Dry County

goldenkey

Escape rooms are filling the landscape, springing up in almost every major town and city, but there are still places in the country where they’re yet to arrive. One such place, until recently, was the county of Cumbria. The North West part of the North West of England. Home of the Lake District, it’s perhaps not surprising that the prospect of doing something indoors wasn’t as appealing as elsewhere, at least to people not familiar with the English weather.

At last, though, that wrong is being righted and not one, but two, escape venues are opening up in quick succession, bringing a host of new rooms.

1) In the tiny hamlet of Newby Bridge (so tiny that Wikipedia doesn’t contain a population estimate) Cliffhanger Rooms opened at the very end of June, with their second room following a couple of days later.

In the Pharaoh’s Curse the recent discovery of a pyramid, presumably the resting place of a long-forgotten Pharaoh, has set the world’s imagination afire. Rumours of treasure and unimaginable wealth have been circulating in the media. You assembled a team of leading archaeologists to join you on your mission to reach the inner tomb and discover the identity of this mysterious Egyptian king. Many teams have ventured into the pyramid before, but none have escaped. The mysterious disappearance of these explorers has led many to believe the Pharaoh had his burial chamber cursed. You must discover the inner tomb, identify the Pharaoh, and escape within 60 minutes, or else you too may fall victim to the Pharaoh’s curse!

Their other room, Bank Vault Heist, adds an extra element beyond the usual pass/fail of escape rooms in a similar vein to the Vault at Clue HQ, by encouraging you to spend longer in the room at the risk of getting trapped entirely.  In the game, you are a member of a successful crime syndicate, and your specialty has always been safe cracking. Today, you’ll be facing your greatest challenge yet, as you and your team attempt a heist at the Hatton Garden safe. Your inside man “Basil” has just completed phase one of the heist – he has ensured the building is empty and gained access to the manager’s office, where the door to the vault awaits. He has assessed the situation and has reported that this particular vault is going to be difficult to compromise. Basil has discreetly hidden clues, tools and hints around the office which you will need to complete your job as safe cracker. Basil also reports that he has suspended the security system for 55 minutes. After that amount of time, the alarm will be activated, and you will have 5 minutes from that point to escape before law enforcement arrives. If you do manage to enter the vault, you will have to make a crucial decision: take the available money and run, or stay just a little longer to try to significantly increase your take.

Both rooms can hold 2-6 people and cost £50-96 depending on numbers. According to the website, a third game is in the works.

2) If you thought Newby Bridge was hard to get to, then Barrow-in-Furness is a whole other ball game. In fact, if you want to get there, there’s a decent chance you’ll pass by Cliffhanger Rooms half an hour before arriving in Barrow itself. Escape rooms are often located in places that don’t attract much passing trade so perhaps opening one in a town which isn’t on the way to anywhere isn’t that surprising.

Escape Room Barrow opens tomorrow (possibly even today by the time you read this) with four rooms, including a couple that are new to the UK.

As with all the other franchise locations, Prison Break is part of the line up. Keen readers will have seen the description several times before but for the record, you are locked in a maximum security prison and are awaiting your execution. You were framed by a serial killer and you are now facing charges for a murder. There were multiple attempts to escape from this prison but many people failed and most inmates were either killed or recaptured while others disappeared without a trace, giving hope to inmates that there are ways to escape! You have sixty minutes to escape from the premises and free yourself before the prison guards return.

Manchester is home to the other existing game in the line up, Room 13, supposedly the hardest of the games in their portfolio, where, according to the story, you’re on the way home from a vacation with your family, your car breaks down in the middle of nowhere with no reception to call for help. Seeking shelter from the dark of night, you decide to check yourself and your family in to one of the rural hotels nearby. The elderly caretaker of the run-down hotel informs you that there are no other hotels within walking distance. After checking into one of the rooms, you find a series of rather supernatural things occurring within the room and you have been locked in from the outside. Complete the puzzles within the haunted room to figure out a way to escape within sixty minutes or suffer the wrath of the spirits you have angered.

The third game, claiming to be at an easier level than the other two is The Abandoned Factory. In it, a terrorist known as Dr. Malcolm threatens to blow up various locations in the city unless you will play his twisted riddles and challenges. The intelligence has sources from the informants to locate the hideout place of Dr. Malcolm after the previous bombing attack. Rumor has it that Dr. Malcolm is plotting another bombing and is hiding in an abandoned factory. You have finally located the factory but you are trapped inside while Dr. Malcolm has fled the premises. You have 60 minutes to escape the room before the bomb detonates. The clock is ticking and you have to find the key that leads you to freedom.

Completing the line up, and again at easier end of the scale is Ascension which bares more than a passing similarity to a well known kids’ film. In this game, you are trapped inside a seemingly harmless house after accepting to a request to retrieve an old pilot’s cap with a special badge attached to it from a young boy. However, this particular house owned by a grumpy old man; is strangely filled to the brim with balloons of various shapes, colors, and sizes. You only have 60 minutes to retrieve badge before the house floats away; permanently lifting you off the ground and into the skies.

All games are suitable for 2-6 people and cost £44-90.

So, there you have it. Six more games at two more venues in the North West.

South coast solving

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Escape rooms are popping up along the full length of the English South coast, from Penzance to Margate and many of the places in between. This time round it’s the turn of Margate, Southampton and Hastings to be in the spotlight.

1) OK. Hands up – Margate isn’t strictly the South coast but it’s within a few miles so please don’t be too judgmental.  Clue Cracker opened late last week with a press night on the Friday and a public opening at the weekend. Situated in Dreamland, a century old amusement park that was refurbished last year with public funding, this seems to be following the trend of games opening up adjacent to other entertainment venues. They’ve clearly been working the local press, with articles heralding their arrival  as well as some complimentary comments on Twitter, with the result that they were sold out for their opening weekend. It’s always good to see a successful opening!

Their first (and as yet only) game is Jailbreak where, unsurprisingly, you have to escape from jail. According to the story, “30 years ago, ex-prisoner Terrance Swift attempted to escape Standfast Jail. Over the five years he was held there, he created an elaborate escape plan which, on July 23rd 1986, he executed right up until the final stage when he was caught red handed attempting to steal the Warden’s keys. Unfortunately, prisoner Swift was transferred to a high security unit in Dover, but fortunately for you he has left a trail of intricate clues and codes to help lead you to freedom.

They’ve also produced a series of charming vlogs which cover the last few days before they opened, giving a hint about both the highs and the lows of opening an escape room.

2) It’s a town that people have mainly heard about in the context of history lessons, but Hastings has most definitely joined the modern era with the arrival of its first escape game. Abducted Live is very clearly a horror game whether you read the description, look at the imagery or just take the 18+ warning at face value. It comes in two flavours: the normal (still 18+) 60 minute version or the 90 minute extreme mode. How extreme is the extreme version? Well the website says “The extreme version is very scary and is not recommended for anyone with heart conditions, pregnant women, anxiety, mental health or claustrophobic issues. The environment you will be playing in is like a real life movie set. The environment is intimidating, tense and stressful. You could be living your worst nightmare.“. Sounds pretty extreme…

Beyond that, there’s relatively little on the website, just a brief overview of the game: “Imagine being abducted and locked in a dungeon. Do you wait it out and hope for the best or do you try to escape? This is a cross between the movies Hostel/Saw and the Crystal Maze. Can you solve the puzzles and find the keys to escape the rooms before your captors return? “

If you do want to know more, Scare Tour UK have visited the site and wrote positively about the experience. They’re also running a competition to win tickets (closing date is the end of July).

3) Cyantist have a long history in Bournemouth, at least long by escape room standards, where there have two well received games. They’ve now quietly opened up in the centre of Southampton. Interestingly, they’ve gone one step further than the numerous other places that compare themselves to the Crystal Maze and opened a game bearing that name.

The Crystal Maze is a little different to your average game as it’s not just about escaping the room, but about solving as many puzzles along the way. As the website says: “You are in a room with plenty of puzzles and logic games, you have 60 minutes to solve them, but I can guarantee that there are many more puzzles inside than you can solve in that time. The goal is to solve them and collect as many Crystals as you can. You will need a large variety of skills to prevail in this room. At the end we check how many Crystals you collected, then you can go on the leader board if you were good enough!”

There’s often a temptation to rush through rooms as fast as possible in an attempt to get on the leaderboard or be faster than friends but the trade off is that the room potentially becomes poorer value for money since the team spends less time playing for the same price.  Here, there’s every incentive to rush as you get to play more puzzles for your money. It’s a trend (Bad Clown at Escape Quest, the Vault at Clue HQ and the upcoming Ruby Factory at Trapped In and Million Pound Heist at Enigma Quests) that this site will follow with interest.

Piggy in the Middle

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This article covers three escape rooms that have popped up in the middle of England. At the southern end there’s one in Leicester, at the northern end in Lincoln and stuck halfway between, a veritable piggy in the middle if you will, one has opened in the town of Melton Mowbray, famous for its pork pies. This part of the world has long been under-represented on the Exit Games map, so it’s great to see rooms start to appear.

1) Leicester was fortunate enough to have one of the first escape rooms to open but unfortunate enough to also have one of the first to close. It’s good to finally see that being fixed with the arrival of Escape Asylum who showed that an unsuccessful crowdfunding campaign doesn’t mean the end of the line. Their first game, Hostage sees “you and your team captured, and being held in a Government Safe House. Chained, blindfolded and disoriented, your only chance of survival is to escape before the building self destructs“. The game can accommodate 2-6 players and costs £50-115. Plans are already underway for their second game, Asylum.

2) Lincoln’s new escape room, Tension Exit Games, filled one of the more obvious gaps (area-wise rather than population based) in the English escape room geography. In an unusual step, it’s opened with four rooms containing three separate scenarios.

In Magna Carta, “the Magna Carta has been stolen and is being held ransom. You have one hour to save the Document. Your Mission is to stop the document being destroyed….Follow the trail of clues left by the blackmailer. Solve the mystery and save democracy.”. 

In Time Machine, “an attempt to change the outcome of the First world war has been discovered.  A team of Special Agents has to stop the conspirators going back in history and stealing the plans for “Mother”, the world’s first Tank, designed and built in Lincoln. The conspirators intend to steal the plans and give them to the Germans. Your mission is to disable the time machine before it too late.”

In The Imp, “Great Britain is in mortal danger.  Public enemy number one is trying to release the Lincoln Imp from his stone prison in exchange for his brother (the Imp that escaped) and will use his special powers to destroy our country. Stop the evil genius by following the bizarre clues and save the day.”

All three games hold 2-5 people and cost between £40 and £87.50 depending on occupancy.

3) Over in Melton Mowbray, UK Escape Games has opened up in the Twinlakes theme park with two games, The Nuclear Incident and The Diamond Caper.

In the Nuclear Incident, “the cooling system at a nuclear power plant is failing. The engineer responsible has been acting strangely. Why? Can you find out and stop the whole plant going into meltdown?”

In the Diamond Caper, “You know where the Tuscan diamond is, it’s worth £50 million. It was stolen 100 years ago. It’s a once in a lifetime opportunity to break into the bank and steal one of the rarest diamonds in the world!

UK Escape Games are also in the middle of opening up a second escape venue in the Wheelgate theme park and the super keen may even have noticed a planning application indicative of them targeting a town centre location not too far away as well. Obviously a company that harbours ambitions for growth!

 

Debutants in Derbyshire

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Nothing excites in sport quite as much as the prospect of a derby – the local rivalry between two teams. Hopefully the two escape games that have recently opened in Derbyshire will have a friendlier rivalry than most sports teams and will be giving each other support. Truth be told, while both venues are in the same county, they’re both much closer to other escape rooms so perhaps will forge stronger ties with the neighbouring centres of Nottingham, Sheffield or Mansfield. Only slightly less tenuously, the county’s motto seems particularly appropriate for escape rooms, being “Bene consulendo” or, in English, “By wise deliberation”.

But what of the new games?

1) The first of the pair, Enter. Solve. Conquer. or [ESC] as its friends call it, opened up in May of this year and is located at the northernmost end of the county in Chesterfield. It aims to provide a trio of rooms that combine to tell a bigger story, with the first room, Exposure, seeing you create the antidote for some unspecified outbreak. Games are £15 per person and the room takes 2-6 people. Once they’ve cemented Exposure, they plan to open two further rooms to complete the trio, called Esoteria and Exoneration.

2) Technically, from a governmental point of view, the city of Derby falls outside of the county, being a unitary authority, but from a historic and ceremonial viewpoint it very clearly lies within. Make Your Escape opened in the city just a couple of weeks after [ESC] with a single room entitled The Signal. In it you find yourself entering a seemingly abandoned bunker in pursuit of a distress signal only to find that the bunker isn’t abandoned and you’re not alone. As the tagline says “the truth is in there…”.  The room can admit 2-6 people and costs from £38-84 depending on numbers and timing.

Not content with their first room, they’re already hard at work creating both a second room, Spellbound, and a mobile version of the game, both aimed for late Summer. In correspondence they mention reaching out to experts across Europe to get advice on designing their room which bodes well for their future. Indeed, you may remember reading an article on this site penned by them about the “Up the Game” conference that took place earlier this year. It’s always great to hear of companies engaging with the wider escape room community.

All in all, exciting times in Derbyshire!

Paddington to where?

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Head out from Paddington station and you can get to a lot of escape rooms.  Well, to be honest, you can get to much of South West England and adjacent areas, but sometimes it’s hard to come up with links between geographically close, but not quite close enough escape rooms. This time all the escape rooms in and around Oxford and Reading are being shoehorned into one article. Certainly Newbury and Chippenham are close enough to the two larger population centres to mean a single team could access all of them with under an hour’s travel. That’s good enough for this site to lump them together.

1) City Mazes came on to the scene in Bristol at the end of 2015 but clearly have ambitions to grow rapidly, having already opened in Cardiff and with plans to enter the London market later this year. City Mazes Oxford opens on 28th July and with a variety of surreal game themes.

  • In the Void, “you’ll be dealing with the cosmos. All you’ll need to do is open the void, create a universe and still get out… it’s that simple!”
  • Over in Glass Half Empty, “the room might not look like much on the face of it, but not everything is as it seems. Maybe you’ll find what you’re looking for in this half empty glass.
  • Meanwhile in Hackers’ Paradise, they ask if you’re “feeling confident? Hacker’s Paradise is a complex designed for the gaming enthusiast. One of you is in charge of the control room, the rest must work together to get everyone out.
  • Finally Thinking Ahead is “a room for those captivated by sound and music. With less of a storyline, this game is more an experience that makes gaming beautiful. But be warned, it will be loud!

All the rooms are individually ticketed for between 2 and 10 people at a price of £25 per person.

2) This site has been waiting with baited breath for a long time to see an escape room in Reading but no sooner did one arrive then a second showed itself. Time Trap don’t yet have a permanent venue, but they’re looking to open in September and in the meantime you can play their pop-up room in the Purple Turtle at Reading Fringe on 20/21 July. The game costs £80-120 for 4-6 people.

Their first game is the Dungeon and has a more in depth storyline than your typical escape room. Once your team passes through their time portal you will be “transported back to the darkest days of Medieval Britain… It’s 1432 and the town of Nettlestone, once a bustling and beautiful place, is now ruled with an iron fist by its new leader. Lord Blackthorne, the black-hearted sorcerer driven mad with power, has sentenced Nettlestone to a desolate and dreary existence under the might of his dark magic. It is up to you to locate and steal the ancient pendant that holds the key to his power! You find yourself in the depths of his dungeon, before a maze of tricks and puzzles guarding the mysterious jewel. You must complete your daring heist within the hour and it will take all of your wit and skill to recover the magical pendant. Only then will Lord Blackthorne fall and freedom be restored to the land. Complete your mission and you’ll return to the present day with glory. Fail, and you’ll be trapped inside the walls of Nettlestone, fated to serve Lord Blackthorne forevermore.

3) 11th Hour Escapes opened today in Chippenham which you’ll find if you head all the way along the M4 and stop a little before Bristol. Their first game is the imaginatively named Exit Visa Crisis which has a distinctly musical theme.

In the game you’ll “enter a world of fame and rock and roll! The world renowned band, EXIT VISA, have gone missing, presumed dead, in a plane crash in the Bermuda Triangle. The only copy of their latest album was reported to be onboard. However, the plane crash site has not been found…. What happened to the band? Where is the album? Was it all planned? Can you help quash the rumours of the bands untimely demise and escape the room with the answer?”. The Exit Visa Crisis costs £50-80 for 2-6 people.

4) ExCLUEsive opened back in April with a single room for 3-6 people at £15pp. Other than being located in Newbury (leave London, pass Reading and keep going for a short while), there’s not much more information available on their website so all that this site can tell you is that, based on their TripAdvisor reviews, they’re doing a good job of making their customers happy.  If you’re keen to find out more then you might still be able to pick up their Groupon offer at £44 for a team.

So there you go – four locations, seven different games, all within about an hour’s drive. In fact, why not make a day or weekend of it over the Summer and do an escape room crawl across the lot?

Open Now – Code-X at Leeds Dock

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The name Liz Cable should be familiar to many of the readers of this blog as the driving force behind the first UK escape room unconference, “the Great Escape UK”, that took place earlier this year. She’s also associated with the escape room provider Time Games who have just launched Code-X at Leeds Dock. Given the pedigree, there’s every reason to expect this to be a well executed game. Playtesting finished at the weekend (complete with GoPro videoing – so maybe they’ll release some footage in the future) and previews ran earlier in the week, with one playtester posting an enthusiastic review.

An urban mystery is unfolding on the Southbank at Leeds Dock. During recent renovations of Block E at Leeds Dock the builders broke through the floor and discovered something hidden in the dark beneath. You are part of a specialist team recruited to find out what happened and uncover the truth of what they found buried beneath an office block. Can you decipher the clues, solve the puzzles and discover the secret in time? All is not what it seems in this interactive adventure. Don’t watch the story, live the story.

It costs £88-150 for teams of 4-8 people, although if booking fewer than 8 slots, you may be paired up with other people.  The game is already open and the current run is until mid-August.

Caps Lock: Escape Rooms in London

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Unsurprisingly, given its population, London has the highest number of exit games of any city in the UK, with around 60 rooms, 40 distinct games and 25 venues.  The good news is that there’s no sign of a slowdown in that growth; as a recent post showed, rooms are still popping up and this site would not be surprised if there were a total of 80 rooms by the end of 2016.

Enough of the future, though, let’s look at what’s happened in the recent past. What are the most recent additions to the London scene?

1) One of the companies that languished longest on the “Announced but not yet open” list before making its transition is Archimedes Inspiration, an escape venue that finally launched on 7th March, almost a full year after the website appeared. Their website has a clear map of games for the future, but for now they’ve got a single game, Leo’s Path. The love of a family is life’s greatest blessing. Sometimes we find ourselves miles away from our loved ones and this is also true for Erika. Many years have passed since Erika’s younger brother, Leo, set sail in search of new adventures and no one knows where he is now. Do you have the skills to locate the person everyone has failed to find so far?”

The game takes 2-6 players and costs £65-£152 per team, depending on numbers and timing. With another escape game, Lock’d, in the same complex and their next game, Kill M.A.D., opening later in the Summer, this could soon become the South London destination for escaping.

2) So many enthusiasts talk about designing their own game, and many of the existing companies have been born from enthusiasts taking the plunge. Escape from the Room is a little different though, as it’s part business, part hobby. Many venues are referred to as being located in “South London” when they’re really only a little south of the river, but this one really lives up to that description by being located down in Sutton or, more usefully for the average Londoner, Zone 5 of the Underground.

They’ve got just a single game at present, the Curse of Old Maid Milly, where you have to “escape from the room where Milly died mysteriously after living as a recluse for many years. But something is stopping Milly’s soul from resting in peace. Locked in her room with others in your party, you will all need to work together to unravel the mystery that will ultimately set you free, all the while wondering if Milly is still in the room with you.”. Games cost £65 for a team of 2-5 although they recommend a maximum of 5.

3) Omescape is an international franchise that has been slowly migrating its way eastwards from China. With venues in San Francisco, San Jose, New York and Canada, not to mention twenty locations in China, the London operation was always going to be able to churn out escape games fast, so it was not particularly surprising when it went from being closed to having three games (plus a duplicate) in a couple of months.

In Joker’s Asylum, “the Joker was once the pride of his circus, but after troubles started, he left and locked himself away in a mysterious asylum created by him and his doctor. It became his paradise, slowly magnifying his insanity. One day, The Joker decided to leave the asylum to plan his revenge. Before his doctor could leave a diary with the Joker’s secrets, he vanished. Now you are tasked with unraveling the mystery before The Joker finds you.”. The game is for 4-6 people.

In the Penitentiary, “One of the most infamous serial killers in American history, Water White, AKA the “Night Stalker,” was reported dead of natural causes last year. According to rumours, another prisoner had discovered a mysterious machine in the cell of “Night Stalker”, and he then disappeared a few days later. You wake up one day, and find yourself locked in a cramped cell. You are cold and alone. Silence surrounds you. Suddenly, you realize this is the mysterious cell where the “Night Stalker” died. You heart is pounding . No matter if this is a game, you know your only goal is to escape”. This game takes 4-7 players.

In Biohazard Laboratory, of which there are two copies, “the New York Police Department has just obtained information that Dr. Snake has a secret underground lab hidden in the sewage system of the city. Dr. Snake has been researching the development of a new neurotoxin, which could cause great harm to the residents of the city. Your task is to enter the sewage system, locate the laboratory and find a cure to the neurotoxin”. This game can hold 3-5 people.

All three rooms costs £49 plus £10 per person (noting that minimum occupancy means it’s at least £79 for the cheapest game)

4) Newest on the London scene is Mission Breakout which opened in Camden Town on 2 July. The venue itself is part of the disused South Kentish Town underground station and long term will support four games, although they don’t expect to open extra games until next year.

For the rest of 2016 they’ve got a single game, Codebreakers, which they describe as “a mind blowing script based on the extraordinary true story of the very confidential Codebreakers! Will you be able to decode the secret messages of the Nazis, escape the room and save the World?”. The game is for up to 6 people and costs £84-96 depending upon timing. It may hold the title of the latest game you can play in the capital with the final scheduled game starting at 11pm.

5) Back in February of this year, reviews for Escape Games London started appearing on TripAdvisor, but then all went silent until recently.  The good news is that they’ve just reopened their doors, as of mid-June, and are running a Groupon offer where you can play their first game for under £15 per person. Situated on the river in the south of the City, it’s easy access for the corporate market and it’s clear from their website that they’re very much aiming for that business.

In their first game, Escape the Theatre, “you are a VIP guest attending a film premiere taking place in an exclusive 300 seat cinema in the heart of Westminster. As one of just 30 guests, you have been invited in early to hear the Director talk about the making of the film – ‘The Image of Sarah’. You take your front row seats when suddenly the lights in the cinema go out! An announcement is made asking all guests to stay seated and remain calm! The lights are restored but the power has tripped and the doors to the cinema remain locked. The film projector switches on and the screen comes to life. But all is not right, the film has been replaced with a furious message from lead actress – Margo De’Ath. The stage is set…”

The game holds 30 people in two teams of 15 with tickets normally costing £30pp.  The game lasts a relatively short 45 minutes and tickets can be purchased individually.

6) Finally, on 18th June it was time for the last teams to exit the Oubliette as the lease on their venue expired. Escape from New Pelagia had a brief but, by all accounts, popular life and virtually every slot was sold out for the last few weeks. While it’s always sad to say goodbye to escape rooms, there is at least a silver lining this time as subsequent conversations suggest that Enter the Oubliette haven’t hung up their gloves for good. Watch this space.

Escaping the roundabouts: Milton Keynes’ escape games

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For a long time Milton Keynes was one of the big untapped locations in the UK so it came as no surprise to find out that two venues were starting up in parallel back in March of this year. Interestingly, they’ve taken a slightly different approach for drawing in the customers, with one going for town centre accessibility while the other has opted for proximity to a tourist attraction to draw the crowds in.

1) Room Escape Milton Keynes opened  on 10th March in the centre of the town with a single room, Decipher the Voynich:  Chief Librarian, Valery Ulanovsky, has got hold of a classified document which has the state secret. He has kept this in a room at his apartment. Mr Ulanovsky is scheduled to fly to The Republic of Tyrania in four hours. He has gone out to meet a secret agent and the meeting will last an hour. Players are from the Detective Agency and they have to find the documents and escape the room within the hour.

The room costs £49-99 for a team of 2-6 players but if you sign up quickly you can bag the Groupon offer for only £44 for a team of five.

2) A Great Escape opened almost exactly a week later out on the outskirts of the town in Bletchley Park, home of the famous codebreakers and a site of ever-growing interest. Located directly across from the Nation Museum for Computing, they’re inhabiting Block E which was part of the Government Code and Cipher School. Unsurprisingly, given the location, they’ve gone for a codebreaking theme to their initial room:

In 1987 GCHQ’s Central Training School moved from Bletchley Park to Culmhead. A small group of cryptographers remained within Bletchley under orders to uphold National Defence through intercepting and deciphering intelligence. This department became the “Bletchley National Defence Cybersecurity Unit” in 2010. Just recently, one of the cryptographers uncovered a threat to the Government network and was horrified to realise the traitor was in her team! She narrowed the suspects down to five people, but she has now mysteriously disappeared! You have one hour to complete her work and stop the attack!

The room can hold 2-6 people and games cost £40-78 depending on numbers and the time of booking.