Now open in Liverpool: gamEscape

gamEscape logoThe 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!

Coming soon to Liverpool: Exit Strategy and Breakout Liverpool

exitstrategybreakoutliverpool

This site would like to apologise for an innocent mistake that it made in a recent article. On Saturday, it claimed that scheduled openings would “…make Edinburgh the first city within the UK, outside London, to host four different sites“. Given that nine days ago, Liverpool had zero exit games open, this seemed like a credible claim. However, being such a strong candidate to be the UK’s most famous city not to have an exit game previously open, it looks like Liverpool will go from zero sites to four within about three and a half weeks. Wow! …and, perhaps, from the perspective of the sites’ proprietors… er, hmm.

An article in the Liverpool Echo points to Exit Strategy, which is set to open “in an underground studio on Victoria St in Liverpool city centre, opposite The Millenium Gym“. Bookings are not yet being taken, but the Liverpool Echo suggests it will open “by the end of the month“. Exit Strategy will open with a single room, The Illluminati, with two more promised this spring.

The Illuminati poses this situation: “Reclusive conspiracy theorist Ziggy Roswell has gone missing! No one believed him when he claimed that The Earth is run by a cabal of shape-shifting intergalactic lizards. He claimed that they run the EU, NATO, the NSA, The Vatican, China, Russia. That they control every war, every uprising, all the intelligence services. That the moon is a hollow, reality-controlling super computer, and that they use wifi to enslave the human mind. No one believed him, everyone thought he was nuts… But maybe he was on to something. Enter his world, find out what he was working on. See what info he’s left lying around and eventually work out what’s become of him“. Intriguing! Get on your bi(c?)ke and try it out.

Distinctively, the Liverpool Echo also claims that “Exit Strategy will also be linked to an interactive app, Reptile Resistance, that explores the storyline in more detail, inviting users to complete brain-teasing challenges to help defeat the lizards running the globe.” The link between exit game and app is one that hasn’t been seen by this site before! According to the app’s site, “Reptile Resistance is an iOS and Android app which uses written text, game play and video to tell its satirical tale. Neither book, computer game, nor film, but something between all three, Reptile Resistance is an experiment in narrative art and an assault on both conspiracy theories and unearned privilege.” Crowdfunding for the app has not yet reached the target, but it has dozens of pledges so far.

So to Breakout Liverpool. It draws heavily upon the experience of the very popular Breakout Manchester, based not much over thirty miles away. With its recent launch of two Classified rooms at an overflow location, Breakout Manchester has grown to host six different games, the largest number in the country; Breakout Liverpool will open with three different games and is based in the basement of an old comedy club, possibly two hundred metres away or so from Exit Strategy.

Breakout Liverpool will open with three different games: Sabotage and Classified both having proved popular in Manchester, and Shipwrecked being a Liverpool original, intended to be at a slightly lower difficulty level than the two Manchester imports. “Can you escape the famous Soldado Pirate shipwreck with Captain Chiver’s most prized and valuable treasure before his ghost that endlessly haunts the ship finds you, and drags you down into his watery grave? You have 60 minutes to search the ship and find your way out with the riches.

Breakout Liverpool, by contrast, is already taking bookings, fixing opening dates of Saturday 7th March for the two imports and Saturday 14th March for the original Shipwrecked game. (The Liverpool pricing schedule matches the Manchester one, which offers particularly attractive rates on Mondays to Thursdays, as well as during the day on Fridays.) The Manchester mothership often sells out, particularly at weekends, so there are other options available if you want to play Breakout’s games. With all this expansion, it might not come as a surprise that Breakout are taking on staff; if you want to join a team with an enviable track record of success, send them your CV!

Coming soon to Liverpool: Clue Finders

Clue FindersAfter 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.