Escape Stoke

I'll start by setting the tone. This is the first room that me and my team have EVER walked out of. Not ran out of time, not escaped with loads of time, but WALKED OUT of.

Firstly, I want to clarify that this venue has 7 rooms and this review is based solely on their new room "Legend of the Woods". The other 6 rooms in this venue are great and we have all throughly enjoyed. 

If you have played any of the other rooms, then the expectations with this room will disappoint. 

It all begins with the backstory. The story they have us is totally different than what it is on the website. The backstory we read was how a hurricane destroyed the woods whilst an un-named man was in it and he's never been seen again. when you hear his heartbeat, you know his presence is near (Quite dark and sinister). The story we were given when we arrived was that Robin Hood has gone missing and we need to collect all 3 parts of his soul he left behind. 

ENTER THE ROOM

Entering into a fairytale like, fake grass, make shift woods looking scene. 

Where to start? not a clue. 

Decor

The theming of this room was so mis-matched that my young niece could have easily themed the room to a better degree with her play sets. The wallpaper looked like it had been put up in 20 mins. Good job these guys aren't painters and decorators. the fake grass wasn't even secured down properly. The immersion was immediately gone just by the surroundings. A soundtrack played throughout which made no relevance to story or atmosphere.

Puzzles

This is the problem. None of the puzzles had logical steps, no signposting as to what to do with the clues and everything looked very home made. A lot of the puzzles you found in room 1 weren't needed until the second room and a lot of clues found in room 2 were for room 1. There was a lot of mismatch, a lot of red herrings and a lot of puzzles that didn't seem like they belonged. for example, having a picture of the angry birds as a clue, clearly doesn't fit the theme of a dark and sinister forest of Robin Hood. 2 Puzzles involved only person participating and you couldn't move on until completed. if 6 people were to play this room, 5 people would be sitting around the wishing well not doing a whole lot until the last puzzle was completed. Can you imagine playing a 6ft long buzz wire, not secured to the wall apart from 2 ends, attempting to keep a steady hand with a wobbly wire? hmm. bad design. Not only that, but at no point were we indicated that we had to press a reset button to start this part of the puzzle, getting all the way to end with no result. 

Another failed puzzle including using a laser gun with nothing happening. When we asked for a hint, we were told to check the reset button, upon pressing it, the door swung open anyway. 

By this point, you can imagine the disappointment. We were then greeted with a series of paper clues splayed out on a table (later finding out that some of them were red herrings put there for the sake of it). A lot of these clues made no relevance to the flow and didn't seem to fit with any form of puzzles in the room.

At this point, with time still left on the clock, we decided that we would leave the room because nothing made any sense and even as seasoned escape room players (almost at 50 rooms) there was no logic, no flow, no immersion and all that was happening was us getting frustrated and discussing how we would have improved the room. 

Please make sure you visit their other rooms, but do NOT go and do this room. You will be massively disappointed.

***Disclaimer - The company has offered a refund and have said they will make improvements. I will change this review if and when any improvements are made to the room***