Escape the Past: The Deacon’s Cabinet | Review

The Deacon’s Cabinet Review | A historical heist escape room which challenges you to outsmart the infamous Deacon William Brodie – Edinburgh’s favourite villain, and the inspiration for Jekyll & Hyde. Can you unlock the mysteries of The Deacon’s cabinet and discover his ill-gotten fortune before the noose tightens?

Completion Time: 45:02
Date Played: 13th December 2024
Party Size: 3
Difficulty: Medium

A new escape room?! In my city?! It’s likelier than you think.

The very newest escape room to have popped up in Edinburgh comes from historical heavyweights Escape the Past. I’m a big fan of their previous escape room, The Anatomist, which nicely combines both local history with solid gameplay and a showstopper finale. Basically, everything I love in an escape room. So when I heard about the new room, of course we had to book it immediately.

Being one of the first teams to play it also meant we secured second place on the leaderboard… Which is a lot less impressive considering we were only the 5th team ever to play. But hey! I’ll take it.

Deacon Brodie – A Real Life Jeykll and Hyde

So what is The Deacon’s Cabinet actually about? Well, there’s a legend in Edinburgh about a gentleman from the 1700s named Deacon Brodie who is said to have been the real life inspiration for Robert Louis Stevenson’s Strange Case of Dr Jekyll and Mr Hyde. Deacon Brodie was a cabinet maker and influential businessman around the city, but through his work he often copied keys and returned at night to commit robberies. Eventually, he was hanged.

Here, in The Deacon’s Cabinet you arrive just one mere hour before the Deacon is said to be hanged, and you’re sent into his workshop in order to recover his secret fortune. There is – as the name would suggest – a large and intricate cabinet for which the gameplay centres around, and all whilst you play you’re reminded of the imminent hanging through a careful mix of lights, sound, and theatrical moments.

About The Deacon’s Cabinet

The Deacon’s Cabinet is located in the same building as The Anatomist, just on the corner of Nicolson Square. The venue doesn’t have a waiting area, so it’s important to arrive on time where you’ll be greeted at the door by your games master. Our Games Master was the fantastic Beth, who delivered a fantastically immersive (and quite frightening!) introduction, before leaving us in the room to our fates.

What followed was a one-hour, single room, linear experience that, as mentions, centres largely around the pièce de résistance, the titular cabinet itself. What The Deacon’s Cabinet does really well is it tells a story. Whilst it’s not necessarily a difficult room, there is a lot to do. So balancing being able to read everything and follow the story against having the most amount of fun solving the puzzles is always a tricky thing to get right in an escape room, but The Deacon’s Cabinet walked this line well. With each new puzzle solved, you’re given the tools to solve the next and – quite often – some bonus story material in the form of an in-world, immersive scrap of paper. I’d be lying if I said I read everything cover to cover, but enough puzzle material was hidden in those scraps that you had to at least read most of it.

Pairing this with the excellent audio visuals – an immersive, changing soundtrack, and light and sound prompts at every stage of the way, and you have a well balanced room that carries the players through the story from start to finish. With a story so steeped in history, it’s an excellent medium for telling it.

In terms of the puzzles, there was a mix of different types and styles. Some more technology based, others more physical. There were more than a few locks we’d never ever seen before (which is always cool), but the flip side was there were also a few puzzles we recognised, and so knew what to do before it’d been prompted. As a team of three, there wasn’t a single moment any of us were lost for what to do. There was always something new to look at, to listen to, and to poke around at.

If I had only one criticism, it was that there just one or two small puzzles that didn’t quite click with us. One involved a little too much trial and error for our personal preferences, and another is just a style we don’t particularly enjoy. Not every puzzle will resonate with everyone though, and so take that with a pinch of salt. You, dear reader, may encounter the same one and absolutely love it, and if so that’s great!

The Anatomist vs The Deacon’s Cabinet

Whilst it’s been a long time since I played The Anatomist, I can’t help but compare the two. They sit very nicely together as companion pieces. In terms of theme, they both address iconic Edinburgh historical tales, but both have their own unique spin on the story they tell and the role of the players. The Deacon’s Cabinet may be a little smaller, but they’ve probably packed more puzzles in there. Both rooms feel well balanced in the technology-to-traditional locks ratio, and both have their own show-stopper moments that make them so memorable. But if I had to choose which one I preferred? Almost impossible to say – and as a team we were split in our opinions on that too. So I’ll just leave it by saying the two rooms work really well together, so you should probably book them both if you can!

The Deacon’s Cabinet: The Verdict

Overall, The Deacon’s Cabinet was a solid escape room. For a long time, The Anatomist has been one of those rooms I recommend to just about everyone visiting Edinburgh, and I’m glad Escape the Past has another one I can recommend just as wholeheartedly. In particular I’d love to shout out the immersion and the story as the highlights, as well as our excellent host Beth who it was a pleasure chatting to before and after. Whilst other aspects of the room (such as the puzzles and set design) don’t take any risks beyond what the original, The Anatomist, has done, you can be sure to get a reliably good experience when you play The Deacon’s Cabinet. I’m confident recommending to just about anyone who enjoys escape rooms, so put this on your “definitely should play” list for next time you’re in Scotland’s capital.

The Deacon’s Cabinet can be booked by heading to Escape the Past’s website here.