Good news for March 2016

"Good News for a change!" - adapted from Rick Warden, CC BY-NC-SA 2.0 licence

Here are a selection of stories that will hopefully put a smile on your face. Just think about the people involved and the smiles that must have been on their faces!

  • First to Puzzlair of Bristol, who are celebrating John’s proposal to Claire. May all their escapes be great ones!
  • It seems almost disrespectful to focus on more than a single couple’s big day, but more and more sites are hosting these happy occasions, and also sharing the good news is Escape of Glasgow. This time it was Annie who proposed, and thanked Nick and Kim at Escape on Twitter for their help. The Escape team went on to post further details of the happy event.
  • Not a proposal, but something that might happen somewhere down the line for some happy couples. To say more would be to spoil the surprise, so let The Great Escape Game of Sheffield tell the story. Perhaps there will be a nearer miss than two days being talked about by an exit game before long. (Lovely name, too!)
  • So this story is almost telling a story of the progression of a relationship. One happy step further down the line for some relationships is a fifth birthday party; for one here, we have to go to Locked In Edinburgh. The event they describe sounds wonderful here, whether celebrating a fifth birthday or a fifty-fifty birthday.
  • Perhaps your five-year-old will grow up and start their own business. Perhaps their business will win an award, as in this happy story as Can You Escape? of Edinburgh celebrate their victory in the Best-Performing Business (1-10) category at the Edinburgh Chamber of Commerce awards. Congratulations and here’s to many more!

New rooms from the newsroom

The NewsroomSeveral sites have refreshed their line-ups recently; others have just plan expanded. Here are details of the new rooms at existing sites that Exit Games UK has found recently. If your new room is missing, please let Exit Games UK know and the list shall grow longer.

  • Let’s go very roughly north to south, so that this way the list can start with a site with two new rooms. Breakout Games Aberdeen of the Granite City have overhauled their offering to introduce a pair of new treats for 2016. The Amazon has opened with a bang to become the most challenging game on site and is not recommended for beginners. “Plunged into the depths of the Amazon your team are charged with finding a priceless ancient artifact in an escape room filled with twists, turns and surprises. Will you be lost in the jungle for all eternity?” The two Lock and Key rooms have been replaced with two Deadlock rooms, enabling teams to race against each other: “DEADLOCK is the perfect escape game to introduce new groups to escape games in a race against the clock! With two identical escape rooms of DEADLOCK teams of 12 can race to escape completing exactly the same puzzles. With riddles, codes to crack and some twists and turns along this way this new puzzle is fantastic fun with a three star difficulty rating!” The site is also installing two identical copies of Black and White in March, which will make it one of the biggest sites in the land.
     
  • Down to Newcastle where Lost and Escape were feeling excited on Facebook about their new room, The Dungeon. Follow that link for the pictures; the story for the room suggests that “You accidentally went into an ancient house. The door of the house is a time machine, which brought you back to the 1900s. You found strange symbols everywhere. The only way to go back is to get the key in 60 minutes. The person who runs out of time will be locked in the past. Can you travel back successfully?
     
  • Next to Manchester where Breakout Manchester have added their ninth room, this one in their High Street offshoot. In Most Wanted, Ray Cokes chats with production and viewers while introducing… oh, not that Most Wanted. “It’s another race to escape although this time the bigger reward you collect, the higher up on the leaderboard you will go! ((…)) Think of yourselves as Bounty Hunters of the Wild West breaking in to a Saloon in search of loot! Make sure you’re out by the time the Sheriff returns, even if it means leaving some of your riches behind, or you’ll end up spending the night in a cell as Breakout Manchester’s Most Wanted!” There have been rooms which award scores in the past; sometimes scores can be analogues for solving time, as the longer you spend cracking the pre-scoring puzzles, the less time you have to work on the additional challenges which determine your score. Here, it’s clear; “Time is important to your game… but the reward means more to your team!
     
  • At the south end of Greater Manchester, Code to Exit of Altrincham have now opened their second room full-time. In The Test, which they describe on Facebook as being without keys, padlocks or furniture, “An alien life force has been experimenting with the human DNA. They tempered with few of us and mixed their genes with ours. You are being abducted to complete the tests and find out if it was successful. Are you intelligent enough to represent our species? If you pass you will be set free.” The site have also suggested that their third game is only two or three months away and will feature quite an unusual theme that this site is looking forward to. Code to Exit now offer discounts to people booking off-peak, to students and to birthday parties; they also offer team-building days during office hours as well.
     
  • Bristol is apparently further north than Gravesend by scant seconds of latitude, so Puzzlair have announced that they are taking bookings for their fifth room, The Poltergeist Room, which opens next week in their Puzzlair 2 location. “A widow lived in this room with her daughter, and suddenly they disappeared. Every once in a while people seen the silhouette of a woman walking around in the rooms. The players have to find out the reason behind the disappearance and also produce a successful ghost exorcism in order to escape the room in 60 minutes.
     
  • The Panic Room of Gravesend are running their current room for another week and a half, then will be taking a few days off to change it over to The Witch House, running in March and April. “Our next mystery begins with a student who rents a room inside an old house with a long and dark history. His dreams are haunted by those of a Witch from the town’s legend. During the witch trials of 1692 she disappeared never to be seen again. It’s 11pm and your team has been sent to help the poor student uncover the mystery that lies within the room. What happened to the witch? Can you break the curse before the clock strikes midnight?” Eek!
     
  • Salisbury Escape Rooms write to say “Since initially opening at Easter 2015 with the Magna Carta challenge, in October 2015 we changed the theme to Murder in the Museum. Players are met and briefed by a detective then led to the reception of the Salisbury Smithsonian Museum. A body has been found and a suspect is in custody. Police have one hour left to either charge him or release him. The team are required to find the missing evidence and get out within the hour. The new game, again designed, built and run by retired detectives is proving to be very popular. Tripadvisor reviews have been excellent and several teams who have completed many escape rooms have said that this is the best they have done!
     
  • Lastly to Exeter where Mission Escape have added a third room, with more promised to launch this year. This one is deliberately designed to cater for teams of no more than four players. In the Pharaoh’s Anger room, you must “Make your way through the tomb of the Kings… be careful not to disturb the dead. Align the Celestial bodies to release you from the Pharaoh’s wrath or be entombed forever“. Nobody wants that!

News round-up for mid-January 2016

News round-upThis site is off to the unconference called The Great Escape UK today, so here are some news stories that have been queued up for a little while. There may be live coverage on Twitter with #EscGamesUK, but no guarantees.

  • Congratulations to Kelly and Alyson who became engaged to each other before Christmas at Escape Rooms Scotland! A report on Facebook suggests that Kelly had no idea, making the surprise proposal even sweeter. The best of health and happiness all round!
  • Clue HQ have already revealed that their next branch to open will be in Birmingham; even before launch, the Birmingham Post have a big piece on the forthcoming site. The suggestion that it might hold 36 guests gives a clear hint as to the ambition behind the location, suggesting it’s clearly one to watch.
  • Puzzlair of Bristol are also in the news as the Bristol Post visited the attraction and had “a great night out“. The reporter also noted that they had played Locked In A Room a few weeks earlier, so this site now has a favourite Bristol local newspaper. Some day the national press will start reviewing rooms and games…
  • Escape Asylum of Leicester are planning to launch in March but are already being covered in a piece in the Leicester Mercury that gives good detail about the founders’ backgrounds and starting-points and – along with the video – will give you a clear idea whether it’s the game for you. The site is set to launch whether or not its crowdfunding campaign reaches its goal; East Midlanders who like darker games should get in early and perhaps quickly pick up a discount.
  • Thanks to Ken for that one and for this: speaking of Kickstarter, there’s a campaign for a site in Preston called Timed Trap. While the campaign hasn’t got off to the best of starts, it’s far from unknown for an exit game to struggle with crowdfunding and then thrive in the fullness of time, so it’s definitely one to keep on the radar.
  • Further afield, the Brantford Expositor of Canada – and compare Expositor to Post and Mercury! – featured a piece on the BreakoutEDU Game Jam this weekend. Looks like an excellent time was had by all; it’s also exciting to read that there are more to come.
  • Even further afield still, Intervirals points to a panel on exit games at the PAX Australia convention in Melbourne. It takes a little listening, but fun to hear how they do it down under!

(UPDATED!) Black Friday 2015 Dealwatch: coupons and discounts to play escape games for less

All-black discount starEven the discount starburst has blacked out completely to celebrate the day! As you might be able to tell, the time at which the articles are published reflects the time at which writing started; this article is being started on Thanksgiving Thursday and completed very early on Black Friday, with the benefit of some new information that became available at midnight. Whether you approve of limited timescale deals or not, or the Black Friday phenomenon in particular, today is an unusually good day to purchase play – and it’s worth checking the social media of wherever you’re buying before you do so. All deals may expire quickly, maybe not even lasting the whole of the day.

Escapism of Nuneaton have posted an offer on weekday bookings at 10am or noon in December or January; any number of players, up to eight, can play for just £50, or alternatively you can get 20% off gift coupons to play outside these specific times.

Clue HQ have four locations from Sunderland to Brentwood, but it’s not immediately clear whether or not all of them are participating in today’s special offer. The posted deal suggests that they’ll sell a hundred games at £49 each for up to six players, to be played between the 1st and 2nd of December if you use the code BLACKFRIDAY when you book.

The same BLACKFRIDAY promo code also works at Escape Rooms Scotland of Glasgow. This deal runs from Friday 27th November to Monday 30th November and there’s no time restriction on when your booked game must be played; the code will give you a £10 discount, reducing the 2-6 player Jail Break and Zombie Quarantine rooms to £50 each and the brand new 4-10 player Bank Heist room to £90, from its opening on 9th December.

Escape Live of Birmingham posted their offer on Twitter. That BLACKFRIDAY code will give you 15% off any games for four or five players that you book today. At this point, it might be worth trying the code BLACKFRIDAY pretty much everywhere, just to see what happens!

No codes required in Belfast, where The Gr8 Escape now offer four rooms and are offering gift vouchers valid for the first half of 2016; any room, up to six players for £45. Buy ’em today via PayPal.

((UPDATED, 2:30pm!)) Over to Bristol where Puzzlair (including their new second location, a short walk away from the original) used Twitter to post their Black Friday deal, which offers a handsome 30% discount on weekday bookings.

In north-west London, QuestRoom also tweeted their offer; there’s 20% off the two spaces available this evening but also 20% off games played this weekend.

Ken kindly pointed in the comments to an offer by Trapped In of Bury in Greater Manchester. It was posted on Facebook, which is as ever charmingly intermittent about which stories it shows to people, unless you pay it cold hard cash. The BLACKFRIDAY code used today will get you 20% off your booking. If you know any other deals posted to Facebook that haven’t made it to Exit Games UK, please speak up.

From the north of Greater Manchester to the south; down to Altrincham for Code to Exit. The Tweeted offer is for a discount of 30% on bookings using promo code BLACK. That said, there has been a suggestion that the code is no longer available – maybe a temporary glitch, maybe a limited offer. It applies to the Blueprint game only, not their new game, “The Test”.

This site knows of at least one other place offering a Black Friday discount for hunt participation, but it’s restricted to members of a mailing list, so the details won’t be shared here. Nevertheless, it’s not impossible that other sites might mail one-day discounts out to their own lists so check your mailboxes carefully.

As ever, if you know of other coupons, deals, vouchers or competitions, please send them through. If your site has a offer not listed above, please don’t assume the worst; get in touch and this site will happily spread the good news. (Alternatively, if you would prefer that this site does not list your coupon, or if the details of the offer are mangled, that’s fine too; again, please get in touch.)

Building extensions

Building extensionsOctober has been a very fruitful month for existing sites adding new rooms. Here’s a round-up of at least some of the sites that have added, or are about to add, new rooms to their line-up.

  • Cryptology of Nottingham opened their new room, The Crypt, on October 10th. “Pharaoh Rameses has sent you and your peers to The Crypt where you will starve. Some of his minions are sympathisers and have given you the means to escape. Can you and your team unshackle and free yourselves before the guard comes to make their first inspection?” This adds to their already popular Cypherdyne room, both of which take 2-5 players, and their Group Detective tour of the city.
  • Exit Newcastle, of -on-Tyne rather than -under-Lyme, were a day later with their new Volatile Laboratories game for two to six. “You find yourselves trapped and infected in a top secret laboratory that’s been sent into lockdown. Will you be able to find the antidote and release the Exit? (Please note that Volatile Labs begins in a confined space. It is also not suitable for those with epilepsy.)
  • A day later still, Salisbury Escape Room reopened with a brand new game, Murder at the Museum, replacing their prior Magna Carta Challenge. There’s no written description available, but have an online video instead, showing how it takes advantage of the founders’ legal backgrounds.
  • Not just a new game at Puzzlair of Bristol, but a whole new location. The original location, Puzzlair 1 remains open with its two games; the new location, Puzzlair 2, opens on Monday 26th with two new games and a third to follow soon, as discussed at 365bristol. The new games are The Warehouse of Jack Travis, in which you search through said storage facility for clues to a hidden rare diamond, found during African explorations and set to be donated to the Crown Jewels until Travis’ untimely disappearance, and the Secret Agent room, wherein a double agent has stolen the complete list of MI6 agents and you are required to identify the double-dealing counterspy and return the agent list to its proper owners. The Poltergeist Room will be the third game at the new location, set to open in November for players aged 18+.
  • Code to Exit of Altrincham are set to open their second room on 14th November. In The Test, the story goes that “An alien life force has been experimenting with the human DNA. They tempered with few of us and mixed their genes with ours. You are being abducted to complete the tests and find out if it was successful. Are you intelligent enough to represent our species? If you pass you will be set free.” Maybe best not to find out what happens if you don’t pass.
  • Looking further ahead still, Lost and Escape of Newcastle have announced on Twitter that their Time Travel to the 1900s game must close at the end of Earth Year 2015 – but, in happier news, new games are under construction and will hopefully be available in Feburary 2016.
  • Ex(c)iting Game of Oxford have added not so much a new room as a whole new outdoor game on October 8th, The Time Machine. Apparently bus 8, regardless of whether it is being operated by Stagecoach or by the Oxford Bus Company, acts as a time machine when you take it towards the city centre. “You are members of a secret society who suspect the existence of the time machine and impending danger, but you cannot specify it. Now you will be engaged in a secret mission in which you need to get the information necessary to find out what will jeopardize Oxford and in what year! Your task is to detect the precise details, so you’ll have time to prepare for the impending danger and prevent it.” This game, for groups of 2-5 (but maybe up to a dozen or so such groups, each starting 15 minutes apart?) is only available before 2pm because it relies on the opening times of some of the other buildings that you may have to visit in the city, which do change from time to time. The short version costs £45 and takes 2-3 hours; the long version costs £55 and takes 4-5 hours, possibly split over two days.
  • While in an Oxford frame of mind, the Jailbreak! game at Oxford Castle has undergone a complete makeover. It’s now only available after 7pm and has been revamped so that it now caters for parties of 10-15; the price has likewise been revamped to £250 for the team, though this includes a glass of house wine. (Subject to confirmation: per player, not per team.)

And finally, in bigger news still, congratulations to Enigma Quests of London on their opening day today! Their first such Quest sees you “brew some potions and defeat dark arts” as you explore a magical academy.

Black Friday 2014 Dealwatch: coupons and discounts to play escape games for less

All-black discount starEven the discount starburst has blacked out completely to celebrate the day. (While the day’s celebration is an import, perhaps this is in preparation for bringing the world’s number one online shopping day, China’s Singles Day, to being a similarly celebrated event in other countries as well.) There are a couple of deals coming up that are available today only, so hopefully some reader can take advantage in the last two hours of the day or so.

Escape Quest of Macclesfield have announced on Facebook that The next 5 bookings made using the code blackfriday will only pay £50 per room for any size team. This deal expires at midnight tonight.

Similarly, Bath Escape have made a Facebook post suggesting that you can book today and receive a 25% discount! Use the code black to get your discount!

GR8escape York‘s opening discount has gone, but has been replaced by a Christmas offer: To help spread the Christmas spirit at Gr8escape York, we are offering £10 off all bookings made from now until the end of December. This is for all group sizes and all available time slots in the month of December. Just use the code Spy School Xmas at the final payment stage.

On top of that, LivingSocial are running a Black Friday campaign, giving 10% off (at least most) of their vouchers. This is particularly relevant to this site because a voucher permitting play for any size group for £39. (Be warned that using the voucher to play on Friday, Saturday or Sunday attracts a £10 supplement, to be paid in cash.) The usual LivingSocial conditions apply. While that voucher has a time limit, the site has its own voucher scheme providing a variety of discounted play options for the first three months of 2015.

Some other ongoing offers include:

Logiclock of Nottingham has an offer called 50-50-5 whereby the first fifty teams to look through the site and find the five miscoloured digits can earn a 50% discount on their ticket.

Locked In Games of Leeds has a Groupon deal that has expired, but try the coupon code of lockedinnovember at the checkout stage for a £30/team ticket in November.

Puzzlair of Bristol announced on Twitter that they have entering the code Twitter on booking will provide a 25% discount until Christmas.

If the Black Friday offer at Escape Quest of Macclesfield has expired, the site has posted an opening discount: For bookings made during November use the code Special20 to get 20% off the price. Sounds good!

Escape Hunt of London’s Challenge is still on and may be the best deal going now that the time-limited 25% coupon promotion has expired. Also in London, Escape Rooms have a VisitLondon10 code for 10% off on weekdays up to 5pm.

As ever, if you know of other coupons, deals, vouchers or competitions, please send them through. If your site has a offer not listed above, please don’t assume the worst; get in touch and this site will happily spread the good news. (Alternatively, if you would prefer that this site does not list your coupon, or if the details of the offer are mangled, that’s fine too; again, please get in touch.)

Exit games in the news

Newspaper graphicSome longer posts, some shorter ones. Here’s a quick round-up of recent mass media stories about exit games.

  • Can You Escape of Edinburgh have a preview in the Edinburgh Reporter, which reveals three interesting things that this site did not previously know: a leaderboard of fastest escape times is at least implied, the venue has plans to double in capacity from one room to two early in 2015 and the business has received funding and support from Business Gateway Edinburgh. Might other potential (and even existing?) operators around the UK and Ireland be able to get assistance from their local business incubators? It’s something well worth considering.
     
  • Logiclock of Nottingham have a story in the Nottingham Post about their background and opening. The site also has fifty half-price tickets available as an opening discount for teams who are willing to dig through the web site and find the unusually-coloured digits. If you’re good enough to play and win their pirate-themed game, finding this code should be a snap.
     
  • It didn’t raise mass media interest, but it did raise a smile; Puzzlair of Bristol recently had their youngest player ever, a 10-week-old baby. By implication, this baby did manage to break out in time… inside their nappy.
     
  • Not a UK story, but really interesting: Escape Games of Toronto were profiled in Canada’s largest newspaper’s “Business Club”. The site has five rooms, with three more coming soon, and a large lobby where you can borrow board games to play on-site before or after your escape mission. (A good match, though it must help that Canada is so large that rents might not be nearly so much of an issue as they are in the UK.) The site is recommended by Toronto Room Escapes, a rare honour, though the Escape Games Review, er, review is also well worth reading.

    It’s particularly interesting in that it discusses what a really high-end site has to do to survive in an extremely crowded market, far more crowded locally than any in the UK, even that of London. This site is much more bullish about exit games’ future than the proprietor is, though perhaps Toronto and Budapest over time might go to show what market saturation might look like. The article is extremely interesting for its view behind the scenes and also for the free consultancy provided by a number of the best local business brains, which might yet prove food for thought, subject to local adaptation, for site owners closer to home.

Mid-November 2014 Dealwatch: coupons and discounts to play escape games for less

"Early Bird Discount!" graphicThe Dealwatch ground rules have not changed from last time:

  • 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 once;
  • 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.

Escape Quest of Macclesfield opened for paying guests for the first time today, after a week or so of test games. Accordingly, they have been added to the list of exit games and the Timeline, and their dot has been turned yellow on the map. (The only cloud to gloom this otherwise glorious day is that the mapping provider in use recently turned the map from a Classic Map to a New Map, and this site is Not Happy about it.) In much happier news, the site has posted an opening discount: For bookings made during November use the code ‘Special20’ to get 20% off the price. Sounds good!

Locked In Games of Leeds have a Groupon deal offering chances to play one of their two rooms at £19 for teams of three, £25 for teams of four or £30 for teams of five. This site gets the impression that you’re really going to have to hurry with this one; there may be less than a couple of dozen vouchers still available and there may be less than a day to go for the deal’s time limit even if the vouchers don’t run out. If they have all gone, try the coupon code of lockedinnovember at the checkout stage for a £30/team ticket in November. There are a lot of exit game sites with reasonably similar FAQ sections asking “Is the game scary?” and responding “No”. Locked In Games doesn’t mess around. (That said, it does let 9-year-olds play with adult supervision, so it’s not exactly X-rated.)

Serial dealers The Gr8 Escape of Belfast have another Groupon deal going for their distinctive forthcoming Winter Wonderland Party room, to be available from early January to early March in 2015. For £69.95, up to eight children can try and tackle a 45-minute wintery room escape challenge, complete with a Snow Queen or Ice King theme for the birthday boy or girl. Spread across two rooms, participants have to solve all sorts of puzzles, clues and codes to get out. An additional 45-minute session follows, this time in a themed party area with juice and party game props, tea or coffee for adults, a gift for the birthday boy or girl, and a chance to pick items from the themed candy carriage or cart. This site fully approves of any initiative that means that people from outside the usual exit game age demographic get to play. Princesses Anna and Elsa would doubtless also approve. Understood? Understood.

GR8escape York said two days ago that their thirty voucher codes to play for £30/team had almost gone, so you’re really going to have to rush on that one. Escape Hunt of London’s Challenge is still on and may be the best deal going now that the time-limited 25% coupon promotion has expired. Also in London, Escape Rooms have a VisitLondon10 code for 10% off on weekdays up to 5pm. Puzzlair of Bristol have been getting more good press and their 10%-off HANDBALL code may still be in operation. ((Edited to add: they have announced on Twitter that they have entering the code Twitter on booking will provide a 25% discount until Christmas. Better still!))

As ever, if you know of other coupons, deals, vouchers or competitions, please send them through. If your site has a offer not listed above, please don’t assume the worst; get in touch and this site will happily spread the good news. (Alternatively, if you would prefer that this site does not list your coupon, or if the details of the offer are mangled, that’s fine too; again, please get in touch.)

Early November 2014 Dealwatch: coupons and discounts to play escape games for less

Price tag suggesting deal, sale or bargainThe usual Dealwatch rules remain in operation:

  • Do check voucher companies’ terms, conditions and guarantees and this site takes no responsibility for deals that fall through for whatever reason, which sadly did happen once;
  • 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.

ESCAP3D‘s Dublin location have a LivingSocial deal available for another week, or until all the vouchers sell out. Teams of six can play for €39 rather than the full price of €80. The voucher is only valid for new customers, and between 1:30pm and 6pm on Mondays to Saturdays. A cancellation/re-scheduling policy of 48 hours applies. How do you pronounce ESCAP3D, by the way? This site always thought it was a stylistic form of “escaped”, but it could just as easily be “escape-three-d”.

Last Dealwatch, this site described a Groupon deal placed by The Gr8 Escape of Belfast. While that’s history now, the site has a Facebook offer available for another month, offering 25% off if you’re booking either of its two Christmas-themed rooms to play after 5pm. The site has also revealed its future plans: “Winter wonderland – a froz3n surprise will hopefully be available in mid December, it will be a two room challenge designed to be easy enough for 7-11 year olds to complete within 45 minutes.” That’s extremely distinctive and very, very cool. If a major chunk of the long-term future of exit games is to cater for the birthday market, which it might well be, this seems like the state of the art.

Puzzlair of Bristol recently posted about their latest discount, supporting Bristol Handball. Follow the Bristol Handball Twitter account and book using the HANDBALL code for 10% off. (Handball is a fine game; much more fun to watch handball on Eurosport 2 than basketball on Eurosport, er, 1.) Puzzlair also have a a Christmas coupon scheme going, where you can exactly personalise the wording on your gift to whatever you think its recipients would most enjoy. No lunar porcine involvement is required.

Escape Hunt of London are promoting the Escape Hunt Challenge; book to play all three of its rooms and get a 20% discount. Beat all three rooms and win a limited edition T-shirt as well!

There are still some deals announced last time that are ongoing. GR8escape York have a code letting the first 30 teams to book play for just £30, and Escape Quest of Macclesfield’s social media competition is running for just a few more days, finishing well before (and announcing the winner of a free game in good time for) the site’s big launch on November 19th. Locked In Games of Leeds have two unsettling rooms, an even creepier new teaser video and a code of lockedinnovember to be entered at the checkout stage for £30/team games all through November… if you dare!

The latest links

Monochrome pumpkin graphicA blessed Samhain to all of you.

Most excitingly, social media updates lead to some new dots on the map! Locked In Games of Leeds confirm that today is their opening day and The Great Escape Game of Sheffield have launched their Facebook presence, revealing their location and thus earning a red “Coming soon” dot.

Puzzlair of Bristol have announced a one-day discount available for bookings placed on Saturday 1st November only. Book that day for a game to be played by the end of January 2015, use the discount code HALLOWEEN and you’ll earn a chunky 30% off the cost of your game. Additionally, their Facebook page is close to a thousand “Like”s; whoever turns the counter to four digits will earn a free game.

The consistently brilliant Snoutcast podcast is putting out monthly episodes this year, featuring interviews with women who make puzzle games of various sorts. This month’s episode is particularly relevant for this site, as it features an interview with two of the six founders of Spark of Resistance, Portland’s first exit game. The people behind it have a remarkable track record in a variety of styles of game and it’s clear that the eight months of effort have led to a great deal of thought. The Oregonian have a write-up with more detail.

Lastly, a quick tip of the hat to the girlgeekupnorth blog, who has written delightful reviews of the three exit games she has played, so far all in north-west England. With the new games opening elsewhere in the north, who knows what else might be reviewed at some point?