Robert Storey

The other side of Dystopia. The briefing for this made little sense having just played dystopia... definitely setup to just be a one room session. 

The theming was on par with what you might expect. There was a cool concept puzzle, however the actual thinking required ended up being a little TOO obtuse for essentially one of the first things you do. Also relied on things being just right to allow you to access it... which was a little frustrating when this is out of your control. 

As others have mentioned, there are items in the room which you do not use unless you are playing as a race. 

I DID like the whole concept of the story developing and I liked how the puzzle setup tied into it (even if a couple of smaller puzzles frustrated us at the simplicity but that they didnt feel like escape room puzzles). 

The ending was not coherent and again, like Dystopia, a little lack-lustre. I wonder whether something was not quite working in our game given we had to be hinted towards what had happened (a pet peeve of mine. If something happens, it should HAPPEN, not happen, if you catch my drift). 

A fine game, but Spellbound is the stronger game at the venue rather than this and Dystopia

We played Dystopia first then utopia, as MYE suggest. 

Dystopia starts off with a very linear flow, nothing to write home about but somewhat let down by a little bit of poor upkeep on a puzzle which would have easily been fixable. 

The second half of the game does split off a bit more to allow simultaneous solving but we found that in a team of 4 (and a team that had not played together before) , since there was a lot of information not used in the room, it could get confusing as to where attention really needed to focus on. 

A little amount of outside knowledge IS required. 

The ending, whilst a cool concept, felt a little lackluster. Atmosphere as well - soundscape could have been improved from the immersion aspect (though one team member did enjoy the... selection of tunes. )

Hosting was... adequate. I like to feel part of the game from the moment the briefing starts, and the briefing, whilst fine, didn't capture my imagination
If I were to only play one game, I would play Dystopia, as Utopia whilst interesting, isn't the best "Futuristic" room out there. 

Everything you'd expect from Hounds - theatrical, OTT and funny. GM was brilliant and in-character the whole time. Even included our little team mascot in their interactions (I'm sure they don't talk to a frog plushie every day !)

A good range of puzzles, nothing too taxing. There's a fair amount to do but I would say 3/4 is a good team size for this game - 5 felt a little crowded at some points, i would not want to play this game as a 6. 

Not a fan of the new briefing system at hounds but i'll let that slide for the rooms :) 

What an introduction to Mindworks! Fogg was a brilliant host/GM and was perfect in his analysis of our team, and thus pitched his briefing just right (this is the first room I've taken over the briefing at one point (as a GM myself) and Fogg took a seat as if he was part of the team. It's the small touches ;) ).

Room wise all the puzzles flowed nicely with good signposting. We overcomplicated a couple of things but some.... tactical clueing from Fogg (or perhaps a rouge gust of wind.. inside) came at just the right time to keep us moving along, on something we would have otherwise spent a wee bit of time on... .

Would have been good to have some sort of note-taking device for this room, though for the theme of the room perhaps harder to fit in. 

Well worth a trip down to the coast!

Game number two of the day and it smashed expectations.  Brilliantly designed such that you always have something to do, and from the information given to us by Jamie, it's rare a team will get through everything available in the room. 3 felt like a good number, but an extra pair of eyes would not have gone amiss. Everything was signposted just the right amount, and the story felt a part of the room in terms of the puzzles. 

Jamie was a brilliant producer of the show, and more than did justice to the show with his suit jacket (if you know, you know).