Tulleys Escape Rooms & Games: Nethercott Manor

An amazing room.  A couple of the items were a bit worse for wear when we played and broke during play which stops this getting the full 5*.  I also wish there wasn't quite so much content in the room.  Although we did escape, we had to parallelise a lot in order to do so and it meant there were large chunks of the room I never saw!

It was the very first escape room we played and I now know it was the wrong choice for the complete novice...! lol. It’s so involved and full of puzzles to solve. We managed to get to the last room but unfortunately ran out of time.  Still, we think we did well!  Very good room with a lot to work on.

Really hard to know how to review this game: as a couple I would say we had quite different experiences of the game. Pretty similar theme  and look to playing a Mystery Case Files computer game. I got to do more of the smaller puzzles individually while the other half of the duo concentrated on some more physical skill puzzles. The game - if it had worked and had been well hosted - would have been absolutely great, I am sure. 

The good: it is HUGE and there is plenty to do. We apparently had one room to go at the end and hadn't quite finished the room we were in. There are some fun puzzles. The set looks fantastic - one of the best I have seen. There were some great a-ha moments and some mild jump scares. 

The bad: ultimately a frustrating experience - more so for Mr B who got stuck with a broken puzzle having been trying to do it for at least 10 minutes. We had 3 separate occurrences in the rooms where drawers or doors should have opened having put in the correct solution where nothing happened. I am not sure if this was down to mechanical issues with the puzzles or a failure to pay attention to manual release moments on the part of the GM  - but compounded by failing to get a response from the GM when asking for help or to confirm that the solution entered was correct on multiple occasions, it felt like we wasted a lot of time standing around not understanding why nothing had happened and why we couldn't progress. Given these faults, being ceremoniously shepherded out of the room exactly on the 60:00 mark - when we had starting playing around 10 minutes in advance of our listed game time - meant that we felt like we had not really got the full experience, and I can't say that the GM was particularly bothered about it. A real shame, given the potential the room clearly has to be one of the best in the UK. 

Challenging, as there is a lot to do!