A class act: Classified comes to Breakout Manchester

Breakout Manchester's "Classified"The exit game scene may be even more exciting in the north-west than it is in London right now, what with this week’s exciting launch at The Escape Room Manchester and expansion forthcoming at Clue HQ. Four weeks ago, Breakout Manchester announced that they would be opening their fifth room, which is coming into the closing stages of construction; that’s not all they’re up to!

Today, they made a bigger announcement that they will be launching their sixth and seventh rooms, which are available for booking on Thursdays to Sundays from Saturday 31st January onwards. “For the first time ever at Breakout Manchester, you can race against friends in an identical game room. You can prove once and for all who is the best at breaking out! If you wish to do this please book two sessions on the website that start at the same time. You do not have to have a team to race against, this game can be played as a stand alone game.

Ever fancied yourself as James Bond, Jack Bauer, Jason Bourne, Lara Croft, Virginia Hall or Mata Hari? This is your chance to see if you are good enough. The Classified room sees players sitting their final entrance exam to become a secret agent. You must escape from the room to pass the exam. This is Breakout’s most explosive and technologically advanced room yet!

The main Breakout Manchester site is full to the brim with five different games; both of the new games will take place a short distance away from the main venue in what might be considered to be, no pun intended, a breakout space. The rooms are referred to as Classified 1 and Classified 2 and differ only in being coded with (City?) blue and (United?) red graphics respectively on the web site.

All game expansions are exciting, but phrases like “most explosive and technologically advanced room yet” really whet the appetite. This site looks forward to seeing how the competitions work out in practice!

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?

Mid-December news

Newspaper iconExciting news today from Breakout Manchester that their fifth different room is now open for booking! It’s at the same location as the first four, though the earliest you can book for is mid-January. The game’s name is Infiltrate and they estimate it as harder than their John Monroe’s Detective Office room but easier than their Madchester room. The story runs as follows: You have infiltrated a maximum security ward to speak to one of the most dangerous criminals ever to have walked the planet. You believe this person may hold the answer to the disappearance of your best friend. Having broken in, to your shock, the prisoner has disappeared. You have 60 minutes before the guards arrive to do their hourly check of all prisoners. Search the room for information regarding the disappearance of your best friend and work out how the prisoner escaped. It’ll be exciting to discover how the game plays, especially in comparison to all their previous hits! Many people have been to the site already, and several have played all four of their current games; another reason to go back, perhaps?

BathEscape recently announced on Twitter that they will be awarding a 15% discount to families of up to two adults and two children coming to play their games who hold the Max Card. As the Max Card is a discount card for foster families and families of children with additional needs, this is pretty cool. This enterprise is not primarily intended as a great money-making scheme for BathEscape, and several other exit games do a lot of good work for deserving causes as well. Nevertheless, this is well worth pointing out.

Many thanks to loyal friend of the site Mark for providing an exciting new logo! This has been the excuse that this site has been looking for, for a while, to apply a new theme. The logo is great, and you might see it in the top-left hand corner already, or if your browser is relatively narrow (or if you’re looking on a mobile device, etc.) you might have to click on the little “menu” button to see it and the rest of the navigation. This site isn’t entirely convinced about the new theme, though, and there may be further work on it in the coming days. If you have any views about the new layout, or if it means that you just can’t do something that you used to be able to do, please comment and these comments will be taken into account when thinking about whether or not this new look will stick for good.

How did you start married life? Locked in a room

The newlyweds! (By kind permission of Breakout Manchester)The photo above is by kind permission of Breakout Manchester, and they retain the copyright for it.

The happy couple pictured above got married to each other on November 10th, then went straight from the wedding ceremony to Breakout Manchester. Happily they escaped from their game and beamed with joy for their photo. The Breakout Manchester staff enjoyed it nearly as much, teasing at the event with a Tweet evoking the Bridal March then posting the photo with hashtags #Congratulations #WeWouldHaveWornHatsToday.

This site told them “Best way to start a honeymoon I can imagine!”; Ella responded “Or could have to lead to instant divorce 😉 Great way to spend part of our day!” They also took advantage of Manchester’s other offerings, visiting the Palace Theatre, as well as going bowling and ice-skating. Many congratulations and warmest wishes from this site to the two of them; the best of health and happiness, and may they deal as handily with all the puzzles that they encounter in their married lives as they did with the ones at Breakout Manchester.

(There’s some more exciting Breakout Manchester news: after starting with two rooms created and installed by Mazebase, their third and fourth rooms were original – and, in turn, they have gone on to install a copy of one of these original rooms at a site in Finland! Clearly this is another good option well worth considering if you’re thinking about getting into the business yourself and starting by franchising a room.)

All the news and deals from the local exit games

NewspaperPlenty of exciting good news stories at the moment, including a few discounts available for at least a short while, so let’s run through them quickly:

  • Lock and LOL of London has now definitely opened in London; subject to confirmation, this site believes that the first teams played yesterday on Friday 17th October. There are some spaces left to book next week, and the booking code SHERLOCKED is in operation until the end of the month, enabling play for a flat fee of £49 per group. The week after next is busier – perhaps due to half-term?
  • Can You Escape? of Edinburgh have revealed their location; more specifically, it was guessed after just three clues in their pre-launch treasure hunt promotion. No opening date is yet available, but this site gets the impression that it won’t be long at all before this site has a lot more to say. With great joy, they have been pinned onto the map, much as the Lock and LOL pin has been turned yellow to indicate an open site.
  • Locked In Games of Leeds used their Facebook page to announce their opening offer: the site opens on Hallowe’en and all November bookings are just £30 for a group of 3-5. With such a good price available, perhaps players from a little further afield might be able to soak up the travel costs in order to come and play!
  • The Gr8 Escape of Belfast have similarly used their Facebook page to announce a Groupon deal for the festive room they have lined up for December. The vouchers reveal that games are available from the 1st to the 23rd and from the 26th to 28th – perhaps they could be a Boxing Day treat? Groups of up to six can play for £42 and groups of up to eight for £49, a reduction of (just!) over 50%. Fancy dress is encouraged! These social buying deals tend not to last too long so get busy.
  • XIT of Dublin used Facebook to announce their new room, “The Curse of the Mummy”. Locked inside a dark and spooky archaeological site with twisted tales of cryptic pyramids and forgotten tombs. Can you decipher the ancient wisdom or will you perish like all those who have attempted to escape? There’s a competition for a free voucher for the game if you can like and share the message as well.
  • Clue HQ of Warrington similarly Facebooked their announcement that their ghastly new game, The Dungeon of Doom, is now open for booking; these previews are only available on Fridays and Saturdays before a wider release later. They have released quite a few images to their Facebook already so you can get a feel for whether this game is for you or not… and if you don’t like big spiders (even cute cuddly toy ones!) then this might be the very rare situation where this site might advocate giving a brilliant-looking game a miss.
  • Breakout Manchester of Breakout bucked the trend and used Twitter for their recent announcement; it’s not a new room, but it’s definitely a new twist on one of their favourites: 24th Oct – 3rd Nov our #Virus room takes on a sinister #Halloween twist! Dare you enter? Well, dare you? The results might just be frighteningly good!

Making room for Hallowe’en

A puzzled-looking Hallowe'en pumpkinOf all the Hallowe’en pumpkin images in the world, that one apparently depicts a puzzled pumpkin. Perhaps pumpkins get to enjoy exit games too!

It’s certainly the time of year when site operators consider adding new rooms to their exit games, or refreshing their line-up. Hallowe’en haunted houses and other horror-themed attractions are becoming increasingly frequent in the UK and it’s a motif that, arguably, meshes well with the exit game format. Some new games are, therefore, deliberately horrible, or at least horrific; some are not. Time for a run-down of them both.

The Gr8 Escape of Belfast have deliberately gone down the thematic route, having replaced their two previous rooms with an October-only Hallowe’en House of Horror. A single game spans both rooms and a draped area; “an aura of spookiness, a hint of creepiness and a dash of horror” are promised and it’s advised that anyone with health problems that are affected by sudden noises and flashing lights should give it a miss.

Unusually, the single game is scheduled for 90 minutes, rather than the usual hour, and is designed to be played by teams of as many as ten. A booking of six or more will ensure exclusive access for your session; book with fewer and you may be merged into a team with other parties, to ensure you have a chance. Looks like you’ll get an awful lot of game for just £10 per person. (Dealwatch also wishes to note that there is a limited availability Groupon permitting an entire team – even a team of ten – to play for just £49. Best move quickly on this one if it sounds tempting. Favourite fine print line: “Fancy dress encouraged”.)

Clue HQ of Warrington have been doing great business with their first game, Bunker 38, and have announced that their second game will be The Dungeon of Doom. Test games have been organised for the middle of the month and the web site hints that regular play might start from October 20th, though booking is not yet open. The Facebook page hints delightedly at the props they have installed; Bunker 38 is known to be a relatively difficult game, with fewer than 10% of teams victorious, and The Dungeon of Doom apparently requires even more steps within the hour to gain victory. Gulp. Many very good teams will doubtless end up doomed.

Breakout Manchester of the big M opened their fourth room, Sabotage, on October 3rd. “Can you go deep behind enemy territory and stop a missile strike which endangers the safety of the entire world? There is 60 minutes before launch, you need to break into the control centre and stop the launch or the consequence will be catastrophic.” Not intended to be as difficult as their Madchester room, if this proves as popular then one of the busiest centres in the country will surely become only more successful still. In passing, a tweet hints that their Virus room might receive a little temporary Hallowe’en-ing as well.

On top of that, word arrives that Cyantist of Bournemouth – still very new – are already planning a brief hiatus in order to install a second room, which has to be an excellent sign of having made a hot start. Check the web site and social media for updates. If those aren’t enough new rooms for you, don’t forget that Escape Hunt of London has three new rooms all by itself!

Interview with Ed Roberts, proprietor of Breakout Manchester

Breakout Manchester description graphicThis site has previously discussed the Breakout Manchester exit game business, around two months old but already doing excellent business. It’s a joy to be able to feature an interview with Ed Roberts, the man behind the site. The questions asked by Exit Games are tagged with EG and Ed’s responses with ER below. The opinions are a little feisty in places; no bad thing at all, but be clear that they belong to Ed.

  • EG: What’s your background, leading up to the opening of Breakout Manchester?
  • ER: I’m a director in two other business, Awaken Ibiza and Funk Events, so up until opening Breakout I was running those companies. A lot of the skills developed in running these two businesses have been hugely beneficial in launching Breakout Manchester.
     
  • EG: It’s exciting to see your Tweets from time to time suggesting that Breakout Manchester is selling out days in advance. Can you say more about how well things are going for you?
  • ER: Yeah, things are going remarkably well. Another company opened in Manchester about 2 months before we did and I think it’s struggled. So for us to be selling out a few days in advance and weekends a few weeks in advance I’m really happy.
     
  • EG: Your excellent progress is all the more remarkable given that the site has only been open for about two months. What techniques have worked well for you at getting the word out around Manchester?
  • ER: My background is in advertising, marketing and promotion has been hugely beneficial. We use some fairly advanced social media techniques to promote the venue and I have done promotion in Manchester for the past 7 years I know a lot of people and organisation in the city which have been a big help. In addition to that, word of mouth is one of our strongest attribute, and that comes from people having an excellent experience with us and then those people spreading the word.
     
  • EG: Which puzzles, games and other artworks have influenced you most over the years in your designs?
  • ER: I really enjoy action computer games. Games such as Zelda, Dishonoured, The Room and The Room Two. Also TV programmes such as The Cube and The Crystal Maze. I’ve always been a huge fan of puzzles my whole life.
     
  • EG: What lessons has your background in event promotion taught you about offering good customer service?
  • ER: In terms of customers service probably not a huge amount, this is one thing I have learnt a lot of from doing Breakout. Where it has hugely helped is the promotion, marketing and advertising of the rooms and the venue.
     
  • EG: It was fun to read that representatives from first the Daily Sport and later the Bolton News have visited your site. Do you have any other star guests lined up?
  • ER: Not really guest stars but quite a lot of press will be coming through in the next few weeks.
     
  • EG: What does a typical day for you look like?
  • ER: I normally get to the venue around 7am and do around 3 hours on Awaken Ibiza or Funk Events. I then organise the staff for the day and spread my time between running the games, tweaking the games, promoting and advertising the venue. The venue is also incomplete so various DIY and decoration is still in place. To be honest for the past week it’s been non-stop running of games. I normally finish around 9pm.
     
  • EG: What are the most memorable reactions from players that you have witnessed?
  • ER: The other week we had 4 teenagers with behavioural issues in from Manchester Young Lives. They were accompanied by 3 teachers from the centre. They had all previously been expelled from numerous schools. The 4 of them absolutely loved it and were captivated from start to finish. Their teachers said their concentration spans were normally that of minutes and had never seen them working as a team before. Turning four disinterested teenagers into a team of happy, energetic and proud young adults was a very memorable moment. To see them rave about it afterwards really impacted me. A good escape room game is fantastic for all ages and in all situations. This particular example is a great example of this, and is testament to the quality of the room.
     
  • EG: How are your preparations going for adding a third room at your current location?
  • ER: Extremely slow 🙂 It’s the first room I’ve ever created completely by myself so I want to assure it’s as good as possible. It’s called Madchester so revolves around Manchester, its history and culture. Think the Hacienda, Stone Roses, Oasis, Coronation Street and so on. It will be open at the end of July if it kills me! 🙂 I’ve been to a few other sites around the country and with the exception of all the London sites, Leeds and one of the Bristol ones, some of them are very poor and I want to assure that my centre is as good as it possibly can be. If someone has a bad experience of an escape game it will put them off for life which would be such a shame.
     
  • EG: Can you reveal anything about your longer-term plans after that?
  • ER: We have the capacity to open another one maybe two rooms in Manchester so my focus is on that and to create some games which push the boundaries of the industry. I’ve got a lot of ideas of how escape rooms can break out of their current mould and I want to explore that. Why do they have to be an hour long for example? Could a escape room be more story driven? It’s exciting times for the industry as a whole.
     
  • EG: If you could give the readers, escape game players and puzzle fans reading this one piece of advice, what would it be?
  • ER: Play The Room and The Room Two on a tablet. Then come to Breakout 🙂

Thanks so much for that, Ed! Note also that last week, Breakout Manchester posted to their Facebook feed that:

Breakout Manchester is recruiting. We need game organisers, makers and technicians. Part time flexible hours available. Must have good customer service skills. If interested please send your CV to hello@breakoutmanchester.com and the days and hours that you are available to work.

Full-time and part-time roles are available, so as well as there being a good opportunity to play the site’s games, perhaps there’s a good opportunity for the right people to be involved from the other side as well!

Changing Rooms

"Changing Rooms" TV show logo and hostsTime for a round-up of exit game news.

The biggest and happiest news is that Clue HQ of Warrington have opened, and thus their dot on the map has turned from coming-soon red to open-now yellow. Their first week has some private bookings and availability over the first month or two is already rather spotty, reflecting both success at selling early slots and also relatively restricted opening hours, following the lead of concentrating opening towards the weekend. This site wishes Clue HQ good fortune and great success and hopes to hear from its players before long.

Excusing the post’s title, Ex(c)iting Game of Oxford have a temporary closure from Monday 4th August to Thursday 7th August, before reopening on Friday 8th August, having changed their original two games, “The Auction” and “Stop The Assassin” for two new ones, “The Warehouse” and “The Mad Scientist”, each of which is set up to take 3-5 players. The site seems popular, especially at weekends, and this will give good reason for people who have played its two games already to go back and enjoy the two new ones.

More good news is that other sites are talking about expansion; Breakout Manchester of Ashby de la Zouch Manchester have announced on Facebook that their third room, Madchester, is set to open on July 12th. There’s also a corking interview with owner Ed Roberts on Gamasutra about the design process. This site likes the way he thinks.

Another expansion announcement on Facebook comes from Escape of Edinburgh, who have announced their third room will be entitled Contagion. Evidently Escape really has brought exit game fever north of the border.

Finally, Escap3d of Belfast have announced a second location, with a teasing “Play in Dublin” page and a map of their presumptive second site. Very exciting, and more news on this as it becomes available!

That’s all the news that this site has permission to publish, for now.

Virus Alert

Breakout Manchester's "Virus" graphicWith the discussion of the last week, perhaps there’s reason to be grateful that this doesn’t refer to any particular dangerous, insidious computer virus and refers to the strictly fictitious virus that is the subject of Breakout Manchester‘s upcoming second exit game room, advertised on the site as being due to open on Friday 6th June. It looks like quite a few sessions have been booked already.

“Can you slow down the outbreak and find the cure? You only have 60 minutes to do so or the fate of mankind may be in jeopardy. Our 2nd and newest room in Breakout Manchester. This room is completely unique and you will not find it anywhere else in the world.” Some early construction photos suggest that there is, as you might expect, a laboratory theme. The room may well also have a great deal of natural light, which is a little unusual when many sites don’t mind, or even embrace, a hint of claustrophobia to spur you on to escape. The theme and photos seem promising; this site looks forward to seeing Breakout Manchester’s first original room.

Breakout Manchester are conscientious about posting photos of their teams; while this is by no means unique to them, the players always seem to have had lots of fun. Whilst taking these photos in front of a wall, or a window, with the site’s name on is something of an exit room cliché, Breakout Manchester’s wall always particularly brings to mind a football manager’s post-game press conference held in front of a matrix of team sponsor logos. (Not a bad thing in the least!) Perhaps the logical conclusion would be the Italian press conference approach where the sponsor logos scroll along on a loop behind the manager as they talk…

If you’re not in Manchester, there are several exciting pieces of exit game news coming up soon that this site looks forward to sharing. Before then, the New York Times yesterday featured a superb piece about exit games, particularly the interaction and crossover between games and immersive theatre. The piece touches on other work by the theatre company Punchdrunk and also Gone Home; maybe the piece’s most significant original contribution is the collation of game designers’ quotes about exit games, but it does a fine job of neatly illustrating the common points of reference. Recommended reading!

All the news from the exit games

7segmentsIn some browsers, the up- and down- arrows above will take you from zero to twelve and back…

Here’s a quick round-up of exit game news:

  • Escape in Edinburgh are holding their “The Escape Games” promotion between Friday (er, tomorrow) and Sunday. Teams of 3 or 4 can pay just £30/team (half price!) to try to escape either of the two identically-dressed rooms. The fastest teams win free games plus T-shirts or mouse mats.
  • Whether you win or not, Escape have posted a teaser for their Dark Room set to open soon, with another message suggesting there may be a prison theme.
  • In other “new room” news, Breakout Manchester (who are struggling with their web site right now, but are taking bookings by e-mail) posted a tweet saying that they will open their second room, Virus, from Friday 6th June. Looking forward to catching the bug!
  • Escap3d of Belfast say that “Our Great Challenge is back! If you get through the puzzles with your own work and open the door within the allocated 60 minutes, you can invite a team of friends for free or we pay you back the admission.” Sounds like exactly the right sort of fighting talk aimed towards purists with a no-clue disposition.
  • Clue HQ of Warrington have posted rather a fun teaser video, an early construction photo and job ads. The site says “We’re currently gearing up for opening towards the end of June 2014” so not long to wait now.
  • The site has previously pointed to discussion of exit games on episode 41 of the The Cultures podcast; the topic is discussed again at the start of the new episode 45 as another member of the team tries a game and reports their experiences. I won’t spoil whether they had a good time or not but you can guess!