get me wrong, but it feels a bit odd to know the flow without working it out yourself.

Lots of fun in this 80s themed room. Good puzzles, some fun ideas (occasionally a little bit obtuse but we got there in the end). The styling is really lovely, there is a lot to do and the music really makes for an entertaining game.

As lots of other people have said, the GM function is a bit different. There is a flow chart on the wall which makes it clear what order everything needs to be done (not necessarily good) and each puzzle has a number. In this one help is automated through a Zoltar machine (remember the movie Big?) by pressing the number of the puzzle. The GMs will only come in if you get really stuck though I can't see why you'd ever need this since the clues will eventually give you the answer you need. 

From the comments afterwards it is clear that there are no microphones in the room. It's a clever clue system but it does feel like a bit of a shortcut to minimise GM effort and possibly mean that one GM can look after more than one room. It works, don't get me wrong, but it feels a bit odd to know the flow without working it out yourself.

Don't let that put you off, these are solid enjoyable games.

This is a decent enough room but a couple of things were really illogical or a real stretch. There was one puzzle that had been replaced but there were traces of its previous version which was meant we were trying to make a connection that was no longer there (large screw in the wall with scrape marks around it - it just needs cleaning up). And the final puzzle was ... well I don't want to spoil it but it was deliberately misleading which was just annoying. 

The GM was fine. She had to give us a lot of help and at the end we really she explained a few things then just waved us goodbye (no cards, no photo, nothing, despite the reception area being absolutely top notch design). Disappointing. 

We had played Tesla at Fox In A Box the day before and we went back to there instead for our final room of the weekend. 

We've all done bank vaults before, of course, but this one is well done. There was one particular piece of kit that I have never used before in an escape room, which is always nice. 

It is a challenging room with a few real head scratchers. Like the other FOAB room that we did the clues are done by photograph - for some puzzles this was two or three laminated photographs posted into the room (it will all make sense if you visit). The clues were never OTT - we had completely missed  few things in the room which was entirely our fault.

The last section was definitely under a lot of time pressure with a mix of easy and hard puzzles and the prize visible but out of reach. We escaped with something like 99 seconds left.

As with the Tesla room we had Roland as the GM and he was lovely - he's so enthusiastic and warm and loved to chat about the rooms. We will definitely go back and do the others (especially Bunker, which is the top rated) if we get back to Munich.

(So so much better than Venice (Venedig) at Hidden Hints which we played the same weekend)

We really enjoyed this one. Some clever ideas, especially the ending (which I will not reveal). We definitely needed a few hints but I loved that the hint delivery system was all photographic instead of a voiceover. One of the puzzles was a broken (a broken handle) but it didn't ruin the experience, just made it a bit more challenging. The host wasn't aware of the problem beforehand but once he was he planned to fix it.

The host, Roland, was very enthusiastic and loved chatting about the game after (which for me really adds to a room). 

All in all, a great fun room with some interesting ideas and a top GM that lifted it above the norm.

I loved this game from Escape Plan. Sam, the host, was super friendly (and he learned all our names in order to give clues to the right person, and give us personalised time cards at the end) and the puzzles were great.

The tech is all in house and suits the theme - lots of wood, great scenery and a sense of humour with some of the design. The barrel-top games (no spoiler, you'll see what I mean straight away, they use this design in both rooms as well) are BEAUTIFUL. A few too many padlocks on this one but it fitted the style of the room.

The ending was charming, too. All round worth the trek eastwards, looking forward to the next room "Battle For Britain".

Loved this room. Some really great in house designed puzzles (lots of wood, which makes a nice change) and a fab host made this room stand out. The theming is beautiful with, plenty of tricky puzzles and lots of non linear moments. I loved that the GM (Sam) knew our names and would direct the clues to the relevant player, that was a lovely touch.

We played both of their current rooms and I am excited to play the next one when it is finished.

Loved this so much - a very full on game, very beautiful and with a great final puzzle which really kept us on our toes. Will definitely revisit and play more games with Lock Academy when we are next in Paris.

Overall a great game, even though we struggled to finish in time.

Set design is always great from EE - love the way they design their spaces.

The final puzzle doesn't seem very covid safe, so we needed prompting to do what we needed to do and in the confusion messed it up a bit. Finished with a couple of minutes to spare.

We love this game - super stylish, clever puzzles, great hosting. All round ace.

Overall a decent game but it's getting a bit tired and could do with refreshing or retiring. 

The space is absolutely HUGE which makes a real change from most places. We had an issue with a broken switch at the beginning but the GM sorted that pretty quickly once he realised what was wrong. 

Despite the advertising, this room is not at all scary and there isn't really much of a story aside from the fact you need to escape from a pair of prison cells. That doesn't detract but it does make this room less memorable.

A decent game (have loved the Time Run games in the past) marred by the packaging. It all felt a bit processed but I guess that's the deal with this sort of franchise based game. The puzzles were great, trying to sell us key rings and jumpers afterwards not so much.

A fun room, though it has a few hidden items that we missed on searching - it seemed like these were deliberately sneaky. The puzzles were solid and pretty clear, though I think we needed a few hints.

The GM was really full on which split our team - you'll either love her or loathe her. 

Overall a good, fun room. Slightly spoiled by some of the physical access issues and the overpowering smell of rubber from all the props. 

Loved this room, very immersive, amazing set and the rules for the first section (you'll see what I mean when you get there) added an extra level of challenge. Great design, really beautiful, with clever, logical puzzles that were fun to solve.

We loved this room so much!

It's your standard prison break story but the way it is built (two jail cells, and the setting is so good it was in the film Cruella!) and the way the puzzles are done are really clever. Your team is split into two separate cells and you have to work together to solve puzzles, even though you can't see each other for a large chunk of the game. Everything flowed well and was fun AND logical.

It really made us think, sometimes stretch, even a little bit of climbing. The GM was mega enthusiastic and the owner was really chatty too, telling us about the next room that is due to be finished August 21 (or possibly September).

It's in an unassuming basement in the centre of Bracknell, so it's easy to get to.

I don't want to give too much away. 

We're looking forward to going to back to play Secret of the Vault and the new Pharoah's Mystery when it opens. 

We start in the office of the Prime Suspect, searching for evidence of where a kidnapped woman is locked up. The room itself was reasonable, we just found that some of the puzzles were illogical (one in particular needed more than one clue for us to solve and it was still "huh?" afterwards. I just can't see how you can get the answer without a lot of nudging and amazing eyesight). One of the hiding places had a lock that fell open when being poked with the wrong key. Another couple of clues required us to search through a big pile of items (I am trying not to give spoilers) which would normally rule them out as just decoration.  In many cases we had codes and had to guess which lock they were supposed to open.

For one of the clues, the GM admitted that it takes teams a long time to solve because it's quite counter intuitive (one of our team got it but it took a while). I can imagine a lot of people get very frustrated with it.

As with the other Escape 360 room, we visited during the July heatwave and the room was airless and boiling. I know the UK can't be fully equipped with air conditioning, we don't expect that, but a couple of cheap fans would have made a huge difference. The GM apologised after saying they used to have fans but they had disappeared (she had one on her desk, though). 

This room is vaguely Harry Potter themed (a few props, four house flags, lightning signs for when to use your wand). 

One puzzle in particular relied on the darkness meaning we couldn't find a puzzle piece (which we didn't think we needed due to the wording of the puzzle so we wasted a lot of time trying to solve it when we technically couldn't).  

 There were quite a few random red herring articles in the room which delayed us quite a bit. 

A couple of clever puzzles involved using the wands, though it was given away by the use of the lightning symbols (explained before the game) which took the edge off a little.

Many of the puzzles seemed quite illogical. One was technically flawed, in that things were in the right place but needed a big of jiggling to make it work.

Worst of all we visited during the July heatwave and the room is airless and boiling. I know the UK can't be fully equipped with air conditioning, we don't expect that, but a couple of cheap fans would have made a huge difference. The GM apologised after saying they used to have fans but they had disappeared (she had one on her desk, though). 

Overall could not really recommend. Glad we didn't do this one last.

Absolutely brilliant, so much fun. Lots to do, really well themed with plenty of puzzles. The final puzzle is very satisfying, too. Staff here are always really engaging and switched on and love to talk through the whole room play which we really enjoy.

A nicely designed room, a couple of clever ideas that I've not seen elsewhere. Very short, though, we were done in about 30 minutes. 

A really beautiful room with lots of styling details and a great theme. There are a few bottle necks which means our experienced team of 4 were sometimes a little restless while only two of us solved a puzzle. The last section is great fun but with some technical challenges that the GM had to work round (without giving too much away, some of the switches don't always work right). 

Probably better for two or four family groups as it's a little short of puzzles but still a lovely experience.

First half was great. The back end of the room is very tired and didn't work properly which was frustrating after doing the excellent ImBound. Needs retiring or refreshing.

A really great room but some issues with solving puzzles where the set up was wrong (so we got a digit wrong because something had been tampered with) and some difficulty in reading a section of information because of lighting and angles or worn out numbering. Decent but flawed, needs a bit of a spruce up.

Decent ideas but a few flaws made it a bit frustrating

One of my favourite ever rooms. We had an amazing GM who must have been running around behind the scenes. The room looks a little basic but, honestly, it was so much fun we really didn't notice. The puzzles are great and the way the scares work (you jump, then laugh, then get on with solving) made it enormous fun. A riot.

Incredibly creative and beautiful room. Loved some of the alternative non traditional puzzles here, as well as the room's overall style.

One of my all time favourite rooms. This requires a good dose of team work in order to solve some of the puzzles. I love the way the room is styled - the theme works brilliantly.

Another excellent room from Time Trap. Bletchley Park themed with great train station style.

They have two copies so you can also play competitively.