Moviescape – The Sherlock Holmes Mystery

Moviescape – The Sherlock Holmes Mystery
Location: Stockport
Game Date: 23/08/2019
Team: Amy & Ian

Theme:
“In our most challenging game yet; Sherlock Holmes and many of his allies have been kidnapped!

You have one hour to work out who has been taken, where they are being held and the identity of their captor before Sherlock suffers a terrible fate.

This room is suitable for all ages however please be aware that it is the hardest game!”

Sherlock was decorated well, in keeping with the Sherlock theme the room was decorated to the “victorian living room” style. There was nothing in the room that was misleading in terms of decor, and the room was plenty big enough for the maximum of 8 players.

Game Play:
A linear game that consisted of HEAVY searching, observation, deduction and not much more.
Puzzles were fairly in theme with the end game being to find Sherlock’s location. Keeping track of all the disappearances all his accomplices, their locations and kidnappers was the sole highlight of this game.
The puzzles that gave these aspects were illogical, tedious and at the most rather boring.
Manhandled props that were falling apart at the seams led to difficulties in solving puzzles and some of the puzzles had logic leaps that were so inexplicable, I would be astounded if anyone got them without clues.
The puzzles were loosely on theme throughout the game and there was no sense of discovery in the game.
Signposting was acutely lacking and players were left entirely to their own devices to make assumptions and try to gather enough information to solve the puzzles… except there wasn’t enough direction in many of the puzzles to even know where to begin.
The flow was lacking and felt deliberately stilted and jagged.
The heavy search element I felt was a deliberate mechanic to slow teams down, with there being many searches that were honestly ridiculous.
That all being said, the main element of the room was enjoyable and that lead to a decent finale puzzle which was clear and concise in its logic (although it could have been executed in a clearer way) if only the rest of the room had followed in the same vein. There were maybe 1 or 2 puzzles throughout the hour that also made logical sense. All the rest had massive logic leaps and 1 was downright flawed.

Clue System:
Clues were delivered via a “phone” in the room, we had to ask for them (A big no-no in our opinion, as how are we to know how far along the game we are to clue appropriately!) and the majority of the time we were asked where we were up to and then given a direct clue. It felt like we weren’t really supported by the game host at many points throughout the game.

Game Host:
I didn’t get our game host’s name but she was polite and friendly.
Clues were sometimes given with appropriate timing, but there was one instance where there was a couple of minutes delay from asking for a clue to receiving one. This is frustrating as a player. Occasionally clues were essentially a confirmation of what we already had, or had done.

Did we escape?
Yes, but a few minutes over time (considering that our host didn’t answer for a couple of minutes when we requested a clue, it was considered a victory)

Website: https://www.moviescape.co.uk/
Price:
2 Players £40
3 Players £60
4 Players £60
5 Players £78
6 Players £78
7 Players £88
8 Players £88