Escape Reality Manchester: Enigmista

Really enjoyed the set-up but the low light levels make all the searching a bit laboured... Saying that, it really got going after we got past the first room and we enjoyed the last few puzzles.

Boring, too easy and not enough puzzles.

Do You Want to Play (Another) Game?

With its half-price student deal, you can't keep me away from Escape Reality for very long.

Story

Escape a serial killer's lair by passing their series of tests. The ol' SAW storyline. Oddly, the picture on the website made me thought it's a pirate game, what with the skeleton and chains.

Puzzles

Intermediate difficulty. It did take us a bit of time to get going, but after that we were pretty much on our way. They used the sort of paraphernalia you'd expect to work with in this type of game. One or two appeared similar to puzzles I've tackled in their previous rooms.

Mise-en-scène

I liked the 'captured' situation we started off in. It had the feel of a dingy, grimy lair with sparse lighting and big, disconcerting props to interact with...definitely a place where a serial killer would store victims. Regretfully, though, there were plenty of cheap rubber limbs hanging about to remind me it's just a game.

Final Comments

A decent, slightly creepy challenge for two (not 'scary'). Take a couple more people for just as much fun.

I don't find Escape Reality particularly atmospheric and the staff are too busy to dedicate a GM to any group. 

As this is a scary room, we did ask how scary and our GM was very descriptive, which wasn't what I wanted. He gave too much away, but in a confusing way that actually resulted in us wasting time some times doing what we thought we were supposed to do, based on the hints that we'd had. It would have been much better if he just hadn't said anything. 

Overall, the story was good, the execution was OK, the set was quite flat and sparse but we did have a good time. A couple of red herrings threw me, so if you find there's something you can't figure out, try moving on to something else because you might be trying to find something that isn't there.