gamEscape – Exit Games UK

December 2015 Dealwatch: coupons and discounts to play exit games for less

Price tag suggesting deal, sale or bargain Dealwatch is an occasional feature which, as the name suggests, looks out for special offers that exit games are promoting. (Very occasional; the last time it happened was January.) Some ground rules apply:

Do check voucher companies’ terms, conditions and guarantees and this site takes no responsibility for deals that fall through for whatever reason, which sadly has happened at least once and probably twice;
Many of these deals only permit a limited number of vouchers to be purchased and then the deal will expire. It’s quite possible that deals may have expired between being published below and your attempt to use them;
This non-commercial site does not attract any commission for promoting these deals, or for you using them;
These deals are not exclusive in any manner.
Ken found almost all of these; many thanks to him, as ever, for sharing them.

Eyes down for a full house with the details:

Escap3d of Belfast have a Groupon deal where a team of up to eight players can take part in “Paulina’s Revenge” for just £36.
Clue HQ‘s Sunderland branch are sharing a Groupon deal where six players can play for just £39, though a £10 surcharge is applied for those who want to play on Saturday.
Miles away from the Wear to the Tyne, Pirate Escape of Whitley Bay let you buy this Groupon deal where up to six can play their exit game for £45 – or a LivingSocial deal at just £35.
At almost the other end of England, Red House Mysteries of Exeter have posted their Groupon deal where a team of up to six can play for a flat fee of £39.
On the same coast, Cyantist of Bournemouth have a LivingSocial deal, just for a change, where two can play for £29, three for £36 or four for £45.
In the north-west, gamEscape of Liverpool let you buy a Groupon deal (or a LivingSocial deal if you prefer their terms and conditions) where their Golden Cage game, only, can be played by four players for £30 or by two players for just £15.
In London, Hidden Rooms have several Groupon deals depending on the number of players. See the deal and choose from a single ticket for £21, two for £27 or three for £31; their LivingSocial deal is a pound or two cheaper still.
Staying in London, QuestRoom have a Groupon deal where you can buy a three-player game for £34 or a five-player game for £52.
The new Sherlock Unlock also of London’s Groupon deal where up to six players can take part for a flat rate of £49.

((Edited to add:)) Exit Games Scotland also point to an offer by Escape Games Scotland of Glasgow: 20% off not only bookings but also gift vouchers until tomorrow. Thank you! Second post in a row with a similar sort of addition… 🙂

Late September new game news

"+ NEW GAME" graphic New 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!

Hatches, a match and an underground patch

Cartoon of people reading newspapers and a book Some quick news stories:

1) This site has previously discussed Escapologic of Nottingham and gamEscape of Liverpool as locations opening soon; happily, both launched as planned on Friday 1st May. They look cool as well as being exciting additions to both of their cities; best of luck to them both.

A couple of weird coincidences: there are only two exit games in the UK whose names include the word “logic”, and they’re both in Nottingham. This site is also not quite sure where to put the stress in either of the names (EscaPOlogic? EscapoLOgic? EscaPOLOgic? GamEScape? GAMEscape?) when you pronounce either of them out loud. No matter!

2) The Room opened in Glasgow only four weeks ago, but already it has hosted its first proposal! Congratulations to the happy couple, and to The Room as well. This isn’t the first exit game to host a proposal; the Breakout Manchester Twitter was appropriately joyous when they hosted theirs, and it seems far more likely than not that other sites have hosted proposals as well. This site only hopes that exit games have hosted more proposals than they have caused divorces.

3) Last March, in the first dozen days or so of the life of the site, this site pondered whether there might ever be an exit game in a deep-level shelter, far beneath the streets of London. Entirely seriously, something rather similar to this might become an option. Transport for London recently announced that its “Commercial Development team are looking for third party partners to develop innovative commercial projects across Underground, Rail and Surface Transport assets“. The current opportunity is one of the most evocative of them all: Down Street station, on the Piccadilly line until it was closed over 80 years ago; Wikipedia notes that it was “used by prime minister Winston Churchill and his war cabinet until the Cabinet War Rooms were ready for use“.

TfL will be launching a Down Street station bidders’ conference to launch the tender process; the brochure (6 MB .pdf) invites you, among other things, to “Imagine a truly immersive theatrical production performed in front of a small, exclusive audience” in part of the lift shaft. If there can be a theatrical production, there can be an exit game, either there or in any of several other parts of the facility – and, with the right story, maybe one with as much authenticity as it gets. This site gets the impression that it wouldn’t be cheap, but if the right site ever thought about Going Underground, this might be the ideal opportunity.

Bonus! 4) Considering the world’s biggest sporting event taking place this evening, Escape Live win huge timeliness and topicality points for this delightful pun.

Now open in Liverpool: gamEscape

gamEscape logo The first city to feature five open locations, outside London, turns out to be Liverpool, all five of which have opened in the space of three months.

News reached this site recently of gameEscape, launching “at the end of the month” in Liverpool. However, booking is already open for one of the two rooms; indeed, looking at the booking system, it appears that games are available at 50% off the stated price today. This counts as evidence of opening as far as this site is concerned, and perhaps this news will come early enough in the day that somebody may be able to take advantage of the offer.

gameEscape’s modern-looking web site boasts two games, each with a sixty-minute location, each playable by teams of two to five. The pricing structure is simple: £15 per player, making this extremely attractively priced for teams of two and three who aren’t daunted by the challenge of taking on a room perhaps intended for a larger team.

The first room, The Golden Cage, is open for bookings now, and has a relatively unusual way of framing the time travel theme. “You have been transported back over 300 years, where a mystical wizard has locked you in a mysterious, magical room. You have 60 minutes to escape the Wizards clutches and come back to the present day. Use the clues, solve the puzzles & identify the way to escape or get stuck in a world where you don’t belong.” If the contents of the room are deliberately fantastic, perhaps alchemical, then this would be a very distinctive offering.

The second room, Prison Cell, has bookings opening soon. “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. You have 1 hour!”

The north-west gets even more exciting still and this site looks forward to hearing more about just how well these games play!