Battle of the Brands

Boxing Glove[Correction: in the original version of this article, Escape was said to have 20 rooms open. This didn’t include the two escape rooms at its Noughts and Coffee branch in Edinburgh. This has now been fixed below]

Escape rooms in the UK and Ireland range from single room locations up to multi-site brands and everything in between. With over 400 rooms and 170+ venues, it’s no surprise that we’re starting to see some brands starting to really spread across the countries. Whether you prefer the “boutique” escape rooms, doing a single room incredibly well, or the mass-market companies that are perfecting how to deliver escape rooms across several locations, it’s fascinating to see what the movers and shakers are in the UK.

The analysis below is based on the room list here and will likely be out of date within a few days even if it were correct at the time of publishing. Any corrections gratefully received by email or in the comments below.

What’s the biggest brand?

Quantity isn’t necessarily more important than quality but, in terms of being a profitable company, it surely has  to help. There are four main contenders for biggest operator in the UK and Ireland, all of them with approximately twenty rooms, although the number of locations varies significantly. Note that this totally ignores any venues outside of the UK/Ireland which would change the picture significantly given that some major international brands have opened in the UK.

Escape sneaks the title for most rooms with 22, but are the clear leaders  on the venue front with nine. They opened the doors of their first location during May 2014 and have been growing steadily ever since, opting for large numbers of small venues. From their first location in Edinburgh to their most recent opening in Doncaster, they have never opened more than three games simultaneously in one site.
Breakout Breakout, spread across four locations sit just a single room behind with a total of 21. There must have been something special during May 2014 because they opened their first room the same month as Escape and have been steadily growing, developing new rooms and new venues, with two in their home town of Manchester, one over in Liverpool and their latest franchise opening in Cardiff just a couple of months ago. It seems that their model is to go after sizable venues in major cities with a good potential audience.
Sitting right behind those sites, ready to pounce, are Clue HQ and The Escape Room, both with 19 rooms:
Clue HQ Clue HQ started life in Warrington, just a month after Breakout and Escape, and grew steadily at that site before taking the plunge with their first franchise after almost a year. Since then, they’ve been driving forward opening their sixth venue back in June. They’ve generally gone for medium sized population centres but the site sizes vary hugely. One particular strand they seem to be following is co-locating with laser tag – that’s true of their Sunderland, Blackpool and Glasgow sites.
The Escape Room The Escape Room is the only one of the top four which didn’t start life in Britain, instead opening its doors initially in Malaysia. It was also a relatively late developer here with the first room only opening in early 2015 in Manchester. Since then it’s spread its wings to Preston, Newcastle-under-Lyme and Barrow-in-Furness, seemingly favouring smaller population centres after that initial opening. As you might expect with an international brand that has plenty of rooms in its portfolio, there’s a huge variety of games on offer although Prison Break is a firm favourite, being present at all of the local venues.

What other companies are there?

Those four companies are way out in the lead (no other companies have even reached double digits) but there are still plenty of interesting franchises out there.

Locked in a Room Locked in a Room are a fascinating company because they have just two distinct games but, with four copies of each, they sit quite high on the rankings with 8 rooms. What makes them even more interesting is that, in the next couple of weeks, they’ll be opening 13 rooms in the ExCel centre in London (which will become the biggest UK venue), bringing their total up to 21 and seeing them tied with Breakout for first place. It seems unbelievable that a company with just two locations and two games could have a total of 21 rooms.
Tick Tock Unlock Tick Tock Unlock have four venues across the UK and a total of nine rooms across them with a clear preference for large cities – Liverpool, Manchester, Glasgow and Leeds. There must have been something special about May 2014 because this is yet another major brand that opened their first room during that month.
Breakout Games Breakout Games (not to be confused with the Breakout mentioned above) opened in Aberdeen first before expanding to Inverness. They rotate their rooms rapidly which is probably not surprising in relatively small locations but still manage to have a total of nine rooms open.
clueQuest The final company with nine rooms is clueQuest – the second oldest game in Great Britain and already on its third different location. Having started life in the relative outskirts of London, it’s moved towards the centre, finally alighting in a single venue in Kings Cross.

Other smaller companies of interest include:

  • City Mazes (eight rooms across three venues but two more imminent in Oxford and maybe more)
  • the Panic Room (about to open a third venue and potentially a total of nine rooms)
  • Handmade Mysteries (only four rooms, but spread across three different venues)
  • Xscape Reality (five rooms in a single venue but plans to open in a couple of other cities soon)

And that’s about it. Inevitably some interesting companies will have missed out on a mention here – this site tries hard not to play favourites but a line has to be drawn somewhere. Apologies if you feel that your favourite company deserved a mention here and didn’t get one. Feel free to leave a comment below to explain why!

 

New rooms from the newsroom

The NewsroomSeveral sites have refreshed their line-ups recently; others have just plan expanded. Here are details of the new rooms at existing sites that Exit Games UK has found recently. If your new room is missing, please let Exit Games UK know and the list shall grow longer.

  • Let’s go very roughly north to south, so that this way the list can start with a site with two new rooms. Breakout Games Aberdeen of the Granite City have overhauled their offering to introduce a pair of new treats for 2016. The Amazon has opened with a bang to become the most challenging game on site and is not recommended for beginners. “Plunged into the depths of the Amazon your team are charged with finding a priceless ancient artifact in an escape room filled with twists, turns and surprises. Will you be lost in the jungle for all eternity?” The two Lock and Key rooms have been replaced with two Deadlock rooms, enabling teams to race against each other: “DEADLOCK is the perfect escape game to introduce new groups to escape games in a race against the clock! With two identical escape rooms of DEADLOCK teams of 12 can race to escape completing exactly the same puzzles. With riddles, codes to crack and some twists and turns along this way this new puzzle is fantastic fun with a three star difficulty rating!” The site is also installing two identical copies of Black and White in March, which will make it one of the biggest sites in the land.
     
  • Down to Newcastle where Lost and Escape were feeling excited on Facebook about their new room, The Dungeon. Follow that link for the pictures; the story for the room suggests that “You accidentally went into an ancient house. The door of the house is a time machine, which brought you back to the 1900s. You found strange symbols everywhere. The only way to go back is to get the key in 60 minutes. The person who runs out of time will be locked in the past. Can you travel back successfully?
     
  • Next to Manchester where Breakout Manchester have added their ninth room, this one in their High Street offshoot. In Most Wanted, Ray Cokes chats with production and viewers while introducing… oh, not that Most Wanted. “It’s another race to escape although this time the bigger reward you collect, the higher up on the leaderboard you will go! ((…)) Think of yourselves as Bounty Hunters of the Wild West breaking in to a Saloon in search of loot! Make sure you’re out by the time the Sheriff returns, even if it means leaving some of your riches behind, or you’ll end up spending the night in a cell as Breakout Manchester’s Most Wanted!” There have been rooms which award scores in the past; sometimes scores can be analogues for solving time, as the longer you spend cracking the pre-scoring puzzles, the less time you have to work on the additional challenges which determine your score. Here, it’s clear; “Time is important to your game… but the reward means more to your team!
     
  • At the south end of Greater Manchester, Code to Exit of Altrincham have now opened their second room full-time. In The Test, which they describe on Facebook as being without keys, padlocks or furniture, “An alien life force has been experimenting with the human DNA. They tempered with few of us and mixed their genes with ours. You are being abducted to complete the tests and find out if it was successful. Are you intelligent enough to represent our species? If you pass you will be set free.” The site have also suggested that their third game is only two or three months away and will feature quite an unusual theme that this site is looking forward to. Code to Exit now offer discounts to people booking off-peak, to students and to birthday parties; they also offer team-building days during office hours as well.
     
  • Bristol is apparently further north than Gravesend by scant seconds of latitude, so Puzzlair have announced that they are taking bookings for their fifth room, The Poltergeist Room, which opens next week in their Puzzlair 2 location. “A widow lived in this room with her daughter, and suddenly they disappeared. Every once in a while people seen the silhouette of a woman walking around in the rooms. The players have to find out the reason behind the disappearance and also produce a successful ghost exorcism in order to escape the room in 60 minutes.
     
  • The Panic Room of Gravesend are running their current room for another week and a half, then will be taking a few days off to change it over to The Witch House, running in March and April. “Our next mystery begins with a student who rents a room inside an old house with a long and dark history. His dreams are haunted by those of a Witch from the town’s legend. During the witch trials of 1692 she disappeared never to be seen again. It’s 11pm and your team has been sent to help the poor student uncover the mystery that lies within the room. What happened to the witch? Can you break the curse before the clock strikes midnight?” Eek!
     
  • Salisbury Escape Rooms write to say “Since initially opening at Easter 2015 with the Magna Carta challenge, in October 2015 we changed the theme to Murder in the Museum. Players are met and briefed by a detective then led to the reception of the Salisbury Smithsonian Museum. A body has been found and a suspect is in custody. Police have one hour left to either charge him or release him. The team are required to find the missing evidence and get out within the hour. The new game, again designed, built and run by retired detectives is proving to be very popular. Tripadvisor reviews have been excellent and several teams who have completed many escape rooms have said that this is the best they have done!
     
  • Lastly to Exeter where Mission Escape have added a third room, with more promised to launch this year. This one is deliberately designed to cater for teams of no more than four players. In the Pharaoh’s Anger room, you must “Make your way through the tomb of the Kings… be careful not to disturb the dead. Align the Celestial bodies to release you from the Pharaoh’s wrath or be entombed forever“. Nobody wants that!

Early February 2016 news round-up

News round-upTime for an assortment of links and news stories.

  • Congratulations to The Gr8 Escape of Belfast for announcing their recent award from Acquisition International, earning the Best Creative Corporate Activities Company title for Belfast. Escape Live of Birmingham also announced that they are a finalist in the Midlands Business Awards; looks like it’s in the Service Provider of the Year (up to £1m) section. Best of luck for the 26th!
  • That’s not all the Escape Live news, though. Tomorrow night, i.e. the evening of Friday 12th February, sees them host “((…)) a date night with a quirky twist ((…)) hoping to strike the city’s singletons with cupid’s arrow by hosting a mass double date at the venue – inviting them not just on a search for the puzzles’ answers, but for love too. The venue is hoping to attract couples of single friends on Friday, February 12, for a date night which will include meeting other single couples of friends as they work together to escape each room. Manager Jordan Ladley said: ‘Valentine’s Day for couples is one of the most exciting and fun days of the year, but what about those who don’t have someone to share it with? ((…)) Throughout the evening we’re inviting up to eight couples of friends to join us for a mass blind double date as we enter them into each room on a quest to crack the codes and escape. But who knows what – or who – else you might find while on the frantic search for answers!’” Very cute gimmick; Exit Games UK hopes it works out well for them.
  • Breakout Games of Aberdeen and Inverness have suggested that they will be featured in a TV show about a collaborative hiring process. That sounds dry, but the practice is much more fun than the theory. Candidates try out for a regional manager position at hipster craft brewer BrewDog, but are unaware that it’s their potential subordinates – rather than their potential bosses – who’ll be assessing whether they’re a good fit for the company. Will the exit game experience show the candidates at their interview-prepared best or what they’re really like when the pressure’s on? Time will tell!
  • Also in Scotland, Exit Plan Edinburgh got in touch and suggested that they’re offering a 25% discount this month. A little unusually, the site is not too strict about applying their nominal sixty-minute time limit, and have happily posted pictures of teams who have extracted the maximum value from their game by taking several tens of minutes more than that to get out with the Tesla Cube.
  • Lastly, to the cool links. Liz Cable of Time Games, organiser of the recent unconference in Leeds, is leading a workshop on Sunday 6th March at the Courthouse Words festival in Otley on How to create a puzzle room in a box. Given the quick but fun boxes of tricks in play at the unconference, this should be a treat.
  • The Escape Rooms Master directory site are asking site owners to fill in this five-minute questionnaire. The results of the survey should be extremely interesting – and the more responses, the more representative the survey.
  • A review site based on the Eastern Seaboard of the US, Escape Clues, has made a well-regarded post simply entitled Why Some Escape Rooms Rock! – and Others Suck! Indeed so; neat comparisons and contrasts between desirable and undesirable properties in various categories.

One door closes, many more open

Closed blue doorimage credit: Closed Door via free images (license)

Today is not the worst day in the world to have woken up unexpectedly early, for live entertainment includes following the #egc15 hashtag on Twitter for discussion of the Escape Games Convention in progress. Apparently there are around a hundred attendees, which is impressive. Fingers firmly crossed for more to come!

Some sad news: a single-line announcement points to the closure of Guess-House of Bradford. It’s not immediately clear whether the shuttering will be temporary or permanent, but signs point to fearing the worst. The site’s Facebook posted nine team photos over its summer run; how many other teams there were who went unpictured cannot be known. This site will remember the location for offering players the ability to play solo, an innovation in this country that does crop up as a player request from time to time, though it’s not clear if that option was taken up in practice.

One piece of sad news, but many more pieces of happy news. The best palate-cleanser of all is that Breakout Games of north-east Scotland posted that this weekend they will be donating all the profits that their Aberdeen and Inverness locations generate to Medecins Sans Frontieres, whose Doctors Without Borders provide medical aid where it is needed most around the world. Kudos to them, and yet another good reason to go and play there. Breakout Games aren’t the first exit game to run such charity days and hopefully won’t be the last!

This site has long thought that Wales is one of the larger gaps in the market for exit games and is following the progress of the pre-launch Escape Rooms Cardiff with interest, even before it gets its web site going. However, it’s certainly not the only such project in Wales; Breakout Live Swansea has a venue in mind, a planning application under way and coverage from the local press (twice!) already. Very promising, especially with the news of the founder’s electronics background.

This site has also touched on the work of Fire Hazard, the energetic games company best known for City Dash, a running-sneaking-and-finding-checkpoints urban turbo-orienteering game. On balance this site considered City Dash to be a little too running-y to be quite its taste, though it was delighted to see that the game had been transported to Edinburgh for the Festival and praised by Can You Escape?. However, the latest flavour of City Dash is called Code Red, and there’s a clue in the title. Conversation in person at the Wellcome Collection’s recent Play Spectacular, followed up on Twitter (with thanks to Ken!) suggests that “We added a few extra hard checkpoints to the new series, so puzzlers have another way to get an edge on runners“. That’s the sort of thing to get this site interested!

New games at existing sites

Wanted: Chris ExitThat rough, tough hombre (who is unexpectedly as thin as a pin and nearly ugly enough to be realistic) is one of the characters you might see referenced in Breakout Liverpool‘s new Wanted room. It’s a single room, but you must specify in advance whether you want to play as the Cowboys or the Indians in this Wild West-themed room. Depending on which one you pick, you’ll face different tasks and puzzles. Whichever you pick – and why not play it twice, once as either side? – your team of 2-5 will have one hour to escape.

Agent November of London have added a third game. In contrast to their outdoor Major X-Plowshun and Rainbow Syndicate games, this is a murder mystery game: “You think you have come to solve a murder, only to realise too late that you are the victim! You have only 60 minutes before the poison takes hold, and you must identify the murderer and find the antidote before it’s too late!” Distinctively, this game is bundled with a meal – so as well as paying for the game, the tickets include a £13/head surcharge for the meal. That’s far from a bad price for London, though it’s tempting to wonder what the menu is.

Breakout Games Aberdeen are retooling their Lock and Key game; previously they had two V75 rooms and one Lock and Key, they are now transitioning to one enhanced V75 (and there must be good reason why it hasn’t been renamed V76), two new Lock and Key games – and there’s the exciting prospect of the addition of a fourth game, Black Gold, relevant to Aberdeen’s oil and gas heritage. This will be a game for 4-8 players rather than the usual 2-6 and will have an 80-minute time limit rather than the usual sixty. Pricing has not yet been revealed, but it sounds like a monster of a game!

Exit games in the news

"Daily News" newspaperThere have been several more interesting news stories recently about exit games, well worth a round-up:

  • Most recently, The Guardian had an overview of the genre, with a focus on the games available in Toronto. The article claims that there are 37 facilities, so clearly it was written quite some while before it was published, but it’s enthusiastic (if slightly spoiler-y) and in the right spirit.
  • Living North magazine’s edition relating to the north-east of England had a really enthusiastic piece about their trip to Escape Newcastle, with four different perspectives showing how much the game can be enjoyed whether you might consider yourself a natural puzzle fan or not.
  • From the north-east of England to the north-east of Scotland, the Evening Express of Aberdeen had one of the better-informed preview articles that this site has seen about the then-upcoming Breakout Games Aberdeen, which seems to have got off to an excellent start. Good to find out a little about the story that inspired the couple to start their site.
  • Towards the other end of the country, the Salisbury Journal had a preview piece for the upcoming Salisbury Escape Rooms, set to launch towards the end of the month. As the piece says, The attraction in Salisbury is believed to be the only one set up by real detectives who have spent their careers investigating crime as Wiltshire Police officers – now that is quite a distinctive claim to fame!
  • Further afield, the ARGNet web site approach the genre from a different starting-point and take a very broad perspective of not just exit games but other related puzzling pursuits and associated adventures that came beforehand.
  • The famous CNET tech site also have an introduction to the genre, but emphasise one particular site in Sydney’s particular approaches to hinting that help people stay in-character and go into detail over way that site integrates digital and physical gameplay. Lots to think about!

Sites’ preview articles and more general overviews of the genre are two of the more common formats for mass media coverage, so this site won’t attempt to list them all; however, these were some of the most interesting examples of their type, as well as offering good examples of how sites can get their names around quickly.

Going head-to-head

"Head to head" graphicA part of the exit game experience that some people particularly like is the ability for your team to compete against another team. This survey only considers sites where two teams can play (practically) identical copies of the same room at the same time; there are several other sites with two or more rooms where two teams can start different games at the same time, though the result must always be in doubt as the “our room was harder” excuse can always be in play. In alphabetical order:

  • Agent November of London: the FAQ suggests that two teams of up to seven can play the Rainbow Syndicate game against each other.
  • Breakout Games Aberdeen: this brand new site has two identical units of Lock and Key.
  • Breakout Manchester: two identical Classified rooms have very recently been opened.
  • clueQuest of London: there are currently two Operation Blacksheep rooms and three PLAN52 rooms. One exciting development is that this famous site is moving in early March to a new location near King’s Cross St. Pancras; the new location will open with two of each of the games, but who knows how this might change over time?
  • Escape of Edinburgh, Glasgow and Newcastle: each location has two copies of their classic Live Escape Game room. The booking page might suggest that games start with a 15-minute stagger, but the sites are happy to set both teams going at the same time.
  • Escape Hour of Edinburgh: there are two identical Major Plott’s Revenge rooms. The man evidently gets around.
  • The Escape Hunt Experience of London: this site takes this to another level, permitting head-to-head-to-head-to-head play for Kidnapping in the Living Room and Murder in the Artist’s Bedroom, and head-to-head play for Theft from the Lab.
  • ESCAP3D of Dublin: the Dublin location has two identical rooms, though the Belfast location has only a single room.
  • HintHunt of London: here there are John Monroe’s Office games (one of which has a slightly staggered start time) and two Zen Room games for you to compete on.

Errors and omissions excepted, as ever, and corrections and additions are most welcome. It’s tempting to wonder whether rooms might ever be able to customise head-to-head rooms’ contents to something brand new to try to create some sort of elimination tournament, though it’s difficult to be surprised by the contents of the same room more than once!

Around the World: a US hunt playable around the world?

South Carolina state map(South Carolina image courtesy of mapsof.net, published under a Creative Commons licence.)

Life gets in the way for a few days and all of a sudden there’s a little backlog of exciting news to post…

The happiest news of the day is good reason to turn two more dots on the map from red to yellow as Breakout Games Aberdeen have announced that they’re taking their first customers today and Crack the Code Sheffield previously suggested that today would be the day on which they will be taking their first customers. (There are TripAdvisor reports for the site already, so perhaps they have had a soft launch already?)

Last year, this site briefly covered the University of South Carolina puzzle hunt, which has been an annual fixture since 2012. Registration is now open; the hunt’s informational page suggests that “Remote teams and members are still welcomed in this Hunt. On the registration form, please indicate that you are playing remotely, and more information will be provided to you“, and an article on last year’s event reported that “Twenty of this year’s teams were composed of USC students, but the remaining teams were remote, and came from as far as China and the United Kingdom.” Fair game, in that case! On each of the five days of the first week of the hunt, a set of puzzles will be released, along with a metapuzzle derived from those puzzles’ answers, with the overall hunt solution derived in turn. You can get a better idea of the hunt’s form from the 2014 puzzles and the 2013 puzzles as well. (Ooh, they had an Only Connect event as part of the 2013 hunt as well! Excellent.)

Lastly, Iain points out that 25 cities across the United States will be having one-day revivals of the old Lobby Lud gimmick this week! To celebrate the start of the second series of NBC’s The Blacklist, lookalikes of the show’s lead character will be deploying themselves across the US between Monday 2nd February and Thursday 5th February then posting clues to their whereabouts to social media. The first three to find each lookalike and whisper the phrase that pays stand to win hundreds of dollars. Sadly South Carolinians will have to travel north and cross the state border to either Charlotte or Raleigh in order to play!

If you’re not in the US but still feel like making some money, don’t forget Quiz The Nation on Sunday evening; download the free app and get tokens letting you play your first few quizzes at no charge. The competition was bigger in week two than week one, but not wildly so, though the standard of top competitors is getting higher. First place pays £1,000, second to tenth and spot prize winners all claim £50 or more, and eleventh to fiftieth win tokens to play further games for free.

Coming soon to Aberdeen: Breakout Games Aberdeen

Breakout Games Aberdeen logoThis site recently had the joy of adding a new location all the way down in Plymouth to the map; now this site can take joy in reporting a new location all the way up in Aberdeen. The two sites are something like 475 miles away from each other as the crow flies – but, in practice, that tricky Bristol Channel gets in the way, not to mention the Firth of Forth, and you can’t drive it in less than as few as 600. Maybe Great Britain’s not so small after all.

Yesterday, Breakout Games Aberdeen (which has no connection to Breakout Manchester, similar to the way in which none of the sites whose names evoke great escapes are connected) launched its exciting web site, bringing exit games further north in the UK than ever before. Breakout Games Aberdeen will be launching with two identical Lock & Key rooms, for head-to-head challenges are a very popular part of the exit game experience, and an additional V75 game as well. Both rooms have 60 minute time limits and are designed for teams of two to six.

For now, booking is by e-mail or phone; the first 25 to call and quote “Launch!” will get 25% off their first game – and most of these 25 discounted spaces have gone already! The first date still available is on Tuesday 17th February. Pricing is very attractive even without the 25% discount; couples play for £22 each, but the price for larger teams drops rapidly; trios are charged £18 each, with parties of four, five and six being charged £15 per player, £13 per player and £11 per player respectively.

Lock & Key invites you to “Step into the ordinary with an extraordinary twist; using your problem solving and code breaking skills your team will try and locate the combination to a safe containing the key to your freedom. With cleverly disguised clues, hidden objects and a massive variety of puzzles our “Lock & Key” game will challenge you all“. Alternatively, in V75, “Your team of budding scientists are locked in the laboratory of the mad professor T. The professor has created a new strain of a deadly virus “V75” and has wicked plans to spread the virus worldwide. There is one antivirus, locked in a safe in the laboratory. Can your team of scientists crack the codes and escape in time to administer the cure? Will the fate of mankind be sealed just like the locked door between you and freedom?

The people behind Breakout Games Aberdeen have a demonstrated history of providing excellent customer service, with their Battle Grounds site earning reviews to be envied. You can play paintball, airsoft, outdoor laser tag or archery at Battle Grounds; basically, if you can fire it, you can do so at their site. (Interesting industry, and quite probably one with lessons for the exit game industry.) Their success there propelled them to the final three in the “Spirit of Enterprise” category in the 2013 Grampian Awards for Business Excellence. Excellent news; while it can’t offer any judgement about the new rooms, it can give players confidence that these people clearly know what they’re doing!

Looking ahead to 2015: new exit games and new rooms

Red "Coming Soon!" ink stampThis site has already looked forward to puzzle events and puzzle competitions that it knows about for 2015, though even since then there have already been two additions to the calendar. So what developments are planned for 2015 on the exit room side of things?

NEW SITES

The Escape Room Manchester opens on 15th January, and bookings are still available for day one if you want to play Prison Break or The Secret Lab there; if you want to play Slaughter House, The Mummy or Room 13 then you’ll have to wait a day or two longer. As well as having five exciting-looking games to choose from, as previously discussed, the prospect of what the site might stage at its exclusive bar is an enticing one. The discount code ESCAPE20 will earn you 20% off your booking!

A little later, a holding page announces that a new business called Clue Finders is set to open on 22nd January, though no location has yet been made public. This site looks forward to further announcements and learning more when information becomes available. Additionally, a recent announcement that the official launch of the Breakout Games Aberdeen web site is imminent also tantalises; the location in Aberdeen has been posted as a teaser and this site eagerly anticipates finding out the specifics. As the announcement says, “There will be a launch offer to celebrate the new opening so keep a keen eye on the Facebook page for more information coming very soon“.

Slightly later still, this site has already looked forward to the launch of The Mystery Cube in Wimbledon. Bookings are not yet available but the statement on the site that “Cube Missions between 24th January – 7th February are half-price! Simply use the coupon code: MYSTERY CUBE” goes a long way towards setting people’s expectations. No connection with Phillip Schofield, but this site looks forward to giving the game a trial run.

NEW ROOMS

As previously announced, Breakout Manchester suggested about three weeks ago that they will be opening their fifth room, Infiltrate, in mid-January. As it stands, it’s already been quite heavily booked and the earliest that you can still book to play it is a single slot available on January 20th. The site also posted a job advertisement on Gumtree which hints at further developments to follow. It’s going to be an exciting year for them.

Clue HQ have recently leaked a series of teaser images leading up to a big announcement of their plans to launch a third room; it’s worth browsing around the in-character National Bank of Money site to get more of a feel for the world in which this game’s story is set, and this site’s interview with Clue HQ proprietor Stuart Rowlands reveals a little more. It’s clear that many people are eagerly awaiting this!

Tick Tock Unlock posted an exciting start-of-the-year message reflecting on the progress they have made in their first seven months or so of business. (It’s great to hear that they have attracted players from 6 to 91 years of age, for instance!) They would have a strong claim, by a number of metrics, to be the most successful single-room site in the country. The message concludes “(…)keep your eyes peeled as we will have some very exciting news to share shortly“; always great to read!

This site will be keeping an eye out for new games and new rooms and will take delight in bringing the news to you when it can. It’s always fun to be surprised when new games take off and turn out to have been running for a while already before the word got this way; who knows when that will happen next?