Headlock Escape Rooms: Rise of the Fungi | Review

Rise of the Fungi Review: The spirits of Toadstool Forest have gathered a team of protectors, or Shepherds, to protect their forest. You will guide Paxillus through this wacky realm to put a stop to the terrors that have plagued the forest.

Date Played: January 2024
Time Taken: N/A
Number of Players: 4
Difficulty: Easy

Playing The Keeper and the Fungus Among Us feels like yesterday. That’s how much of a memorable game it was. In fact, I’d go so far as to say that if someone thrust a microphone into my hand right now I could probably still sing through the iconic “I put the fun in fungi” song the way through. But it wasn’t yesterday, it was two and a half years ago, good gracious! Which is why when the prequel, Rise of the Fungi arrived (or should I say, arose?), it filled an enormous fungus shaped hole in my heart I hadn’t known was there for 30 months.

Rise of the Fungi is the newest game from the creative minds at Headlock Escape Rooms. Their signature style of experience stands out in the UK escape room market, since it’s almost always a live-avatar controlled experience, but rather than a live-avatar, in Rise of the Fungi it’s a puppet. Through direct conversation and instructions, you control the main character, Paxillus, on an adventure across the forest. “Go left, go right, look at this, check inventory”, that sort of thing. Through these verbal commands, Paxillus the puppet crawls around a series of beautiful puppet sets meeting unusual characters that often break out into song and dance at the smallest provocation.

It’s a puzzle game, yes. If I were splitting hairs, I’d describe it as a “remote avatar play at home escape room”. It’s wordy, but since many new types of experiences popped up during lockdown, that’s the closest one that fits the bill. But honestly? It’s also so much more than that. Rise of the Fungi is more like a theatre show you take part in. There are actors, lines, musical moments and scene changes. We cheered, we laughed, and we solved puzzles too- but that didn’t feel like that most important part of what we were doing.

In terms of those puzzles, each level consisted of a playing area and all of the puzzle components were generally on display to us. To put it simply – look at, and explore a scene – then decide how to solve the puzzle. Here, the detail was everything. There was a lot to look at in each of the rich environments, and every single item in each set was put there with purpose. We also had access to our inventory. Anything we collected along the way was stored (well, snapped onto with velcro) in the inventory, which we could request to view at any time.

Of all the puzzles, nothing was too insurmountably tricky, which is why I put this one in the difficulty bracket of “easy”. It’s clear the creators just want you to come along and have fun, rather than spend time puzzling over particularly difficult puzzles. Satisfying smaller puzzle moments to make way for more brilliant moments of song and dance.

In a similar way, for a game billed more like a show than an escape room experience the story is also a little vague. That probably has more to do with me not paying attention, or being dazzled by the shiny lights and quirky characters, than the story itself lacking. But all that to say is in terms of the player’s goal, I just had a vague feeling of “stop bad people”, and that humans were at the core of this badness. Which hey, is a story I can get onboard with.

I put both of those points side by side because again, this game is really all about the show and the spectacle. It’s… Put simply… Just really fun. Everything in it has been put in it with the sole purpose of making the players enjoy myself. To make puzzles more difficult, or story more detailed would detract from the fun. It set out to do one thing, and does it excellently.

So onto my favourite things! Well, the best thing about this is game is, by far, the music. But I expected absolutely nothing less from Headlock Games. You can see just a small snippet of some of that music in this Tiktok video below. Complete with our team dancing and singing along. And yes, I’m still humming along to the bops even as I type this review.

@mairispaceship when trying to explain this concept of musical play at home escape rooms hosted on Zoom and run by Puppets… my colleagues don’t get it 😅 but maybe you guys will! I really enjoy creative puzzle games like this, and Rise of the Funghi takes the cake 👏 #zoomescaperoom #escaperoom #playathomeescaperoom #puzzlegame #virtualpuzzles ♬ original sound – Mairi Spaceship 🚀✨

The Verdict?

The Rise of the Fungi absolutely lives up to the expectations set out all those years ago by The Keeper and the Fungus Among Us. We had an absolute blast, and would truly recommend this game to anyone. It’s suitable for family members young and old, veteran escape room players with thousands beneath their belt and absolute newbies alike. For all those reasons and more, we’re awarding this game our “Fun Factor” award, for an escape room we found particularly fun. This one absolutely excels in that category.

As a final word of caution, this might be the last we see from Headlock Escape Rooms for a while. They’ve retired other fantastic rooms in the past, so I’d recommend playing this one as soon as you can. You wouldn’t want to miss it and regret it! 🙂

Rise of the Fungi can be booked and played via Headlock Escape Rooms website here.