Escape room

Escape Hunt

Blackbeard's Treasure

Not a bad room necessarily but definitely not a favourite. Some unused puzzles acting as red herrings, and tired, or in one case broken, props. Great GM made the experience smooth.

The Great Escape - Hole in One

The Mummy [prev. Exodus]

A fairly average room, with technical glitches that prevented our progress and inattentive GMs which meant we didn't realise there had been a game breaking issue.
We did the room back when it was Exodus so the theme was appropriate - sounds like the room and theme hasn't changed at all for the update to The Mummy

Rush Escape Game

Hacksaw II

A really fun room. Non linear, inventive puzzles. Puzzles solution all come together towards the end. Great theme. As always the Rush staff and venues are fantastic.

Mayday Escape Rooms

The Pharmacy

A really great room. Amazing theme, set in the actual pharmacy of a derelict asylum. Mechanical lock and code puzzles but interesting ones. Not too hard. Well worth the drive out.

The Curium Experience

Extraction

This is, I think, a controversial opinion.
I will say, overall, this is an excellent room with great puzzles, intricate sets and a great theme.

Our group did not enjoy the "being moved along" element. We've done a lot of escape rooms and like to struggle and succeed or fail on our own merits.
I do think, for the majority, being moved through the puzzles to see and experience everything the room had to offer is a good idea, but we found it grating.

There are puzzles in a room you spend time solving, gaining clues and understanding, only to find they weren't next in sequence, you've focused your energy in the wrong place, and you're shuffled along to the next room. All the thinking and work you did is wasted which feels disappointing, and you don't get the satisfaction of a puzzle solved.
Ultimately I felt this robbed the whole escape of that same satisfaction. If a team always makes it to the final puzzle you lose the sense of a challenge overcome.

This was a real shame. We'd heard such great things about the room and were enjoying ourselves so much only to be jarringly shuffled along until the end. jrgreat.pointed, our "victory" feeling hollow.

It actually makes it hard to evaluate the puzzles on their own merit because I'm not sure if we solved them, skipped them or had them made artificially easy.
The dexterity puzzles were great.

Probably an amazing experience for most, but not for us and not for other experienced escapists I've spoken to who play these games to enjoy trying to overcome a challenge.

Reviews

Natrilix