Escapism – Area 51

THIS GAME IS NOW CLOSED
Escapism – Area 51
Location: Chester
Game Date 05/09/2017.
Team: Amy & Ian

Theme:
“In a place that doesn’t exist, no one is coming to your rescue. A virus has broken out in one of the top-secret testing facilities and there’s only one way out. Crack the code and escape the lab before it’s too late.”

Theming was OK. There was a little bit to suggest “lab” – skeletons and metal tables etc but the immersion wasn’t there fully, there were a couple of posters up around the room & some lab coats, but essentially it was quite bare, this did lend itself to not having many red herrings in the room which was good.
The room was well lit and spacious, so there is no risk of claustrophobia, or trouble seeing at all. The room was clean too, as you would expect a lab to be!

Game Play:
A linear game with different “threads” – the puzzles all came down to numbers and there was an abundance of 4 digit padlocks within the room. The puzzles were mainly observation & codebreaking. With 1 really nice musical puzzle (I always like them.)
The variation of puzzles was OK, with a couple having nice ah-ha moments and being solvable and satisfying on their own.
The flow was stuttery, quite often we would open something up, get the next piece and think… where to we go next, it seemed a bit disjointed, it did come together more in the latter half of the game.
A couple of the puzzles had logic leaps that were not explicitly awful, or large… but required a bit of critical thinking (and I don’t think we’d have got them without a nudge) That being said, the logic leaps we found weren’t frustrating, or stupid.
We did have a moment where something that was supposed to be open, had locked itself (we blame the aliens) and the staff dealt with it incredibly well, they kept cool and paused the timer to come in to try to open/fix it. It didn’t effect our game at all, I just wanted to commend the girls on the handling of the situation, it was handled with excellent care and attention.
I think enthusiasts would find this room a bit cliche, and newbies could find it difficult (due to the leaps) I would take a 3 for experienced players, and a 5 for newbies (but I couldn’t honestly recommend it as a first room)

Clue System:
Clues were delivered via a screen

Game Host:
Charlotte was our game host and she was ace, so friendly and she read our game incredibly well (considering there were no mics in the room) she delivered clues right on time!

Did we escape?
Yes, in 34 minutes!

Website: https://www.escapismchester.co.uk
Price:

Off Peak:
2 Players £36
3 Players £45
4 Players £56
5 Players £60

Peak:
2 Players £40
3 Players £48
4 Players £60
5 Players £70