Late September new game news

"+ NEW GAME" graphicNew exit games are coming, both as additions to existing sites and to brand new sites of their own.

  • Liverpool’s gamEscape‘s Facebook page shows day after day with their single room in heavy utilisation, so a second room is a logical addition. Their second room is entitled Prison Cell and booking is currently available for it from Wednesday 23rd September onwards. “You have been locked up for a crime you did not commit! You are in lockdown, where many prisoners of the inescapable prison have tried, and ultimately FAILED to escape, there is a rumour that one inmate has successfully escaped. They left many clues, use the clues, solve the puzzles and become the first (officially) to escape before the warden comes back and shuts you in FOREVER.” Hopefully this will prove as popular as their first Golden Cage room!
  • The Room of Glasgow have two pieces of exciting news: the nights of Thursday 29th October to Sunday 1st November will see a temporary Hallowe’en Thrill. As they say on Facebook, “Remember how we always promise there’s nothing scary in our rooms? Well, for our Halloween event, we can promise the exact opposite!” The room asks “Do you have the courage to enter a haunted house? When all is pitch black and you cannot know what you would face? Do you have what it takes to handle the paranormal? If you do, book our special Halloween experience, a multi-room escape event with a haunted house twist! The game lasts about 40 minutes, available for groups of 2 to 5.” Fifty pounds per scream. Er, per team.
  • Staying with The Room, from November 11th, teams of two to four can pay £66 (or £55 with coupon code MYRMSP1) to play the new Mystic Room at the same location. “The oracle was found dead in her room. What happened? Why police is reluctant to investigate? What fortune was told to whom? Did the prophecy come true? What clues did the oracle leave behind, and are you able to read them? Can you use your wits and your senses to crack the case? You have one hour to find the answers and your way out of the mystery. Clairvoyants read the stars, and communicate with the afterlife. You might also need to do it for the truth may well be out there….
  • At the other end of the country, thanks to Ken for notice that new rooms are a-poppin’ at Escape Plan Live of Chatham, which opens at weekends only. A new Nuclear Winter sixty-minute game for teams of up to eight will be available from 11th October. Notably, it turns the usual premise completely on its head; you’re looking for a key, but not to unlock a door. “The inevitable has happened – as the bombs rained down, the initial blasts wiped out most of humanity; starvation and the extreme cold caused by the lack of sunlight took care of the rest… almost. Of the few survivors, radiation has ensured most have become ravenous zombie-like beings who are now just an hour away from your hideout – a kitchen where the cupboards may now be bare, but it does have what you really need… a door that locks! Can you find the key and use it to keep the cannibalistic hordes out?” November sees the addition of festive-themed games Mission: Save Christmas and The Naughty List for up to six. Cutely, you can specify players’ names to appear on a letter from Santa, or to be put in place on the titular Naughty List for the players to seek to remove. Presumably these will only be available at the appropriate times of year; 2016 will see the addition of an eight-player Arctic Freeze game, possibly inspired by the admitted notorious coldness of the location where the games take place!
  • It looks like Lock’d of London are opening their third room, Perpetuum Mobile, on Friday 25th September. In this game, rated at 4/5 keys of difficulty, “In just one hour, the world will be plunged into eternal darkness. And there’s only one person who can stop it. You. The planet’s delicate energy resources are about to run dry. And Professor Richter, the only man with the knowledge to save the world, has disappeared. The future of humankind is in your hands“. Looking at all the games listed as coming soon, might the site have plans to expand to nine different games? That would be mightily impressive.
  • There’s not really been enough information to talk about Escape Rooms Cardiff yet; their web site is currently still a placeholder, though their Facebook page is up and running. (Honesty kudos points because it doesn’t yet feature five-star reviews before the site has opened.) What the world does know is that there is a crowdfunding campaign on Indiegogo to help scale up their plans – very strongly recommended for those who know they’re going to play and want to secure an early bird discount. If you’re local and want to know more about what they’re about, they’re running an event called The Quest on Thursday 24th September at an adults-only after-hours event at the Techniquest science theatre and planetarium.
  • Should these not be enough for you and leave you asking “What are we going to do next?“, e-mail has arrived suggesting that Invitation To events, known for their Treasure Hunts in London, are set to release a book with possible answers to just that question, filled with the sorts of answers that readers to this site would enjoy!

Late August news round-up

News round-up
Tuesday night seems to be becoming “list of short news stories” night. This isn’t deliberate, but here goes:

  • Episode five of Race to Escape was broadcast on Saturday night and has made its way to illicit video-sharing sites already. In truth, I haven’t watched it yet, but if it’s anywhere near as good as last week’s then it will be a glorious thing indeed. As ever, illicit video-sharing sites don’t make it easy – there are doubtless plenty of adverts (noisy pop-unders and the like, maybe worse) – but here’s this week’s link to a list of sites, of which megavideoz.eu will be the first port of call.
  • It’s Fringe festival time in Edinburgh, and three of the local sites have an unofficial competition to see who can get the most famous player come through their doors by the end of the month. Comedians and Dr. Who assistants are being thrown as punches, as if by a heavyweight. How do you judge how famous a person is? Search engine hits, perhaps, but it would take some carefully-selected search terms to ensure you’re finding a famous person and not any of their namesakes. All the participants are winners in this site’s eyes, perched from atop a fence. (This site’s official footballer has been playing rooms in Manchester again, too.)
  • Crowdfunding heroes Enigma Escape of London have updated their site with a nearly-eight-minute video of online video stars trying their game for the first time. It’s probably the best video of its type that this site has seen; it’s a good advert not just for its site, but for the genre as a whole, with the comment “We modified the game so that no spoilers are shown in the video” a telling one. Go and take a look!
  • Escape Plan Live of Chatham, Kent offer not only daytime games but also nighttime “After Dark” games by torchlight as well. One of their first had an additional special effect that even the team behind the game didn’t intend.
  • Clue HQ of Warrington are famous for the difficulty of their games – or, perhaps more accurately, the difficulty of their most challenging games. They also go out of their way to celebrate their most successful teams; they’ve celebrated the first team to go 4/4 at their games (2/2 at Warrington and 2/2 at Blackpool) and now the first team to go 4/4 at Warrington. Full disclosure: one of the team has written for this site! They’ve also posted this graphic, possibly hinting at filling the question-marks they’ve left on their site in discussion of a potential fifth game.
  • Two weeks until Puzzled Pint in London and elsewhere… and two weeks until a possible London Underground strike, making attending trickier. If you go to the London East venue, please would you fill out this form about how any strike might affect your attendance? Thank you!
  • Speaking of Puzzled Pint, one of its co-founders (and Snoutcast veteran) Curtis Chen reccently Tweeted the following: Look, at this point I am more likely to give you money to NOT start up another escape room business. Not a statement about the state of the Portland market, but in the context of its follow-up message, perhaps a call to arms: I mean srsly there are other puzzley experiences you can build for general audiences. Be creative! You can do it! I believe in you!

Coming soon to Chatham, Kent: Escape Plan Live

Escape Plan LiveExciting news very recently reached this site about the first British exit game set to open to the south-east of London, in Chatham. Northern monkeys (*puts hand up, pleading guilty*) may not instantly be able to place Chatham on the map; it’s in north Kent – start in London and head in the general direction of France for about thirty miles. This forthcoming exit game, Escape Plan Live, may well figuratively put Chatham on the map – as well as literally putting it on the exit game map.

Chatham’s Fort Amherst lived up to its name as a working garrison for nearly two hundred years; these days it is a popular historic visitor attraction. Escape Plan Live shares space with the fort’s gatehouse, though operates without connection to the fort. The site plans to launch on Saturday 4th April and is set to host four different games: Air Raid, Hostage Rescue, Murder Scene and Asylum. These are big games by UK standards, capable of hosting teams of sizes 6, 6, 8 and 10 respectively, all with a 60-minute time limit. At least in April, games will only be offered at weekends; no word yet about plans for later months.

Take a look at the games’ descriptions to see which one you want to play first. Here are short summaries: Air Raid is a race to find the antidote to a deadly gas which has infected your party, Hostage Rescue sees you seek the keys to rescue a handcuffed friend before their captor returns with malign intent, Murder Scene requires you to determine a serial killer’s concealed identity and then escape from the room before the killer strikes once more and Asylum is a race to discover the truth about the titular abandoned building and then escape within the last hour before its demolition.

The proposed price is extremely attractive at £9 per player; however, the rooms are so big and content-packed that – unusually – the site plans to merge smaller parties together to play the same room at once, so you might end up playing on a team with people you don’t know, but you wouldn’t otherwise stand a chance of filling the room and cracking all its challenges. It is possible to book the rooms outright, for £49, £49, £65 or £79 respectively regardless of team size; even these prices are very competitive, especially if these charges are being split among a large party. The location’s FAQ section is one of the most comprehensive examples of the type that this site has seen; it draws on established good practice rather than springing surprises, though the plan to offer teams who complete their room early entry into a raffle for a free game is distinctive and welcome.

These big games are among the first of their type in the UK; this site looks forward to seeing the reviews and learning just how well a big-group game can work in practice in the UK! That said, if you have a party of even bigger than ten who all want to play on a single team, Room Escape Adventures of central London will trap teams of up to twelve in a room with a zombie.