Escapism Chester

If You Go Down to the Woods Today...

My second visit to Escapism was a lot more enjoyable (and successful!)

Story

Explore the forest, where people have been going missing, to try and find out why they're disappearing. The reason why is never actually explained...are we a part of the police force, or just a group of curious pals?

Puzzles

An engaging and challenging variety that made use of our senses. We often broke up into smaller groups to solve them. They needed wit and skill in equal measure!

Mise-en-scène

You begin 'outside' (as in, the forest), which is a different kind of start, and the darkness and sounds made for an eerie experience. Sadly, this kind of toned down after getting into the cabin. Disappointingly-cheap props dragged me out of the immersion.

Final Comments

We got out with no more than five minutes to spare. Our Game Operator had a very dry sense of humour which was enjoyed by all, haha. I'd recommend a team of 4-5.

Second Room, First Failure 😖

I’m in the process of moving my reviews from my blog to this site, where I hope more people will read them! My visit to this room was a couple of years ago, hence its shortness.

Story

We were prisoners locked up and waiting to be thrown into the gladiators’ arena, unless we could escape before the guards return.

Puzzles

We barely got through half of them, which was disappointing. Some of the props and clues were worn-down, making them difficult to use.

Mise-en-scène

In the first half, I felt immersed by the cell’s walls, metal bars and the sound of gladiators’ swords clashing above. After this, some of the props looked cheap and bargain-shop-ish, taking me out of the game.

Final Comments

Attempting a five-star room was maybe too much for a group who had only done one before, but I feel like we were left without clues a few too many times.

Two of my favourite things in escape rooms are historical themes and locally-inspired themes, so a room inspired by Chester’s Roman Amphitheatre sounded right in my wheelhouse.

The actual room, however, was a big disappointment. The decor was all very cheap-looking and made only a very superficial effort to look like the under-arena cells it purported to be. Although I’m not a big fan of unnecessary darkness in escape rooms, I think a bit of flickering-torches-in-the-shadows atmospheric lack-of-lighting would have helped here.

The puzzles were mostly based around very anachronistic padlocks, and there wasn’t much of a story. Probably the biggest disappointment though, came at the end - there wasn’t an obvious ‘you’ve done it!’ moment, and when we opened the door there wasn’t anyone there to meet us. The problem was that the people in the neighbouring room had finished just before us, and there was only one GM between the two rooms.

Having said all that, if you go in expecting a bunch of puzzles without being worried about immersion, then this room is fun enough (the two newbies we had with us certainly enjoyed it).

Escapism looks like a very modern venue, with a bright reception area in a much newer building than the typical old disused office. However the games are relatively low-tech and reliant on good old-fashioned padlocks, and the theming and story elements are fairly perfunctory.

That said, this room does manage to create a reasonably spooky atmosphere, and there’s a good variety of puzzles (including a smell-based puzzle, a type I’d never seen before). It’s also not all linear so even with a larger group you’ll be kept busy. With just two of us it was challenging but fun.