Locked In North Wales – Black & White

Locked In North Wales – Black & White.
Location: Abergele
Date: 27/08/2018.
Team: Amy & Ian

Theme:
“Find a way out and Escape the human size checker board solving traditional escape room clues and puzzles before you completely lose your minds and get stuck in there forever.

Don’t worry though you don’t need to know how to play chess.”

Theming was good, as you can imagine, everything was Black & White, and this lead to an almost clinical looking game space.
There is no story to this room, it is purely a room filled with puzzles. It’s a large, well lit space that doesn’t offer masses of immersion, but it’s not THAT type of room. The finish of the room was good for the type of room it is.

Game Play:
An open game with moments of linearty, with a good range of puzzles. Observation, logic, critical thinking, searching & word.
All puzzles were solvable, logical and had nice ah-ha moments. There were a few puzzles where we got 1 part of the puzzle early on, then at a later point in the game found a use for it… this is effective within and open game as it forces you to bounce about the rooms and solve everything! (No shortcuts here!) This leads to fun soloutions and clean ah-ha moments.
The flow was good, with subtle signposting leading us around the room yet not giving too much away. There was a good amount of interactivity within the room too which further pushed the game forward to drive the flow.
Whilst the game had no narrative, the puzzles were loosley on theme,  all relating to the black & white nature of the room. A solid hour of puzzling… it is definitely more of a puzzle room!
A good game for beginners and enthusiasts alike!

Clue System:
Clues were delivered via intercom. Clues that are asked for incure a 1min time penalty at the end of your game.

Game Host:
Ash was our game host and was welcoming, friendly and ran out game with perfection. Delivering little nudges but never full on clues unless we asked.

Did we escape?
We escaped with 10 minutes remaining, but took 1 clue, leaving us with an official time of 51 minutes.

Website: http://www.lockedin-northwales.com
Price:
2 Players £40
3 Players £57
4 Players £72
5 Players £85
6 Players £96