Steph Norchi

Wow! I don't give out the full 5 stars very often but this room deserves every one of them. 

This isnt just an escape room, this is a complete experience from start to finish. It really raises the bar for rooms in the UK and I hope more places follow suit because I didn't want this to end. I was sceptical when I heard that it was more like an international standard room than the style weve come to know in the UK, but its true. 

The theming, the hosting, the puzzles, the humour, the magic and the many, many incredible twists, turns and surprises make this a must-do room for enthusiasts and families alike!

It's no secret that there are actors in this room, and I'm someone who is always quite anxious and apprehensive of that, but they were fantastic. The humour and the improv was amazing and made for a truely magical experience. Don't be put off by having them in the room, join in, have fun and you wont regret it.

This is now my favourite UK room! Book it now!

Another wonderful game from Wolf Escape Games. These games are great for a chill night in, playing from the sofa. Beautifully made with an immersive story. We loved the mix of puzzles and thought the difficulty was just right. 

I honestly find myself feeling very torn by this room and my teammates felt the same. I have personally done all of the rooms at the Tulleys Crawley branch and so I had high hopes coming into this one with some different friends.

As always, the theming was fantastic! This is truly an immersive experience full of everything you would expect from a temple. There's a good variety of puzzles, though I would say there are a lot more physical or hands-on puzzles than there are mental ones. 

The first problem that I have with this room is the scale of it. We are a great team for splitting up and getting as much done at the same time as possible, and yet it just didn't end. On the one hand im glad there was so much content and value for money, but it needs to be a longer time limit, perhaps a 75 or even 90 minute room, as we are an experienced team and very nearly didnt finish everything, so I imagine families or new groups would really struggle in here and it would be a shame for them to not see the whole room. There were also a chunk of puzzles designed to make you take your time; skill-based rather than puzzle-solving, which when there's so much to get done just feels unnecessary and puts too much pressure on you.

Another thing that annoyed me about this room was the amount of trial and error that we felt was needed. Some puzzles would give you more information than necessary, some wouldn't give you a clear reason for the order of the solution, some strayed away from the theme and some were just a bit illogical. Yet more time-consuming elements that with a bit of tidying up really didn't need to be.

There was also one puzzle that looked as though it should light up, or do something but it didn't, so we left it thinking it wasn't ready, but eventually just pressed things anyway and it worked. That puzzle really needs some sort of user feedback so you know it's working.

Slight spoiler here, but there is also one lock in the first room, that we spent a large amount of time trying to solve because it looks like you should have the information you need. You don't. Some things you will need to come back to much later and it's not clear, just misleading.

We even had a previous team's notes left in our explorer bag at the start. We weren't sure if these were a story item like a lost explorer's journal with key information at first but it turns out it just hadn't been removed. Thankfully, we decided not to use the information anyway.

Overall, it's a very pretty and immersive room that is great fun to move around. (Though I would add that its quite claustrophobic at times and although we needed 4 people to get through the puzzles, it was too tight for 4 at times.) But the puzzles need a bit of refinement to optimise the team's time better. The puzzles aren't hard, they are just time-consuming, and there are a lot of them.

This was our final room of doing all 4 of the rooms here on this day, and we definitely saved the best till last. This room is full of twists and turns, keeping you guessing what might be coming next. The puzzles are unique and well-themed to blend in seamlessly with the room, creating an immersive experience throughout. 

This is very much a room of 2 halves. The first section is your core escape room experience, its pretty linear and we completed that in about half an hour, so I would say the main segment of the room is quite easy. We were wondering what we would be doing for the rest of the 75 mintues and if it was really necessary. However, the second half is where the game really comes into its own, and from here on, the rest is optional and is laid out in the form of a chaotic, lock-busting item-grab to the finish. We used almost the entire time in total, taking a further 38 minutes to collect all happily ever afters - yup you read that right, longer than it took to complete the main room! This means that this room is perfect for absolutely everyone, no matter how novice or experienced your team is. Even for more experienced teams, you will get your money's worth in here! Well built, fantastic puzzles, beautiful room design and superb value for money. The only downside was that there was so much going on that I missed out on a chunk of the puzzles and with 4 players were were often quite tight for space - I wouldnt recommend any more than 4 people in there.

As a note - there is a section in this room that requires crawling for the duration of a puzzle, so if you are coming as a team of adults just bear that in mind :)

You have to love your classic serial killer escape room. There aren't really any bells or whistles added to this one; you get what you expect from this type of room. The puzzles are good, some are pretty tricky but all logical once you work out what you need to do. I wouldn't particularly call this room creepy, but there are a few gruesome elements to it. Personally I would have liked a little more to do as we did feel like this room was over too quickly, but other teams may have different opinions on that. I would also like to see a bit more in the way of atmosphere, maybe some lighting or audio effects, rather than just being in an old hotel room. But it was still a fun room, everything worked and made sense which is what you want.

Also, shoutout to the amazing hosts here. We were doing all 4 rooms here and due to us taking around 30mins in each room we ended up with a bit of a gap. Our fabulous hosts set us up on a table in here after our run with an envelope escape game free of charge to keep us busy until our next room, which was amazing, so thank you!

Let me start by saying that as someone who is very susceptible to jump scares, I am not a fan of horror rooms with actors. However... I cannot deny that this room was fantastic. Was I on edge the entire time? Absolutely. Did I scream a little too much and ram my teammates out of the way multiple times? Absolutely. But that's the nature of the game. The atmosphere and theming in here was perfect and our host played their part beautifully. The interactions were timed very well and didnt feel invasive or annoying which is a problem we've had before. The puzzles were beautifully woven into the story and theming, and nothing felt out of place or unnecessary. There were also some unique puzzles that we hadnt done before which was refreshing. Don't let fear hold you back, give this room a go and im sure you will look back and laugh!

This was a lovely family-friendly room full of colour and whimsy. We have seen a lot of Wonderland-themed rooms before, and it's common for them to become too illogical and annoying, but that is not the case here. There were lots of physical puzzles mixed in, lots of variety and all very logical once you worked out what you needed to do. There is a section of this room that will require one member to be on the floor/crawl for a while so bear that in mind. We were doing all 4 of their rooms in a day and this was our first, so it was a great warmup for us, but even so we found it quite easy. I would say they have 2 great rooms here and 2 good rooms, this being the latter. But that isn't a bad reflection at all - it is a good room, and maybe a younger audience would have a different opinion, but for me they just have better here.

What a great room! This one keeps you on your toes, guessing what's coming next all the way through. The whole space is very carefully put together and everything is there for a reason. Pay attention to instructions and question everything. The puzzles are great, very varied with lots of unique ideas and new twists on common puzzles too, which we absolutely loved. After playing all 5 of their rooms in one day here, this was our final room of the day and was definitely my favourite and most memorable room. Well worth a visit for everyone - regardless of whether youre a fan of the films, an experienced team, a novice team, a family or anyone else, you will find something to love in here. 

This room is effectively split into 2 parts: the main escape room segment aims to retrieve the whoopee cushion and then youre given an optional objective of collecting stink bombs once you find the cushion. This makes it a great room for all ability levels - more novice teams have the choice to complete the main game and then leave, and more experienced teams use the rest of their time to collect as many stink bombs as possible. The puzzles themselves were varied and a variety of mental and more tactile puzzles to suit everyone. Signposting was there but a lot more subtle than in loudini which was perfect. Some very clever yet sneaky clues, so keep your eyes peeled. I do however think the room needed some more humour woven in. The themeing/setting was great but for a room about pranks it needed more fun and mischief. Overall a great room for new teams or families, but still good for more experienced teams too.

I feel quite torn about this room to be honest. As you can tell, we did the "Puzzles Edition" of the room, so we didn't have the live magic, and I think it needed it. There were lots of puzzles to keep everyone busy in a non-linear fashion but the signposting is very obvious; they essentially tell you which puzzles open which locks throughout. Everything was on-theme but as a whole I think the room felt a little flat, with only 1 real twist which didnt excite for long. Although it was a good room, with lots to do, it needed more - so I imagine the version with the live magic is great.

We had great fun in this room. The majority of the room follows a very non-linear style, so we immediately split up and took on a puzzle each. In the words of our wonderful GM "That start was absolute chaos." We love being able to divide and conquer, so this room suited us really well. The theming was great and the puzzles all worked well with the theme, though a pencil and paper may have suited this one better than the tablet provided for note-taking. I was also surprised at the lack of more physically demanding puzzles that pirate themes usually include, which is not necessarily a bad thing. This one is great for families! Communication and observation are key in here.

A great take on the Titanic theme, which was maintained well throughout! I loved the use of audio and environmental effects in here to help with the immersion, especially in the second half. There was a good variety of puzzles but not really anything we hadn't seen before in one way or another and they felt quite predictable given the theme. That said, everything worked, there were no issues, it all seemed to be well maintained and the host was fantastic (especially since we had to keep tag-teaming members in and out to deal with the flat tyre we gained on the way here!). There is a small amount of crawling required to move between areas but should be manageable for most people and I imagine could be avoided if needed).

Battleships was our 5th room of the day here and it was a great room to end on! A great twist on the classic board game and a brilliantly immersive room. The themeing is fantastic, the room designs are wonderful and the use of audio is perfect. As with the other rooms here, everything in these rooms is there for a reason and it really makes you question everything you see. The puzzles are brilliant - theres such a wide variety of original puzzles that are all perfectly themed and continue the immersion. The tech is used in all the right ways and is well-maintained - everything was working perfectly and felt necessary to the story. The room progression felt very natural, flowed wonderfully and you really feel the tension build as you work towards to end-goal. 

A great addition to the room collection here! Well worth a visit.

This was our first Wizard of Oz themed room and I must say it was a fun theme for a room. The initial room was cleverly done and the transition was wonderful. I think this room would be fantastic for families with younger children. There are some very physical elements with crawling and climbing around tight spaces, that for a group of 4 adults was exhausting but fun. However if you dont have somone in your group able to do this then you may have issues here.

The room was bright and colourful but other than the walls and around the edges it felt a bit lacking in set dressing compared to their other rooms. There were lots of fun elements and unique puzzles to keep you busy but they were all fairly easy. We were only really held back by our lack of observation and not noticing a fairly obvious padlock. So although we still enjoyed this room, I feel we really werent their target audience - a family or a younger group would absolutely love this!

This was the first of 5 rooms here which we completed in a day, and I have to say it was my favourite. What a great room! We always love a western theme and this one didn't fail to deliver. 

The room is beautifully built and immersive throughout, with the room progression always feeling like you're moving through a real train. There's so much to this room that we were always surprised and excited when more came along, and even so, we didn't want it to end. 

There's a wonderful mixture of physical and mental puzzles combined into the perfect balance of linear and non-linear puzzles in a way that I believe would suit all sorts of teams.

We didn't find any sticking points, everything made perfect sense and all elements were working perfectly. The GM was amazing and really set the scene and made us feel welcome from the moment we entered the premises. 

A great room - highly recommend.

A great take on an Alice in Wonderland room - refreshing to see it done differently to every other Alice room. It was fun and colourful with varied puzzles and lots going on. It kept the chaotic feel of Alice rooms but whilst making complete sense and at all times feeling logical. The whole room is fairly non-linear and we automatically split into 2 pairs for the majority of the room, so thankfully they were happy to give us a walk through afterwards so we could see what the other pair was up to.

I personally feel that this is the weaker of the 5 rooms we did here, but other team members ranked it slightly higher so it's all down to personal opinion. Though whilst I say this - it isnt at all a weak room, the rooms here are just all so fantastic!

Out of the 5 rooms here that we did throughout the day this was the room that I personally feel had less of a nice flow throughout. Now that is no fault of the room, but more that this is their most linear room and our team works best when we can multi-task, so there were a lot more moments where I felt a bit lost, just waiting for other members to solve puzzles. This room also felt a lot smaller and stuffier than the others so I wouldn't want to have more than 4 people in there. That said, this was still a great room! There were lots of puzzles that felt very unique and varied, with a nice mixture of lock types. Everything was very logical, and yet again the only reason we were stuck for a while was due to a lack of observation on our part, the puzzles were all fairly straightforward and very well themed, with just enough signposting to keep you going. All of the rooms here are very good at using their space and everything is there for a reason! No red herrings here, which we love.

Overall, a great little room which a good story and lovely variety of puzzles.

Wow! This game completely caught me off guard. We had previously done all of the other rooms here and had some mixed opinions, so I had fairly average expectations for one. Thinking it may be your typical runaway train room.  I WAS WRONG.

This room is an absolute blast from start to finish, with a very unique start to the experience. Absolutely hilarious, made better by the fantastic GMs. Yes, this room does contain actors. But they are beautifully woven into the chaos and story of the room and are purely for entertainment and storytelling; there's nothing scary here whatsoever, so if you are cautious of actors, you need not worry.

It is a pretty physical room, with some tight spaces and many, MANY fun surprises which I won't ruin for you all. This room is perfect for families and friends alike and theres something for everyone. The puzzles are varied, fairly easy and well themed to keep everything feeling immersive. 

Definately worth a visit for this one. All I will say is; embrace the chaos, have fun and prepare for a lot of laughing!

Let me start by saying that this is a fantastic room! The theming and attention to detail is superb and this room is on another level completely to their other room 'the time machine'. 

The effort that has gone into putting this room together is very apparent; the room designs, the use of space, and the audio all combine beautifully to create a truly immersive experience. 

If you aren't used to doing multiple rooms in a day then the "2 hours" tag may seem a little daunting but it's perfect for this room. It gives you time to get through the huge variety of puzzles across multiple rooms, whilst still being able to take in the experience unfolding around you. It didn't feel like we had to rush at any point and we even had time to stand around debating over who was going to go and do which scary thing (which is probably what took us the longest to be honest)! Everything was very cleverly signposted to somehow be both clear and discreet as to what you needed to do next, and at no point were we left wondering what to do next. The only issue we had in that regard was right at the end when we had somehow missed a key element - this is where we found out about the lack of hint system, as when we asked for help, we were played a pre-recorded message that didn't answer our question at all. Thankfully, they noticed we were completely perplexed (entirely our own fault for not looking around properly in the first place) and the GM/Actors very cleverly helped us out without breaking any immersion, which was fantastic.

The puzzles all felt very original and where there were more 'classic escape room puzzles' they had been so beautifully blended in with the theming that they felt new and fresh.

Now for the elephant in the room - the actors and the horror element.

I am not a fan of horror actors in rooms - I have high anxiety and am very susceptible to jump scares. That being said, I love horror-themed rooms and am a huge fan of the genre. This is where the review comes down to personal opinion. I cannot speak for every team as everyone reacts differently and every host may do things differently. I found the actor to be way too intense at times. It started off well with some well timed jump scares and cinematic use of the actors, but it progressively got more intense. (After talking to the host at the end we believe that they may have upped the intensity when they realised we weren't reacting much.) The actors in here WILL touch you and you are encouraged to move quickly through very tight spaces which is just going to lead to injuries when everyone is panicking in the dark. I felt extremely on edge the entire time. I was purposely avoiding going near some puzzles for fear of being grabbed from behind and really struggled to focus. With me as an exception, we are not a team that scare easily, so when even the lads were nervous to go into certain areas it shows that this is not a room for the easily scared.

I believe that its a fantastic room, it really is. But taking the "less is more" approach would have worked a lot better in this situation. Subltle sounds and movements in the dark mixed with corner of the eye sightings and suspense would have been much more creepy. But as I say, this is entirely personal opinion and different actors may play the role very differently. 

I highly recommend this room! But do proceed with caution if you have high anxiety, or have a chat with the host to adjust for a less intense interaction if nervous - because the room is well worth a visit if you can handle the scares!

One other small thing we noticed was that one of the lights in the final area wasn't working, which made it tricky to tell if you were completing the puzzle correctly, but is still solvable if you just assume its on when you press it. 

This was the first of the two rooms we did at Deadlocked Reading, and although it is still a great room and we had fun, I would say it is definitely the weaker of the two. However, with the other room being 18+, this is a great family-friendly room. They had a fantastic use of space, but it sometimes feels cramped (which explains the max 4-player limit). 

The lovely mixture of puzzles and the time-machine theme allowed them to mix up the themes beautifully, so it didn't start to feel boring, and the creative use of the space allowed you to keep wondering where you might end up next. The puzzle types matched the themes, and for a sci-fi theme, the tech was all working perfectly and well-maintained, which was a relief. Though the screen-based central system in the sci-fi zone did mean that as a team of 4 there were many moments where we were stood waiting for 1 member to solve the puzzles on the screen.

The main thing that let it down for me would be the budget. You could tell that it was put together on a lower budget and as someone with high attention to detail I struggled to be fully immersed when I could see how it had all been stuck together. The other thing being that the introductory speech was a little dragged out and often unrelated to the game, it started to feel quite awkward when we just wanted to get into the room and get started.

With a little extra TLC this could be a great little room for more novice teams, and is still a fun room for those more experienced. We loved all of the sci-fi easter eggs throughout and had a great time.

We absolutely loved the hosting here at Mindworks. We did Trapped for Cash first, and the this one, and both hosts were absolutely fantastic! Fogg was a great judge of team character and his introduction really had us immersed and ready for an adventure. 

The theming was beautiful and very immersive, and the puzzles were varied enough to keep us interested the whole time. Due to a great run through Trapped for Cash, we were warned that we would likely breeze through this room so we took our time with it and enjoyed the theming and story. However, even with our leisurely pace and me often just wandering around looking at the decorations, we reached the end in under half an hour and were left thinking "oh, are we done?".  Don't get me wrong, we absolutely loved this room, but we wanted more. Highly recommend for families or as a great introduction for newbies, but for experienced escapers, be warned, it will be a short game. Regardless, it was fun from start to finish!

This was potentially the most fun we have had in an escape room. It may not be the best room we have ever done, but it was certainly up there because it was just so much fun! Olive's contagious energy had us buzzing before we even got into the building. It was colourful, exciting, and downright random. As for the puzzles, there was lots going on. Its a 2 puzzles at a time kind of room, so with 4 of us we spilt into pairs well and there was plenty to keep all of us busy the entire time. The puzzles are varied enough and the gameshow twist on the typical format kept everything feeling fresh. There is a great variety of lock types, so not just all keys, like some cash grab style games tend to stick to. Well worth a visit!

Wow. What an experience this place was. 

I'm not going to lie, we were a little nervous going into this regarding how it would work; would it be too easy and just catered to families, or would it just be lots of basic puzzles littered around to complete when you fancied. But I can honestly say any expectation we had was blown out of the water!

Firstly - as an escape room, the cottage is SO WELL DESIGNED. There's a huge variety of puzzles which broadly range in difficulty, making it fun for all ages and experience levels. There is a brilliant progress logging system so you can keep track of how you are doing and there are stages of completion, so even if you dont finish everything, you wont leave disappointed.  Information is anywhere and everywhere, almost every part of this unassuming cottage has a purpose and a reason for being there, but even so, there is still plenty of signposting where necessary so it was always clear which elements were connected. (There is also a lovely hint system on-site for those who need it, without ruining the immersion).

The story was compelling and beautifully woven throughout the whole experience, starting before you even get to the cottage and incorporating a fantastic little walking tour of Tewksbury.

We also loved the attention to detail when telling us we had not been successful in a puzzle. This lead to MANY amusing moments which I think we will remember for a long time.

I honestly cannot fault it. It was a fantastic experience that kept us (an experienced team) busy for a full day. As accomodation it was superb, very clean and tidy (until we started ransacking the place looking for clues haha) and the location is great. Parking was a little tricky but as we turned up late friday night the car parks were a little emptier. 

Make time for this amazing weekend, it won't disappoint!

Another lovely family-friendly room from this company. Like stepping into Santa's cabin, it felt Christmassy and fun. Lots of non-linear puzzles to solve based around retro tabletop games. Pretty easy room where everything is very logical and flows well. A great room for children but still good fun for adults too.

Light-hearted, family-friendly and lots of fun. I would say it's a fairly easy room where children can get involved in every element. We only took so long due to our own stupidity and failure to check the obvious XD. Most puzzles have a fun twist or at least an element of playfulness to them and everything was very logical. Contains lots of the usual padlocks, including the dreaded directional lock. 

The third and final game of our morning here, and in my opinion this is their strongest room. It is super family-friendly and definitely suitable for kids and adults alike. Don't be put off by the spooky theme because it's a lot of fun and not scary at all.

It's a really clever game with some beautiful theming and it's very different to their other games. The puzzles are really creative and we found ourselves really immersed in the story with all of its twists and turns, at times forgetting that we needed to solve a mystery.

I wouldn't say there are red herrings, but due to there being a standard and a pro mode, not all of the puzzle elements in the room will be used for your run-through, which is something to keep in mind. 

We also had a different GM for this room compared to the other 2 and it made a big difference. If there was a maglock that opened which we didn't notice, there would be a ghostly reminder or hint to guide us in the right direction. Though I will say that this was maybe a little too direct at times.

Overall a really fun room that I highly recommend for families.

However, this room unfortunately had me annoyed from the very beginning. The rooms are intentionally dark to begin with, which is fine. But this meant that I was feeling around, poking and prodding everything to work out what we should be doing. Until i came across something sticky... Luckily we brightened the room up pretty quickly, only for me to discover that the sticky feeling was wet paint. Bright green, wet paint. The colour had come off the top of one of the puzzle elements and instead of just letting us work out what the missing colour was (which would have been easy enough), they covered it in wet paint. I got very lucky that i didn't wipe it all over myself and had a tissue on hand to clean up a bit (as there are no toilets in the venue, only the shopping centre, which would have taken time away from the room).

Moving on from that sticky situation.... there was a really great balance between the 2 starting zones, meaning there was lots of back and forth between the mini-teams and not too much waiting around for the others. We were out of there pretty quickly and reunited to find LOTS more puzzles to complete.

The main bulk of the room is almost entirely non-linear, so we were in our element with the divide and conquer approach. There is a great variety of puzzles in here and a mixture of combination locks, keys and maglocks.

We managed to skip a few steps in here and soon realised that we needed to go back and complete everything. You will need to do everything, so there is a lot to do.

This is where we encountered issue number 2. There is a puzzle where we found a solution which perfectly met the criteria and it didn't work. We got stuck here for quite a while trying different solutions, coming up with multiple different solutions and nothing working, until finally one did. We asked the GM at the end of the game why the other solutions didn't work and she couldn't give us a reason. The reasoning she gave for the correct solution, also matched the first answer we gave but it didn't work. They clearly haven't accounted for there being any other solutions, which there are. So this was rather annoying.

Getting into the last room felt a bit janky and I wasn't sure we were even doing it right, as it was quite a stretch at times and felt like we were taking shortcuts, but apparently, it was correct. All of which was done whilst being blasted with really loud music so we couldn't hear each other very well. 

Overall, it was fun, and the puzzles were good, but much like the first room we did, it needs fine-tuning and some better thought putting into certain elements.

Edit...

LevelUp have since been in touch and provided a detailed explanation on the solution to the puzzle I mentioned. Their reasoning does now make sense, however, it certainly didn't at the time. Maybe it just didn't click for our team, but personally, I would just swap it out for a clearer puzzle.

This is a lovely room with wonderful theming and a great use of space. There are some physical elements to this room so it isn't advised for anyone with mobility issues. We really enjoyed the variety of puzzles and the room kept us all fairly busy the whole time. There was a lovely flow to it and a good sense of progression due to the clever layout. 

There were some really nice effects used in the room.... and one not-so-nice one. We were warned about said effect at the beginning and asked if we were happy, however, what was described wasn't really how it was at all. I don't know if it was a bit broken but it ended up just being unpleasant and annoying. This could be utilised really well but for us it was not.

However, my main issue with this room was a GM issue. There was a certain puzzle where we completed it pretty quickly and received a code, tried it in all available padlocks to no avail. We even had multiple team members try the locks just in case, but nothing. So we began spiraling, searching everywhere for a different code or a different way to interpret the information around us. We must have spent the best part of 15 minutes believing we were wrong. Eventually giving in and doing what we never do... asking for a hint. To which we were given the response "You have the right code, you just need to give the lock a really strong pull". In the pre-room briefing we were told; no excessive force was needed. They really should have mentioned how that doesn't include padlocks, because some of them really did need some force. Also, not letting us stew for 15 minutes and just a polite hint to give the lock a strong pull would have been appreciated.

Overall, it's a really nice room with great potential. It has some lovely puzzles, great theming and is really family-friendly. With some fine-tuning, it would be a fantastic room. The small issues were annoying but not enough to spoil the fun.