The Crystal Maze Live ExperienceThe Crystal Maze Live ExperienceEscape roomOther Note that this is not an escape room. It’s a recreation of the UK TV show The Crystal Maze, which is escape room-adjacent. Basically, it’s a collection of individual challenges, many of which are similar to things you might do in an escape room. Pros: •Fun, and does a great job of capturing the TV experience. •Some of the games are fun and elaborate. • Great maze master who was funny and positive and (I’m pretty sure) subtly gave the kids in our party extra time on their games to stop them from being discouraged. • Many games gave all team members the chance to participate by shouting suggestions, even if they weren’t the official player. Cons: • Very expensive— twice the price of a standard London escape room. I get why: real estate in Picadilly Circus must be insanely expensive, plus they have to pay for the licensing fees. But from a consumer point of view, it was twice the price I’ve paid for equivalent entertainment. • Some of the games are simplistic — think traveling carnival level. • They are really insistent that you bring a full team of 8; if you don’t, there’s a very good chance your team will get broken up and you won’t get to play together. With a total of 16 games, that means each person only gets to be the star of 2 games. • Difficulty of games is extremely unpredictable and you don’t get to see the game before assigning the player, so you can’t really assign people to their strong suits. This is entirely authentic to the TV show but it can make for a frustrating experience. OVERALL: If you’re a fan of the TV show and you feel the price is a fair one for a chance to live out the experience, go for it. But if you’ve got a fixed entertainment budget and you just want the greatest bang for your immersive entertainment buck, you’re probably better off with a trip to one of London’s many high quality escape rooms (eg Cluequest, Escape Plan, or the Game Is Now, to name a few.)
Vauban's Legacy [Outdoor]Berg GeheimnisEscape roomOther 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.)
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