Houdini’s Escape Room Experience Birmingham: Escape From Titanic

The GM got my back up from the start, and the experience left me feeling deflated and underwhelmed.

Firstly, make sure you're at least 15 minutes early!! We didn't realise this, and was then informed our time would be docked for time spent filling in the monstrous 'paper work' for the whole team. 

Once we'd all provided our apparently inoptionable names, phone numbers, DOBs, e-mails and signed waivers for all 4 team members, taking turns on their one tablet, we finally got to the room. 

The room is beautiful and really fits in well with the team. I thought their website had said this room could do up to 7 people, but I wouldn't have wanted any more than the 4 of us in that tight a space. Then, later on, we found one of the tasks would be difficult to do with less than 4 people! So 4 is perfect.

The puzzles were in keeping with the theme, which is a really big plus, but it's probably the only positive I have. The room is ultimately flawed, as it requires intervention by the GM, who is busy on the desk and answering calls.

Effectively, the room has become run down and I think they've made changes to the room, so there's 'red herrings' left behind by previous iterations. They may simply be red herrings, but it really felt like there were things in the room that were intended to be part of the game. I mean literally... there were padlocks left unlocked! Does that sound right to you?

Here's a Spoiler Warning before you continue reading this review!! I'll try not to go into too much detail, but... it's hard.

There were 2 aspects of this game that I really struggled with; I didn't realise it was going to be so physical. Our mom wasn't too pleased! And I'm recovering from surgery. Going through a tunnel is one thing. Going through it multiple times and doing puzzles in the tunnel was a pain. 

I thought it was great, being a mission on a ship, that we had to use maps and a compass, but they should have provided a unit of measure for the map. Usually, there would be a piece of string or a ruler or something. Parts of the game were physically broken, so the GM had to intervene. And one task in particular had us all frustrated;  communicating and performing Semaphore. It's a great idea - I'm not irritated by the concept - but 14 letters later I was getting annoyed. At that point, you've worked out the puzzle, you've figured out the task... so now you're just watching the time tick away as you perform Semaphore, over and over, waiting for the thumbs up or thumbs down from the GM - taking us back to what I was saying before - any game that requires GM intervention, where the GM is not dedicated to your game, is flawed. 

And I say watch the time tick by, but actually, they haven't included a clock! I found this very frustrating to not be able to gauge our time.

Worst still, there was no end to the game. I don't know what the ending used to be, or is supposed to be, but it didn't happen for us today. We made it into the final room. We had collected the necessary. We're positioning them into place to perform the big team finale sequence - it was set up to have a great ending! Then the GM walks in and congratulated us on winning the game. ... But we didn't finish the game? I don't know what we were supposed to do or achieve in that final room, but it didn't happen. He then apologised for having the booking times wrong, so there was no need to dock our minutes for being late! It turns out the next team aren't due for another half hour - which we could have told him because we know his schedule from the website. So for all the stress and fallout at the start of the game, it was all for nothing in the end.

To be honest, by the time we'd entered the room, having filled in all that paperwork and being told our time would be docked, I wanted to tell him to stuff his room and walk out, but we'd already paid and it had taken us an hour to travel there. 

In the end, it was a pretty bitter experience and I don't think they'll be winning any awards for customer service. I can't even name the GM, because when we asked for his name, he just said "call me Captain." Yes, funny, because we're on the Titanic... but now I don't even know who I'm moaning about. All in all, not an impressive or enjoyable experience.