Pudding LaneCronologicEscape roomIRLGreat set decoration with terrific use of historical detail. Excellent puzzle flow as well. I have to give a special nod to our GM Jack, who was clearly watching closely-- he gave exactly the right nudges at exactly the right times. And he was knowledgable and passionate about the game as well. Also, I want to praise the game for giving us the best set of flashlights I've encountered in an escape room. They were small and lightweight but very bright. I wish other rooms with atmospheric lighting would follow their lead! (I realise that’s a small, almost trivial detail, but it’s indicative of the overall attention to detail that made this room so great.) All in all, one of my favorite games in the UK.
Magician's WorkshopEscape Room HerndonEscape roomIRLAn outstanding room with excellent puzzle flow. Great fun, and we’ll definitely be returning to this venue.
Demise of the GricersEnteredEscape roomIRLVERY 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.)
Disparue [Missing]Enigma-TicEscape roomIRLThis 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.
The Non BelieversYour EscapeEscape roomIRLJust an incredible technical creation— I was immersed in the world of the game and lost all sense of time and place. Great theatrical use of lighting and sound.
Le PrinceEscaping BelgiumEscape roomIRLThe setting was beautiful, with a wonderful attention to detail. The puzzles, though, ranged from "pretty good" to "frustrating and a little arbitrary."
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.)
AvalancheMaze Rooms - Robertson BlvdEscape roomIRLFirst off, shame on Maze Rooms for spamming the Morty reviews of this game. There are multiple reviews praising this game in similarly vague (and in some cases word-for-word identical) language. They’re generally written by people who haven’t reviewed a single other game— or who, coincidentally, have only reviewed other Maze Room games in very similar language. It makes me sad to see an escape room company abusing the trust and good will of the community, and it makes me reluctant to go back to Maze Rooms. 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. If you scroll down past the numerous spam reviews of this game, you’ll notice a lot of complaints about the room’s disjointed storyline. I think I understood what Maze Room were going for, and I appreciate the fact that they were trying something different, but 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 Million Pound HeistEnigma Quests - ShoreditchEscape roomIRLA fun game that might have seemed groundbreaking when it opened circa 2016. Although it is well maintained and nothing is broken, some of the puzzles feel a little dated— a bit too much combing through text on printed pieces of paper at the start. But it builds nicely.
In Flanders FieldsAtrium MortisEscape roomIRLAlthough this has one TERPECA nomination, it isn't talked about as much as some of Belgium's bigger and flashier games. I think that's a shame. The set isn't massive but it's great fun to explore, and it's beautifully designed and suits the theme. The puzzles were solid and I appreciated them even more when I learned that the owner had based some of them on actual codes used in WWI. All in all, I think this is well worth playing.
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