Early February 2016 news round-up

News round-upTime for an assortment of links and news stories.

  • Congratulations to The Gr8 Escape of Belfast for announcing their recent award from Acquisition International, earning the Best Creative Corporate Activities Company title for Belfast. Escape Live of Birmingham also announced that they are a finalist in the Midlands Business Awards; looks like it’s in the Service Provider of the Year (up to £1m) section. Best of luck for the 26th!
  • That’s not all the Escape Live news, though. Tomorrow night, i.e. the evening of Friday 12th February, sees them host “((…)) a date night with a quirky twist ((…)) hoping to strike the city’s singletons with cupid’s arrow by hosting a mass double date at the venue – inviting them not just on a search for the puzzles’ answers, but for love too. The venue is hoping to attract couples of single friends on Friday, February 12, for a date night which will include meeting other single couples of friends as they work together to escape each room. Manager Jordan Ladley said: ‘Valentine’s Day for couples is one of the most exciting and fun days of the year, but what about those who don’t have someone to share it with? ((…)) Throughout the evening we’re inviting up to eight couples of friends to join us for a mass blind double date as we enter them into each room on a quest to crack the codes and escape. But who knows what – or who – else you might find while on the frantic search for answers!’” Very cute gimmick; Exit Games UK hopes it works out well for them.
  • Breakout Games of Aberdeen and Inverness have suggested that they will be featured in a TV show about a collaborative hiring process. That sounds dry, but the practice is much more fun than the theory. Candidates try out for a regional manager position at hipster craft brewer BrewDog, but are unaware that it’s their potential subordinates – rather than their potential bosses – who’ll be assessing whether they’re a good fit for the company. Will the exit game experience show the candidates at their interview-prepared best or what they’re really like when the pressure’s on? Time will tell!
  • Also in Scotland, Exit Plan Edinburgh got in touch and suggested that they’re offering a 25% discount this month. A little unusually, the site is not too strict about applying their nominal sixty-minute time limit, and have happily posted pictures of teams who have extracted the maximum value from their game by taking several tens of minutes more than that to get out with the Tesla Cube.
  • Lastly, to the cool links. Liz Cable of Time Games, organiser of the recent unconference in Leeds, is leading a workshop on Sunday 6th March at the Courthouse Words festival in Otley on How to create a puzzle room in a box. Given the quick but fun boxes of tricks in play at the unconference, this should be a treat.
  • The Escape Rooms Master directory site are asking site owners to fill in this five-minute questionnaire. The results of the survey should be extremely interesting – and the more responses, the more representative the survey.
  • A review site based on the Eastern Seaboard of the US, Escape Clues, has made a well-regarded post simply entitled Why Some Escape Rooms Rock! – and Others Suck! Indeed so; neat comparisons and contrasts between desirable and undesirable properties in various categories.

(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.)

Competition compendium

Competition rosettesA comment on a recent post requested more coverage of deals that might be available. Entirely reasonable shout. Clue HQ have announced that the second game at their Blackpool location will be available from May 22nd and have announced that groups to booking it using code LAB38 can do so at a price of just £50, regardless of team size. (No clue how long this code will last.) Clue HQ are also taunting the world with this image, speculated to be – among other guesses – possible details of a fourth game at their Warrington home base.

The only other hint of a deal that springs to mind relates to potential players at a new site in the north of Scotland; more on that very soon, hopefully. Other than that, this site has news of competitions to win free games; not the same thing as deals, but not a million miles away. Every month, Crack The Code Sheffield hold a monthly giveaway which you can enter by sharing their Instagram image, appropriately tagged. Winners will be announced on May 15th so you haven’t got long to do so.

The Play Exit Games site, which does a quicker job of reporting on new openings than this site (and which has a clustered map of which this site is sorely jealous), has a competition offering tickets for Hidden Rooms London, due to launch on June 1st. (It’s a good route to gain publicity; this site hopes to be able to report on more competitions at Play Exit Games before long.)

Similarly, The Gr8 Escape of Belfast have announced a competition on their Facebook offering not just a free ticket but a VIP experience as a prize, with champagne and nibbles as well as a free game on offer. Exciting times and you have a real chance of winning.

Taking competition a little more loosely, here’s a competition that isn’t held between players where the reward is offered by the exit games, but is a competition between exit games where the players offer the reward… sort of. Specifically, Escape Game Paris are operating their Escape Game Awards 2015, looking to crown winners in six categories: best room overall, best room gameplay, best room decoration, best site overall, best site game masters and best online presence. Already, within a very short period of time, they have attracted over a hundred votes, so clearly the exit games have got well and truly behind it. Presumably the winners then go on to a tricky tie against the champions of Istanbul in the exit games Champions’ League that someone will inevitably launch some day.

Speaking of which, for no link is too tenuous, this site has a favourite footballer: Daley Blind of Manchester United. Daley has won this accolade by being pictured both here at Escape Newcastle and here at The Escape Room in Manchester. Perhaps there are other contenders to the throne; who’s to say that, say, Graeme Le Saux hasn’t used his retirement to marathon five sites in London? This is a title to be won on the weight of evidence!

((Edited to add: On the same day this article is posted, Daley Blind has gone back for at least his second game at The Escape Room, so there’s no way that he isn’t a fan, and pretty much all the Manchester City under-21s had a big booking at Breakout Manchester.))

Early April news

Rolled-up newspaper

A quick round-up of a few news stories:

The BBC quote Netmums as suggesting that On average, parents spend £135 on their child’s party, with one-in-six parents admitting to splashing out over £300. A few sites emphasise their suitability for parties, at least for older children; The Room of Glasgow have a room designed to be played by 10-16-year-olds (and 10-16 of them!) and The Gr8 Escape of Belfast have a number of party packages available. Definitely a route well worth considering.

This site was excited to see Can You Escape? of Edinburgh make a Pitch to Rich as part of Virgin Media Business’ so-entitled competition. The site launches its second, Operation Odyssey, room on Thursday, and even other local sites’ owners are looking forward to getting to play it. Can You Escape?‘s pitch seems to have got off to a popular start; this site wishes it well – and any other sites pitching for the funding, of course.

The Escape Game Addicts team played six exit games in a single day on Tuesday, escaping all of them, and made a must-read post about their epic day. To the best of this site’s knowledge, that’s an all-comers record for the UK – unless you know otherwise – though Daniel Hill of Escape played eight in a day in Budapest once. (Doubt that would have taken 110 miles of driving, mind you…)

Many congratulations to Enigma Escape of London, whose Kickstarter campaign finished up 112% funded, the first UK campaign to reach its goal. Follow its founders’ Twitter accounts at @sam_the_enigma and @hon_the_enigma to learn the behind-the-scenes story as the site gets built and under way.

Finally, this weekend sees the fourth round of the Puzzle Grand Prix series organised by the World Puzzle Federation – and this round has puzzles from Dutch authors. Take a look at the instruction booklet and if it’s for you, you have until Monday night to carve out a 90-minute window in which to answer puzzles to score yourself as many points as you can.

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!

Late October 2014 Dealwatch: coupons and discounts to play exit games for less

"SAVE NOW" graphicThe usual Dealwatch rules are in operation:

  • Do check voucher companies’ terms, conditions and guarantees and this site takes no responsibility for deals that fall through for whatever reason, as, sadly, has actually happened;
  • 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.

The Gr8 Escape of Belfast have a Groupon voucher that will apply for their two Christmas-themed games, Snow Way Out and Santa’s Work (It Out) Shop. Games will be available from the 1st to the 23rd and from the 26th to 28th. Groups of up to six can play for £42 and groups of up to eight for £49 and fancy dress is encouraged.

If you act quickly, you can get a special deal at XIT of Dublin. Their new game, Curse of the Mummy opens very shortly; if you book in October – and there’s not much of it left – to play in November, your group need pay only €59 rather than the usual €79.

Talking of new openings, the opening deals at GR8escape York and Locked In Games of Leeds and are still available, each permitting teams to play for just £30. GR8escape York opened on Monday and limits its opening deal to the first 30 teams to book; Locked In Games opens very shortly and the opening deal will last all November.

Also in the North, Escape Newcastle is set to open on Saturday 1st November, as previously discussed. This site cannot yet find an opening discount for it, but both Escape Edinburgh and Escape Glasgow had them, so keep an eye out. If the site proves as popular and well-reviewed as its Scottish predecessors, it’ll be something quite special.

In other pre-opening news, Escape Quest of Macclesfield have a competition up and running. The site opens on November 19th; if you can help either (or both!) of their social media campaigns out before November 13th then your team might be the one drawn to play a free game!

Cyantist of Bournemouth have a couple of deals ongoing, either for those who have ever hosted guests using the Couchsurfing service or for those who buy tickets for their friends. The site also, unusually, features a free ten-minute online game to give you a feeling for what sort of things might await you. Clever idea!

All the news and deals from the local exit games

NewspaperPlenty of exciting good news stories at the moment, including a few discounts available for at least a short while, so let’s run through them quickly:

  • Lock and LOL of London has now definitely opened in London; subject to confirmation, this site believes that the first teams played yesterday on Friday 17th October. There are some spaces left to book next week, and the booking code SHERLOCKED is in operation until the end of the month, enabling play for a flat fee of £49 per group. The week after next is busier – perhaps due to half-term?
  • Can You Escape? of Edinburgh have revealed their location; more specifically, it was guessed after just three clues in their pre-launch treasure hunt promotion. No opening date is yet available, but this site gets the impression that it won’t be long at all before this site has a lot more to say. With great joy, they have been pinned onto the map, much as the Lock and LOL pin has been turned yellow to indicate an open site.
  • Locked In Games of Leeds used their Facebook page to announce their opening offer: the site opens on Hallowe’en and all November bookings are just £30 for a group of 3-5. With such a good price available, perhaps players from a little further afield might be able to soak up the travel costs in order to come and play!
  • The Gr8 Escape of Belfast have similarly used their Facebook page to announce a Groupon deal for the festive room they have lined up for December. The vouchers reveal that games are available from the 1st to the 23rd and from the 26th to 28th – perhaps they could be a Boxing Day treat? Groups of up to six can play for £42 and groups of up to eight for £49, a reduction of (just!) over 50%. Fancy dress is encouraged! These social buying deals tend not to last too long so get busy.
  • XIT of Dublin used Facebook to announce their new room, “The Curse of the Mummy”. Locked inside a dark and spooky archaeological site with twisted tales of cryptic pyramids and forgotten tombs. Can you decipher the ancient wisdom or will you perish like all those who have attempted to escape? There’s a competition for a free voucher for the game if you can like and share the message as well.
  • Clue HQ of Warrington similarly Facebooked their announcement that their ghastly new game, The Dungeon of Doom, is now open for booking; these previews are only available on Fridays and Saturdays before a wider release later. They have released quite a few images to their Facebook already so you can get a feel for whether this game is for you or not… and if you don’t like big spiders (even cute cuddly toy ones!) then this might be the very rare situation where this site might advocate giving a brilliant-looking game a miss.
  • Breakout Manchester of Breakout bucked the trend and used Twitter for their recent announcement; it’s not a new room, but it’s definitely a new twist on one of their favourites: 24th Oct – 3rd Nov our #Virus room takes on a sinister #Halloween twist! Dare you enter? Well, dare you? The results might just be frighteningly good!

October 2014 Dealwatch: coupons and discounts to play exit games for less

Green and black "SAVE" star logoIt might be wise to think of Dealwatch as officially no longer a “once per month” event, but more when there are sufficiently many and/or interesting deals to justify there being a post. This month, there are a couple of competitions worth mentioning as well with free games as prizes. The usual rules are in operation:

  • Terms and conditions doubtless apply and this site takes no responsibility for deals that fall through for whatever reason. These are not exclusive in any shape or form;
  • 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 expire between being published below and your attempt to use them;
  • This site does not attract any commission, whether you click through and purchase the deals or not.

Puzzlair of Bristol have a LivingSocial voucher operational right now. Choose between a £30 voucher for three, a £36 voucher for four and a £40 voucher for five. A cancellation/re-scheduling policy of 72 hours applies and the voucher is subject to forfeiture. Any vouchers must be enjoyed by Sunday 18th January, 2015.

Bath Escape of Bath have an eBay deal operational right now. This is selling ten vouchers to play its Haunted House escape room for £50 instead of the usual £78. However, these vouchers are only valid between 11am and 9pm on Tuesday to Friday; weekend games are excluded and the site closes on Mondays. You must arrive 15 minutes before the booked game time, and Bath Escape’s usual bonus birthday cake if someone is celebrating on the day does not apply.

The Great Escape Game of Sheffield is a site not previously mentioned and has not yet opened; bookings are not yet available, but the site may open in the middle of the month. Promotional ticket prices are 5 players for £70, 4 players for £60 and 3 players for £48, but sign up on their site for 10% off your first booking. Bear in mind that games are run to a 45 minute time limit rather than the frequent hour deadline.

Can You Escape? of Edinburgh are also not yet open, but their social media are ramping back up once more. Cleverly, they have tweeted that they will be “giving away #freetickets for our VIP week to the first person who guesses our location”. If you like an exit game, you’ll likely like a treasure hunt as well, so this promotion may well hit the spot, and further clues are eagerly awaited.

The Gr8 Escape of Belfast also have a competition on social media. Much as they are running a Hallowe’en-themed room this month, they will be running a Christmas-themed room in December, and they have made a Facebook post calling for suggestions for a name for it. The suggestion with most “Like”s by the end of the month wins. Surely a cunning way to attract attention!

Lock and LOL of London posted to this site’s Facebook page (!! – but it’s a good way of doing it, and certainly welcome) that if you use the code “SHERLOCKED” you can book their Moriarty’s Laboratory game for £49.75 instead of £199 for a group of up to 5 people. It’s not clear how long this discount code will be valid for, but it’s worth a try.

As usual, 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.)

Making room for Hallowe’en

A puzzled-looking Hallowe'en pumpkinOf all the Hallowe’en pumpkin images in the world, that one apparently depicts a puzzled pumpkin. Perhaps pumpkins get to enjoy exit games too!

It’s certainly the time of year when site operators consider adding new rooms to their exit games, or refreshing their line-up. Hallowe’en haunted houses and other horror-themed attractions are becoming increasingly frequent in the UK and it’s a motif that, arguably, meshes well with the exit game format. Some new games are, therefore, deliberately horrible, or at least horrific; some are not. Time for a run-down of them both.

The Gr8 Escape of Belfast have deliberately gone down the thematic route, having replaced their two previous rooms with an October-only Hallowe’en House of Horror. A single game spans both rooms and a draped area; “an aura of spookiness, a hint of creepiness and a dash of horror” are promised and it’s advised that anyone with health problems that are affected by sudden noises and flashing lights should give it a miss.

Unusually, the single game is scheduled for 90 minutes, rather than the usual hour, and is designed to be played by teams of as many as ten. A booking of six or more will ensure exclusive access for your session; book with fewer and you may be merged into a team with other parties, to ensure you have a chance. Looks like you’ll get an awful lot of game for just £10 per person. (Dealwatch also wishes to note that there is a limited availability Groupon permitting an entire team – even a team of ten – to play for just £49. Best move quickly on this one if it sounds tempting. Favourite fine print line: “Fancy dress encouraged”.)

Clue HQ of Warrington have been doing great business with their first game, Bunker 38, and have announced that their second game will be The Dungeon of Doom. Test games have been organised for the middle of the month and the web site hints that regular play might start from October 20th, though booking is not yet open. The Facebook page hints delightedly at the props they have installed; Bunker 38 is known to be a relatively difficult game, with fewer than 10% of teams victorious, and The Dungeon of Doom apparently requires even more steps within the hour to gain victory. Gulp. Many very good teams will doubtless end up doomed.

Breakout Manchester of the big M opened their fourth room, Sabotage, on October 3rd. “Can you go deep behind enemy territory and stop a missile strike which endangers the safety of the entire world? There is 60 minutes before launch, you need to break into the control centre and stop the launch or the consequence will be catastrophic.” Not intended to be as difficult as their Madchester room, if this proves as popular then one of the busiest centres in the country will surely become only more successful still. In passing, a tweet hints that their Virus room might receive a little temporary Hallowe’en-ing as well.

On top of that, word arrives that Cyantist of Bournemouth – still very new – are already planning a brief hiatus in order to install a second room, which has to be an excellent sign of having made a hot start. Check the web site and social media for updates. If those aren’t enough new rooms for you, don’t forget that Escape Hunt of London has three new rooms all by itself!