Knockout Escape Rooms: Locktopus | Review

The Locktopus Review | For years, rumours have spread about a rogue AI; a creature of code and curiosity, calling itself The Locktopus. Now it has invited you into its chamber of challenges. This is not a normal game. This is a battle of wits against something built to outthink you. Will you impress it? Or will you be forgotten like the others who failed?

Date Played: 18th December 2025
Time Taken: 60 minutes
Number of Players: 6
Difficulty: Hard

Did you know that the nervous system of an octopus is built in such a way that they effectively have a mini-brain situated at the base of each of their eight arms, allowing them to work on eight separate tasks all at the same time?

Which is apt, because that’s exactly what my own brain felt like the entire time we were playing Locktopus. It’s been a long time since I felt so engaged from start to finish whilst playing an Escape Room. The description said it wasn’t a normal game, and truly, they ain’t wrong.

Reading and Writing

As an early x-mas present to ourselves, myself, Mairi, Alex & Tom from COGS/Clockwork Dog, David M from Bewilder Box and my buddy Chris met to play Reading’s two newest rooms: Locktopus from Knockout Escape Rooms and Reading Witch from Deadlocked.

Despite being different brands, Knockout was taken over by Deadlocked back in February 2024. Whilst the old Knockout rooms were inherited rooms during the acquisition, Locktopus is very much a brand new creation from the brilliant minds of Deadlocked’s owners, James and Charlie.

This was an extra special occasion for us because it was also the long overdue reunion of superteam Clockwilder Bog (the ridiculously clever mash-up of Clockwork Dog and Bewilder Box, in case you couldn’t work that out).

I arrived at Knockout a few hours earlier to have a bit of a natter with James, and then spent the remaining time catching up on some work in their cosy little waiting area whilst he ran a game for the team before us. Eavesdropping on the same introduction I would receive myself a little over an hour later, I could already tell I was going to absolutely love this room.

One thing James stressed was with the ‘re-use’ of certain elements. If you’ve played enough Escape Rooms, you’ll know that the general consensus is that players are not expected to use things more than once, and generally speaking it makes sense – it keeps things tidy and devoid of confusion. Locktopus though? That goes right out the window. Not only are you required to use things more than once, you have no idea how many times that might be, and so you’re forced to permanently have your wits about you.

In a similar escape room tradition-breaking vein, there’s also no ‘beat the clock’ here either. Every team is given precisely the allotted time of 60 minutes, and it’s just a case of ‘solve as many puzzles as you possibly can before time’s up.’

On the Clock-topus

Soon enough, the previous team had finished and the remainder of Clockwilder Bog (+ Mairi & Chris) had turned up, so it was down to business!

The format was simple: Once we’d entered, we would need to use the giant touchscreen in the middle of the room, select from one of 8 different ‘themed’ strands representing the legs of the Locktopus, and then input a code. There were slight variations on this depending on what was going on, but for the most part, that was the general flow.

Oh also, fair warning DON’T PUT ANYTHING ON THE TOUCHSCREEN, DAVID.

Each strand had a varying number of challenges you’d need to conquer before it could be considered ‘completed,’ and the ‘main’ objective of the game was to complete 4 strands in total. Once that was done, then it was on to finishing as many of the remaining puzzles as possible to increase your score. Take note: this is not a game where you can stand around and admire the scenery if you want to score high – you need to be on your toes without respite.

We pushed the player limit to the max as a 6, and worked really well together. Alone, as a pair, in a three, switching to another group, back to the first group, back to solo, and so on; the nature of the game and the incredible amount of content available at any one time means that it really benefits constantly chopping and changing who you work with over the course of the game. Applying the old ‘fresh pair of eyes’ tactic proved to be a solid strategy.

The timer hit 60 minutes, and James appeared on cue for the debrief. Starting with a breakdown of stats for the game, we were then given a list of all the video-game like achievements we’d earned, and then it concluded with a show and tell of some of the puzzles we had failed to solve, complete with a chorus of smacked foreheads.

Locktopus: The Verdict

I’ll be frank, if you’re looking for a story-rich experience, this game is not going to deliver on that – it could be explained as succinctly as: ‘There is a bad AI Octopus, go in the room, solve puzzles; show it who’s boss’, but don’t let that take away from its pure brilliance.

The decor is simply mad – but in a good way. The flashing lights, colours, sounds, visuals popping off everywhere – it felt like I was a kid stuck inside an arcade with an infinite coin-glitch.

Pitted as being a room with far more than is humanly possible to solve in the time you’ve been given, it’s very clear that this is an experience for people who care about nothing else than to just solve puzzles. There’s only one other game in history that captivated me so utterly from start to finish because of its pure dopamine-fueled solving – and that was Million Dollar date night at the Panic Rooms in Gravesend. However most of those were classic quick wins or off-the-shelf, so it wasn’t particularly innovative – a far cry from here.

Out of the 74 puzzles, we only managed to do maybe 70% of them. Considering we achieved the 2nd highest score of all time, and as a team of seasoned players, that gives you an idea of how extremely unlikely it is to reach the end. It’s definitely a room I could go back and play again – not only were there puzzles we didn’t do as a team, but there were plenty I didn’t even see as I was rushing around.

I don’t know if Locktopus is for everyone – but it was definitely made for me. In fact, the more I’ve reflected on it, I think it might have just taken my crown for favourite Escape Room in the UK.

Glorious.

Locktopus can be booked by heading to Knockout Escape Rooms’ website here.

Please Note: We were not charged for our experience, however this wasn’t in exchange for, nor with the expectation of a review. This has not affected the content of our review.