Lucardo Manchester: University of Magic: The Entrance Exam

Nice fun room. Family friendly. 

Beautiful set.

Runs alongside the magic room at the other venue. It's nice that the 2 stories run back to back

Great room, our favourite of the 3 we played there. Very well themed and some great puzzles. Recommended if in the area. 

Sorcery on a Sunday!

I came here for my final (at least for now) Lucardo challenge with a few friends.

Story

Secure your place at the University of Magic by finding a wand and mixing a potion.

Puzzles

There were some truly unique, ‘magical’ tasks closely related to the theme/story. We required two or three hints, but none of them were overly complicated. The previous group had written the answer to the penultimate puzzle down, and this wasn’t rubbed off prior to us going in. While we still effectively solved it, the information we shouldn’t have had made it obvious we were doing it correctly. Since the answer didn’t become accessible until right near the end, it wasn’t too big a deal.

Mise-en-scène

A quirky, close-packed room that utilised every inch of available space for brooms, wands, quills, creatures and potions. I identified a fair few of Poundland’s Halloween wares as props, but if you don’t know, some of them do look authentic. There was one item that struck me as impressively Harry Potter-esque, but not quite as interactive as it perhaps should have been. As a whole, the room did feel part of an immersive, wizarding world.

Final Comments

An impersonal brief was saved by another bouncy Game Operator who welcomed us into the room in-character. I wouldn’t take more than 4 people, or else you’ll be struggling for puzzles to solve.

A great set and some interesting well-themed puzzles.  The game was let down a bit by the last puzzle though, which was lacking proper constraints and required you to make assumptions which didn't fit with the story.

Really good room by Lucardo. We were hoping to complete this room since we did Dragon's Heart back in 2018.

It really didn't disappoint but we were left a bit lost by the story, we didn't know what the aim of the room was, not sure if we missed it in the introduction video (which had very low volume) so once all the padlocks and doors were opened, we lost a bit of time trying to understand why we were meant to do.

The game master (Emma, I believe) was fantastic. She really is enthusiastic about escape rooms so it made our experience even better as she knew to wait before sending us clues.