clue finders – Exit Games UK

Late March news

"Top News" newspaper Some news stories today, some expanding sites tomorrow.

The most recent episode of the On Board Games podcast has Prof. Scott Nicholson discussing, among other things, the world of exit games and his recent white paper arising from his survey. It’s extremely clear that he’s found out so much that doesn’t fit into the confines of at least his first white paper and plenty more of it comes up in casual conversation. Well worth listening to.

The Kickstarter campaign for Enigma Escape (not to be confused with Enigma Escape Rooms of Colorado or Enigma Escapes, plural, of Winnpeg) is still in progress; as a Staff Pick, it has attracted more attention and is almost 40% funded with two weeks to go. The campaign has recently announced that one of the site’s principals will be livestreaming a webinar at 8:30pm tonight on “Raising Your Limited Life Standards“, with specific reference to the establishment of Enigma Escape.

Clue Finders of Liverpool recently earnt a mention as item number 44 of 50 fantastic family ideas for Easter, an article within the Event supplement of the Mail on Sunday. Exit games aren’t just for Easter, or for families with teenagers, but certainly it’s one of the many different good fits that exist. This site was delighted to read that the mention has attracted a lot of attention!

Can You Escape of Edinburgh recently earnt a place as one of the five finalists for the Scotland’s Favourite Family Day Out category of the Scottish Entertainment & Hospitality Awards for 2015! It’s up against well-established competition, but it was tough to get to the final five. Fingers crossed that this, too, attracts more attention as well.

Tomorrow’s post will concern a number of sites growing from one game to two, but here’s news of a site which has refreshed its single game: ESCAP3D of Belfast, one of the very earliest sites of them all, has a new room, Paulina’s Revenge. The site suggests the game now caters for parties of three two eight, and suggests you might usefully brush up on your basic chemistry knowledge. Sounds like a plan if you don’t want your trip to their room to end with a BOOM!

Exit games in the news

Newspaper graphic There have been several interesting news stories recently about exit games, well worth a round-up:

Today, The Star (of Sheffield, not the Daily national recently focusing on Big Brother, Channel 5 and the proprietors’ other business interests) had a cheerful piece about The Great Escape Sheffield, which TripAdvisor reviews place as number one activity in the city. It’s fascinating to hear more about the background of the people behind the game and get a sense of their influences. The suggestion that a local university offered considerable assistance is particularly interesting and shows what might be possible.
On Sunday, Isle of Man Today discussed a trip to Glasgow and Edinburgh where the Glasgow highlight was a trip to Escape, which TripAdvisor reviews also place as number one activity in the city. It sounds like they had great fun in both cities.
A couple of weeks ago, The Daily Telegraph had an enthusiastic and pleasant, though unsurprising, article about a trip to HintHunt, mentioning some of the other fixed-location sites in London at the end. As great as the games that get the lion’s share of coverage are, other games in London are also available.
Further afield, The Varsity of Toronto take a slightly wider cross-section of the games available there. The proprietor of LockQuest has interesting things to say (particularly in the context of this Twitter exchange…) – though, as ever, the media is far bigger than the mainstream media and you’ll find far more in-depth coverage from the amazing local bloggers who you’ll find in the blogroll here. For instance, everyone’s drooling over this timeline of the 45 (!!) exit games in the greater Toronto area, which looks so gorgeous as to put the counterpart UK timeline somewhat to shame.
The written word is far from the only medium; the IntoConnection series of vlogs had a global top three of the genre, in the opinion of a Dutch site proprietor polite enough not to nominate his own.
A really exciting blog post recently has been part of Intervirals‘ Blog February series, with a look at the history of room escapes. It’s got people thinking, talking and researching…

Lastly, the very best of luck to Clue Finders of Liverpool! The last week has seen players taking up trial slots, with the first paying bookings expected in a day or two. Liverpool is the place to be right now, what with Clue Finders opening and Tick Tock Unlock taking its first bookings on Saturday onwards!

Coming soon to Liverpool: Clue Finders

Clue Finders After remarking three days ago that Liverpool has long been one of the biggest gaps in the market waiting to be filled, this site is happy to report that the city may not have long at all to wait for its first game to open. While Tick Tock Unlock have announced that it will be the location of their second site, Clue Finders just might beat them to opening as their new site has launched; bookings are already being taken between Thursdays and Sundays from Thursday 12th February. The location is in Liverpool’s docklands, so an easy walk from the Mersey and most of the other famous attractions that the city has to offer.

The site has a distinctive “paper cut-out” style of depicting Victorian detectives and looks extremely smart. Beyond that, not very much is known. To begin with, there will be two rooms; from context, these are set to be identical to permit popular head-to-head races. The game is 60 minutes long with an extra briefing at the start. It’s intended for teams of three to five. Prices are reasonably typical; £19 per player for teams of three, £17 per player for teams of four and £15 per player for teams of five. “Clue Finders is a real-life escape game where teams of 3-5 people are locked into a custom built, challenging and entertaining environment to solve the many mysteries, puzzles and challenges. You need to unlock the final code and escape the room.”

Perhaps this preview is taking place a little too early; perhaps others will appreciate the extra challenge of going into a room “cold”, knowing nothing about it. Either way, Liverpool has been waiting for too long and this site looks forward to reading more from those lucky enough to get to experience the game first-hand.

Looking ahead to 2015: new exit games and new rooms

Red "Coming Soon!" ink stamp This 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?