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Reviews

Reviews

Inventor’s Odyssey Through Time

Inventor’s Odyssey Through Time

Enigma Quests - Holborn

  • Escape room
  • IRL
Like the other rooms at this location, Inventor's Odyssey got a bunch of bad reviews when it opened. To Enigma Quest's credit, they've clearly refined and improved the room since then. Everything flowed smoothly and was clearly signposted. All the puzzles felt fair. I wouldn't have minded one more segment. I would describe my team as "moderately experienced," and we finished it in about 38 minutes. I suspect a very experienced team could have blown through even faster. In short, this is not quite as good as the very best games in London. But in its current, polished form, this is a very good option, and well worth playing for the local enthusiast. Additionally, when I asked our GM if they planned to open new rooms any time soon, he said they were still focused on polishing and improving their three current rooms. I would currently rate the game as a solid B-tier. Further improvement and polishing could well bring it up to a B+.
Vauban's Legacy [Outdoor]

Vauban's Legacy [Outdoor]

Berg Geheimnis

  • Escape room
  • Other
The game takes place across a lovely but steep hike, and we attempted it during a heatwave. The temperature reached 35C (95F) so we only lasted about halfway. Given that, I can't judge the the experience fairly. For that reason, I am not giving it an official thumbs up or thumbs down ranking. But I couldn't find ANY English-language reviews of it, and I think therefore that an incomplete review might help somebody who is considering it. Based on what I did play, it was a solid outdoor puzzle experience. Still, even in nicer weather, I'm not convinced it would be worth the roughly 100 euro cost. They included some fun physical props but these weren't enough to justify the price-- and they meant we had to carry an additional prop-filled backpack up the hill with us! Also note that one of the puzzles expected us to understand a German-language sign that had no English translation. (The game does come with hints so we eventually realized that we need to just look up the answer in the hint book-- but it was signposted in a way that made us think we'd be able to solve it on our own, so we wasted a certain amount of time.) In short, if you feel you need some puzzle content on your hike and you're willing to spend 100Euro to get it, this is a reasonable option. Otherwise, I think you could just enjoy the lovely hike on its own, for free. (Again, though, this is based on a partial experience.)
The Billion Pound Heist

The Billion Pound Heist

Enigma Quests - Holborn

  • Escape room
  • IRL
MUCH better than I expeted, given the negative reviews it got from enthusiasts when it opened in summer 2025. Playing it a year later (summer 2026), it was a fun, smooth-flowing experience, with nicely decorated sets. I conclude Enigma Quest have apparently worked out the bugs. It's a fun, solidly-implemented example of a heist theme, with a few original ideas and some fun moments. The only remaining problem is sound bleed; at a few points, we were distracted by noise from neighbouring rooms. I don't want to oversell the experience. This isn't TERPECA worthy, and it's not the top tier of London games. But it can hold its head up high within the second tier.
World of Witchcraft and Wizardry

World of Witchcraft and Wizardry

Enigma Quests - Holborn

  • Escape room
  • IRL
The set was well decorated, although sometimes it felt like the wealth of detail made for unintentional red herrings. The hosting was excellent. One puzzle was both fair and creative. The other puzzles were fair but not particularly creative. There was a loose story that made reasonable sense, but didn't really add a whole lot. All in all, I wouldn't put this at the top of your London escape room itinerary. But if you've already played some of the city's top-ranked rooms, this is a pleasant addition.
Lab Rat

Lab Rat

Hatch Escapes

  • Escape room
  • IRL
One of those rooms where everything — set design, story, puzzles— clicks together to form an immensely satisfying whole. Add in a great sense of humor and excellent, attentive GM-ing and I can see why this has managed to stay in the TERPECA rankings for seven straight years. (To set expectations: the game is originally from 2018, and its current ranking in the TERPECA 200s feels about right. It is a delightful game that absolutely deserves to be celebrated, but don’t expect the epic scale of the newer or higher ranked TERPECA finalists.)
Avalanche

Avalanche

Maze Rooms - Robertson Blvd

  • Escape room
  • IRL
At one point, Maze Rooms spammed the Morty reviews for this and their other games with fulsomely positive reviews. Kudos to Morty for cleaning up the spam-- but I want to mention that this kind of behavior from an escape room company is a real abuse of players' trust, and makes it hard for me to get excited about their games in the future. Putting that aside, this was a vexing and perplexing game. Maze Room have clearly devoted real care into set design; the set pulls one trick in particular that was truly impressive. But they’ve skimped in weird ways. Hints are delivered through a walkie-talkie— and if you leave the walkie talkie in the wrong place, it ends up being inaccessible for the rest of the game, which means you can’t get hints. Plus, in a later room, doing the wrong thing to one prop renders it unusable, making it impossible to solve a particular puzzle. And then there's the storyline, which registers as disjointed for a lot of players. I think I understood what Maze Room were going for, and I appreciate the fact that they were trying something different. I liked the weirdness of it and I always applaud taking artistic risks! Unfortunately, I see where the complaints are coming from; the story just isn’t conveyed in an effective way. In short, this is a game with a lot of intriguing and promising elements, and is worth playing if you want to try something different and you don’t mind the potential for frustration. But it’s a severely flawed game, and I left feeling defeated even though we managed to escape in time.
The Emerald Phantom

The Emerald Phantom - CLOSED

Escape In Time / Secret Studio

  • Escape room
  • IRL
This isn't quite as good as the very best games in London, but it's close. On Morty's ranking system, I felt it was right on the border between a thumbs up and a heart. The puzzles are satisfying, and I found the final sequence to be particularly charming and creative, and very well suited for the slightly fantastical behind-the-scenes-of-a-movie theme. The only drawback is that (as with their previous game Secret Studio) the designers have chosen to stock the set with old props-- which adds some authenticity, at the expense of giving the room a slightly musty and run-down feeling. We also encountered one puzzle that was broken, halting our game for a few minutes until the game master to come in and reset it. Not perfect, but a very worthy addition to the London escape room scene, and one I would recommend to any enthusiasts.
Disparue [Missing]

Disparue [Missing]

Enigma-Tic

  • Escape room
  • IRL
This was one of those rooms that just wasn't for me. For one thing, I haven't seen Stranger Things, so (although I was able to understand the general idea) the various locations seemed kind of disjointed to me. More importantly, this game was obviously designed by somebody who hasn't hit middle age. A communication puzzle depended on a scratchy walky-talky that my middle-aged ears struggled to understand. There was a lot of squinting at things in dim lighting that my middle-aged eyes struggled with. At one point, I had to spend a long time kneeling while bending my middle-aged wrist at an uncomfortable angle. I wouldn't have minded if I found the puzzles delightful but I didn't walk away feeling like I had any amazing ""aha!"" moments. Maybe this is all just me (although I note that I have rarely encountered so many problems in any of the almost 100 other rooms I have played.) Whatever the reason, this just wasn't a fun one for me.
Escape The Seven Seas

Escape The Seven Seas - CLOSED

Escape London - Whitechapel

  • Escape room
  • IRL
A decent but flawed room. The puzzles were decent, but on multiple occasions, we solved them correctly, unlocking a door or drawer somewhere in the room-- but we couldn't figure out where. There needs to be better audio cuing. Also, the puzzle flow around the split start is poorly designed; one teammate was locked up with nothing to do for a few minutes while the other player solved puzzles to get him out. If Morty offered a "Meh" option, I'd probably use it here-- but overall, I lean just slightly towards the positive side.
Hell House

Hell House

The Panic Room 3 - St Georges Centre

  • Escape room
  • IRL
Panic Room have clearly lavished money and care in creating this set, which is the most impressive of any of their rooms. Bizarrely, though, they have scrimped on some very basic upkeep. A number of puzzles in the game depend on a printed journal you're given-- but the journal has now faded almost to the point of illegibility. Plus, the rooms are dimly lit and cannot be traversed without two handheld lanterns you're given-- but one of the lanterns stopped working ten seconds into the game. With literally twenty quid worth of upkeep, this could be a top-notch game. Unfortunately, until Panic Room can be bothered to take a few simple steps to make it playable, I can't recommend it.
Demise of the Gricers

Demise of the Gricers

Entered

  • Escape room
  • IRL
VERY IMPORTANT: This game is physically dangerous. I would say it is roughly as dangerous as skateboarding or downhill skiing. That's not an intolerable level of physical hazard for a leisure activity-- but it is substantially more dangerous than a well-run escape room. Gricers offers many of the same pleasures of a good escape room-- it's an exciting story-driven challenge in a fully immersive environment. I'm not surprised it's been embraced by the escape room community, but I worry that leads to people diving into it with inaccurate expectations around risk. If you are enough of an escape room enthusiast to be using Morty, you have probably skimmed through or ignored numerous overwrought safety warnings for escape rooms. Do NOT ignore the safety warning that comes with Gricers! If you do choose to play, I encourage you to read the Room Escape Artist's review first. It has some useful information that will help you play more safely (although, again, still with a skiing-level of risk.)
Dystopia Escape Game

Dystopia Escape Game

Dystopia Escape Game

  • Escape room
  • IRL
The setting is fantastic. It's a real-world space that has very convincingly been repurposed into an underground sci-fi bunker. And the sci-fi theming carries through to a very funny AI character (present mainly in pre-recorded vocal tracks) that adds a lot. The puzzles relied heavily on pattern-matching, which is not usually my favorite, but they fit very well into the story. Anybody who is escape-rooming their way through Brussels should include this on the itinerary.
Le Fort [The Fort]

Le Fort [The Fort]

Get Out Escape Game

  • Escape room
  • IRL
In most respects, this was a fairly average room. It was smallish, with solid but unspectacular decorations. There was a fairly heavy emphasis on physical puzzles. I personally enjoyed this but your mileage may vary! If you're traveling around Belgium playing the country's best escape rooms, you can probably skip this one. But if you've got a free space in your schedule and you want a competently done room to fill it out, this is an acceptable option.
Escape Room Arcade

Escape Room Arcade

Enigma Quests - Holborn

  • Escape room
  • IRL
Going in, you should know that this is not an escape room. It's a challenge arcade, analogous to Boda Borg, Level 99, or Prison Planet. The only other challenge arcade I've done was Boda Borg in Boston. Unlike Boda Borg, all the challenges at Enigma Quest were a single room. In each room, you've got 5 minutes to score as many points as you can in one particular game. I missed the escape-room-like sense of discovery you get of moving into a new room within a challenge-- but I nonetheless had more fun at Enigma Quest. I found Enigma Quest's scoring system much less frustrating than Boda Borg's binary pass/fail system. Games tended to be less like escape room puzzles, and more like challenges you'd see on The Crystal Maze or Survivor. (This was a plus for me-- I enjoyed the change. Your mileage may vary.) The themeing within the rooms was excellent and most of the games were very fun. I had two complaints: --The rooms are all next to each other and there's a certain amount of sound bleed. --In one of the rooms, a lightbulb within a game was burnt out. Depending on certain random elements within the game, that burnt out bulb could completely paralyze your progress, at which point you are basically stuck in an unplayable room until your five minutes run out. We mentioned this to the staff and they said, "Oh, yeah, we know about that, but we didn't think it was worth shutting down a whole challenge over one lightbulb." Despite those quibbles, we had a great time and I would happily return to try the games I didn't get to this time (and to try and improve my score on some of the games I particularly enjoyed.)
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