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Mystery Locks: Santa is Missing! | Review

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Santa is Missing! Review | The most wonderful time of the year has arrived, but something is wrong. The presents are missing, the Christmas Tree is empty and there’s no trace of Santa Claus anywhere! The North Pole is in chaos, and the fate of Christmas rests on your shoulders. You and your team of merry helpers have been summoned to save the day and find Santa Claus in time to save the holiday. But where could he be? The clock is ticking, and the children of the world are counting on you to keep the magic of Christmas alive. Put your skills to the test and follow the clues to unravel the mystery and rescue Santa Claus. Will you save Christmas, or will the holiday be ruined forever? The countdown to Christmas has begun, and the clock is ticking – let the adventure begin!

Date Played: December 2023
Time Taken: 40 Minutes (+ extra time for cutting / sticking)
Number of Players: 1
Difficulty: Easy
All photos on this page are (c) Mystery Locks.
Used because my own printer decided to wash out all the colours in printing, so my photos didn’t quite do it justice!

Since lockdown, I really haven’t played that many “printable” escape rooms. Not least of all because I own the world’s least reliable printer, and no longer work from an office where I can print anything out more professionally… But also because they aren’t so common anymore! I suppose the market has simply changed. Since 2020, international freight for board games has resumed *cough cough* nice to see there aren’t any boats blocking the Suez, and of course escape rooms across the world have opened up… Which all amounts to less demand than there was three years ago. But equally, it makes it feel refreshing when a new one does come along. So when the lovely team at Mystery Locks reached out about their Christmas experience, I was excited to see what Santa is Missing! was all about.

Of the Mystery Locks collection (an enormous plethora of printable games for all ages and group sizes), Santa is Missing! is one of their most family friendly. With it’s light-hearted, Christmas theme and puzzles on the easier side, it’s fairly accessible and easy to pick up. Although, from experience playing similar games with kids, I would still recommend parental supervision. It wasn’t immediately clear if you should cut everything out before playing, or cut as you go – but a fair warning that cutting all the bits out does take a significant amount of time. There are 25 pages in all, and whilst you probably don’t have to cut every single thing out, the photographs on Mystery Lock’s website seem to suggest you should. In all my printer took around 30 minutes to print everything out (remember I said it was an unreliable piece of equipment). I then took a further 30 minutes to cut everything out (hey, I’m slow and there was a Christmas film in on the background, so who can blame me). Then with a cup of mulled wine in hand, I finally sat down to play it and finished the whole thing in around 40 minutes. In hindsight, it does take longer to setup than play – which isn’t necessarily a bad thing, just something to keep in mind.

What followed was a fun puzzle-heavy experience in rescuing Santa. You see, the very first page you print out sets the scene that Santa is missing, and the following page indicates that there’s a “guilty elf” involved. The story doesn’t go much more detailed than that. It’s slightly confusing, but I suppose I’m not the target audience – I’m sure a young child wouldn’t have quite as many unanswered questions as I did (how are we to know an elf was involved? How was the elf involved? Why did they do it? What did the password unlock?). I mentioned that the game was puzzle-heavy, to the detriment of the narrative. The whole game is essentially a series of puzzles to unlock a series of numbers which give you the password to a QR code page to check your answer. The answer is a 12 digit code, and the first three letters of a name. The name is case-sensitive, which resulted in more than a little confusion when I managed to get the correct answer incorrect twice in a row, but I got there in the end with a little check in the Walkthrough.

But, for what it lacks in storytelling signposting – it makes up for in labelling signposting. Each puzzle is very clearly labelled at the top the sheet. If printing and cutting, it’s helpful to make a note on the back of the items you cut out exactly which puzzle they’re for, as you can keep them in a neat pile. The game therefore folds linearly throughout the series of puzzles from one through to twelve, through to the grant “whodunnit” finale.

If I had to pinpoint my favourite thing about the game, it would be the puzzles. It’s really quite a clever collection of little puzzles, a few of which felt delightfully unique and festive enough to spark Christmas joy. For sure, I didn’t know exactly what I was doing or why I needed to do it, but the physical process of going through each puzzle in turn felt satisfying. They were aimed at a younger audience and involved a lot of physical manipulation of the paper – cutting, folding, moving things around, but cozied up on my sofa wanting a “light-hearted puzzle experience” it really scratched the itch.

The Verdict

Overall, the game didn’t quite capture my imagination, but I was pleasantly surprised by it. I enjoyed the puzzles themselves, but ended the experience with a few more questions than answers, and felt it was lacking a little signposting in some parts. I’d recommend it for a family audience, and if anyone is in the market for a fun little puzzler over Christmas. I think in general, and this is definitely a bigger discussion to be had in a future article, that printable experiences just aren’t as magical as they once were. If you’re stranded with just a laptop and a printer but forgot to pack any board games, then a printable game is a great and low cost “do it yourself” option for family games night. Within the genre, Mystery Locks have done a good job in creating something fun for their target audience – so they’re well worth checking out. But in all, I’m not sure if this was quite for me.

Santa is Missing! can be purchased by heading to Mystery Locks website here. As a printable game, you’ll be responsible for printing out and assembling your own copy.

We were not charged for our experience playing Santa is Missing! but this does not affect the contents of our review.

The Blue Coconut: Echoes of Stardust | Review

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Echoes of Stardust Review | Dance your way into the vibrant world of the “The Stardust Palace”, where groovy tunes and hidden mysteries await! Are you ready to immerse yourself in an adventure that will transport you back to the neon-lit heart of the 1980s disco era? Prepare to solve enigmatic puzzles, decipher cryptic clues, and unravel secrets from the golden age of disco!

Number of Players: 4
Time Taken: 40 minutes
Date Played: October 2023
Difficulty: Easy

Recently I travelled down to Sheffield to hang out with Al, Ash, and our friend Tasha (collectively, and separately of Escaping the Closet) which meant a weekend of escape rooms and tabletop puzzle games! Of course, it would also be that weekend I’d forgotten to bring the bag packed chock full of board games – so imagine my delight when I unzipped my small backpack to find I’d slipped one (just one) game in there. This one! Praise be to envelope sized light-weight puzzle games that are also printable just in case you forget your files at home.

I also packed The Blue Coconut’s other game, the spooky “Curse of Blackthorn Manor“. But on glancing through both of them, we collectively decided to leap into the light-hearted disco themed romp complete with dazzling font and bright and exciting colours.

Image (c) The Blue Coconut

The Blue Coconut themselves are prolific Etsy sellers sporting, at the time of writing, some 3,500 sales all around the world and a 5 star rating across the board. Some portion of their sales seem to come from a previous version of the business from 2015/2016 where the duo specialised in art prints. But then in 2021, The Blue Coconut was born (or reborn) as a tabletop puzzle game creator. Since then, they’ve been making anything from murder mystery games to more traditional puzzle games to popular response. In fact today, if you log into Etsy and search “escape room” you’ll probably see them pop up in one of the very first listings. Outside of Etsy, the team is slightly less known – which is a shame, because having played through two of their games now, I had fun!

But let’s get into it… What sort of fun can a player expect from Echoes of Stardust?

About Echoes of Stardust

Echoes of Stardust is a short puzzle and murder mystery hybrid game. You, the player arrives at The Stardust Palace after receiving a letter from “Vincent Groovemaster”, the venue’s owner. The star of the show, Celeste Nightingale was found murdered, and we had three missions to complete:

Find the identity of Celeste’s killer
Discover the location of Celeste’s cryptex
Decipher the code to the cryptex to find out what she’d left within it

To solve those three missions, you’re faced with a range of puzzles. This is very much a “tip the contents of the envelope onto the table and explore” type of game, so there wasn’t too much in the way of signposting – we could tackle any puzzle in any order.

A few of them we got super easily. Of those, we picked up the killer’s name right away, for example. A few others required a little cutting and sticking – in one instance a jigsaws-style puzzle, and in another assembling a CD cassette case (so retro! I love it!). Since there were 4 of us, we split across the table into 2 groups of 2 and got solving, occasionally swapping clues when we got stuck on something in particular.

Guiding you along the way is a small business-card with images of which aspects of the game need to be used together to solve a puzzle. If we needed a hint, there was an online web portal we could go to to find out more. In the end, we used on hint on what I think is the very last puzzle in the game. It was a classic case of “we were overthinking this”, but a little extra signposting on this puzzle may have gone a long way.

The Physical Papers from The Stardust Palace

In terms of quality, Echoes of Stardust is available in two forms:

Print at Home
Shipped in an Envelope

We opted for the former, and ours arrived in a cute pink envelope inside a more stable cardboard envelope to protect it during transit. Since the game is essentially a printable game, everything in the envelope was a simple paper puzzle, with the occasional item on more durable stock including a metallic scratch-off solution reveal, and a shiny brochure stock.

Visually this game is beautiful… Well, at least until closer inspection when I realised that the majority of the eye-catching art is actually AI generated. Here at The Escape Roomer we are not huge fans of AI art. We get that there’s often a need to iterate on a design very quickly at the prototype level, but seeing AI art in a finished project is a big no no for us and we, at The Escape Roomer prefer to support human designers and human artists who have been fairly paid for their work.

With that elephant in the room out of the way, we can go back to the fun part. What is our verdict?

Echoes of Stardust: The Verdict

Well, Echoes of Stardust is very much a more entry-level escape room experience, and as a result isn’t targeting the enthusiast market. The team has chosen a formula (word answer, then digits for all other puzzles) and stuck to it across their games that I can see. Forcing puzzles into the box of “the output has to be a 3 digit code” or “a 4 digit code” doesn’t always make for the most interesting puzzles. I think the game could have done more with the theme, or been more – perhaps with a more cohesive storyline, or more unique puzzles. Personally, I would love to see the team do something that breaks their own formula. A bigger, more encompassing murder mystery which creative and mimetic puzzles that fit well into the universe they have created. Rather than a puzzle arbitrarily outputting a 3-digit code, perhaps you’re retracing the victim’s steps, or comparing fingerprints to suspects, or listening to music that contains backwards speaking in a creepy final message the victim left us – just the little things that make more ‘mimetic’ sense in the universe of ‘solving a murder’.

But all that said, for the low price and fun visual presentation, Echoes of Stardust hits the spot and ticks enough boxes for us to be called fun… And 3500 five star reviews on Etsy can’t be wrong. They’re clearly doing something right, that their target audience loves!

I would recommend this for the casual puzzle player looking for something fun on date night, or a game at home with friends. For an even better experience – you could probably use actual digit locks and a cryptex (if you have such things lying around your house – unfortunately I do, haha!) to lock away fun disco-themed prizes that are revealed once you solve the puzzles.

Echoes of Stardust can be purchased as a printable game, or shipped directly to you by heading to The Blue Coconut’s Etsy here.

Please Note: We were not charged for our experience, but this hasn’t affected our review.

StreetHunt Games: Will Breaker | Review

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Street Hunt Games: Will Breaker | Your uncle has died in mysterious circumstances, leaving his estate to you, but only if you can solve a series of brain teasers. Along the way you’ll meet various characters from his past and discover that there was more to your uncle than meets the eye. Follow the clues to decode his puzzles before time runs out.

Number of Players: 2
Time Taken: 60-90 mins
Date Played: October 2023
Difficulty: Easy – Moderate

Given the mammoth size of our fair capital city, London, and the apparent appetite for new and unique experiences amongst both its residents and its visitors, I’m always surprised that aren’t a zillion and one puzzle trails and treasure hunts crowding the teeming streets. But there aren’t, so any new addition to the currently small, but tasty, smorgasbord is a very welcome addition indeed. When that hunt also comes from a company with a proven track record for puzzling excellence, such as StreetHunt (whose coffee themed hunt Colombia’s Finest we reviewed here) then colour me excited, throw me my trainers and get me out pounding those pavements.

What’s Will Breaker All About?

This latest puzzle hunt is called Will Breaker and the main narrative thread is that your war correspondent uncle has recently passed away and made you the main beneficiary in his will. But he’s not going to make it easy for you to get your hands on your inheritance so has set you a series of puzzle challenges across the Holborn area of London that you’ll need to solve in order to find where he’s hidden his most valued possessions. This is all you need to know to get started but as you play across the puzzles, you receive new nuggets of information about your deceased uncle and realise that there was more to him, and his inheritance, than you first thought.

How Does Will Breaker Work?

Will Breaker works in very much the same way as Columbia’s Finest and many other outdoor puzzle games in that you book on their website and choose the date and time you’d like to play. After you’ve booked you can add other members to your team so that on the day everyone playing can receive the puzzle information and keep track of your progress. Not all puzzle hunts allow for this and it’s much more user friendly to have everyone reading on their own devices rather than all crowding round one phone or listening to someone read things out (is there anything worse in any puzzle/ER scenario than having to absorb information that is being read to you? Or is that just me?). BTW there’s no app to download to play this game. You’ll be emailed the links you need and as you play everything is web browser based (so make sure you have data and a fully charged battery!).

Shortly before your scheduled game time all the team will be emailed with details of where to go to start and how to get going. You can read the introductory back story information ahead of time or at the very start of the game, and there’s a few little tasks to help you learn how to navigate both the tech and the puzzles, all of which can be done before you start the game proper.

Unlike most other puzzle hunts I’ve played, and more in line with your typical escape room, you have a set 60 minutes to complete the majority of the puzzle hunt, with extra time allowed at the very end to complete the final challenge. No need to panic that you’ve got to race through the introductory reading and instructions though as the timer doesn’t start until you’ve accessed the very first clue.

And You’re Off!

Once you’re ready to get going, the very first puzzle establishes the pattern that continues throughout the rest of the game. You’ll have access to a map on which will appear a yellow dot. You have to navigate to that spot and then answer a question or riddle based on that location to prove that you’re in the right place. Once you’ve entered the right answer you’ll meet one of your late uncle’s contacts who will give you a cryptex and a riddle, puzzle or code that will lead you to a 4 digit code for that cryptex. We briefly got excited that we were going to connect up with real people and be handed IRL cryptexes but we get over-excited easily and soon realised the meet ups and cryptexes are all digital. All the communication happens entirely through your phone. Once you’ve worked out the four digit code and opened the cryptex a new dot will appear on your map and off you go again – new location, new question to prove you’re at the right spot, new cryptex, new puzzle. Every puzzle solved gives you a small piece of a meta-puzzle that you complete at the very end of the game.

I love outdoor puzzle hunts in London because despite being a born and bred local, they almost always take me to new nooks and crannies of the city that I’ve never explored before. Without giving away any specific locations, this one covers a lot of ground in the Holborn area and while the majority of the spots were familiar to me (I’ve walked that area a lot in the past) there were still a few that took me by surprise. And if you’re new to London, a visitor or a local who just haven’t ventured beyond the delights of Holborn tube station, this trail will take you to some great little London treasures and details that you’d only spot when forced to slow down, stop and look around you.

In terms of the puzzles themselves StreetHunt’s website lists this trail as ‘moderate’ (as opposed to Colombia’s Finest which is ‘challenging) and, being honest, we found the puzzles and codes needed to open the cryptexes on the easier side but this makes it perfect for family groups as well as mixed ability puzzler groups, newbie gamers and even ER enthusiasts who want a fun way to explore a new corner of old London town.

Once you’ve answered the riddle or question that proves you’re in the right location, the actual cryptex puzzle isn’t directly linked to the spot you’re standing in, which is a minor niggle and probably only one because I’m a history nerd who loves to learn a new factoid or two. You do get given the option of reading a bonus fun fact about your location once you’ve opened the cryptex though. So nerd appetite satisfied.

The Verdict

Overall, this is a lovely new addition to both StreetHunt’s puzzle portfolio and London’s collection of hunts and trails. It covers ground that not many of the city’s other trails do and the use of the web browser map and tech makes it a more satisfying experience than the simple message and response style of some of the longer running hunts. Great fun for families and those keen to explore a less well trodden corner of London.

Will Breaker costs £16.50 per player. Teams of 2-6 players recommended (larger groups are recommended to split into multiple teams). It can be booked by heading to their website here. We did not pay for our experience but it doesn’t affect our review.

Lost Sock Studio: Escape from Mystwood Mansion | Review

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Escape from Mystwood Mansion| In this first-person puzzle escape room game, you are trapped in the mysterious Mystwood mansion. Explore the mansion and find hidden compartments while solving puzzles and deciphering codes to find a way out. Will you escape or linger to uncover the mansion’s final secret?

Developer: Lost Sock Studio
Date Played: September 2023
Console: Steam
Number of Players: 1
Time Taken: 100 minutes

I don’t know why but I get really excited when I see a new name or new game studio pop up in our little ‘escape room’ niche corner of the internet. So when I started hearing about Escape from Mystwood Mansion from the brand new studio “Lost Sock”, I was more than intrigued! Lost Sock are about as indie as it’s possible to get – they’re a game developer duo from Sweden and this is their first release. And, well, for a first release, I was super impressed! Tt’s polished, the puzzles satisfying, and it’s comfortable to play. It’s also very marketable. I mean, that spooky old mansion and launching right before Halloween, it’s *chefs kiss*.

But enough about the marketability of a game like Escape from Mystwood Mansion, and let’s get into the nitty gritty of why I enjoyed this game!

Deliver a Package to the Library or Face the Consequence

Escape from Mystwood Mansion opens with you, the protagonist, stepping out of your delivery truck with a package. You knock on the door, the door swings open, and very quickly you find yourself trapped. You are Test Subject Number 83, and it’s clear from the narrative of the game you’re not the first to be locked in by the house – nor will you be the last!

What follows is a classic escape room adventure as you move from room to room, solving puzzles, finding keys, cracking codes, and uncovering secret doors. Sometimes you’re breaking things too. I love breaking things.

At the very beginning, you’re given the instruction to “deliver the package to the library”. I actually never got to deliver the package to the library – I think I lost the package somewhere along the way, although I did (for a while) try to keep it with me. Whether this means I ‘won’ or not, I’m not sure, but I certainly escaped and so I’m calling my 110 minutes in the game a resounding success. I escaped from the library itself, as well as a lovely conservatory room, several secret (and slightly creepy) hidden passages, and the foyer.

Now, on my successful exit from Mystwood Mansion, I discovered a secret door that hinted that there were a few tiny details I had missed. At the time of writing, I’ve unlocked two out of the three secret locks to the secret room, and I’m thoroughly looking forward to going back and figuring out what is behind the mysterious final door. But for the meantime, the game is complete.

It’s very hard not to compare this game to Escape Simulator. Thematically, it’s quite similar to the Escape Simulator levels set in a spooky old mansion. The controls feel the same, the movement feels the same, and even a few puzzles are very similar. The game gives me the feeling of playing an Escape Simulator level, for example one from the vast wealth of community workshop escape rooms available on it’s platform. One of the most memorable puzzles in Escape Simulator was a ‘butterfly sequence’ puzzle in which you could move the butterflies around in order to complete the sequence. Now, sequence puzzles are common, but sequence puzzles specifically involving butterflies… Less so!

The View from the Butterfly Room

But for each ‘this is similar’ puzzle, there were countless others which were wholly original – so there’s a balance for sure. It also differs from Escape Simulator in a few marked ways. The levels are enormous, and each room rolls onto the other to build up a big picture of a large house. There’s an underlying story, and touches of light humour I really appreciated. Fans of Escape Simulator will love this.

Puzzling Through Mystwood Mansion

In terms of puzzles, I really enjoyed these. In fact, the puzzles were some of my favourite things in the whole experience. They really felt like escape room puzzles in the classic sense of the word. A few I recognised right away – there’s some pretty common ciphers in there, including Morse Code, Pigpen, as well as a few dashes of anamorphic text and negative space puzzles. But even then, there were plenty other puzzles I didn’t recognise at all and gave my brain a run for it’s money! Over the course of the game, I used very few hints – just a few to confirm what I already knew if something wasn’t working quite the way I expected.

Escape from Mystwood Mansion probably errs on the side of a little short for a game in the genre. For a seasoned escapist who wants to complete everything in the game, you’re looking at around 120 minutes. I took 110, with plenty of breaks, and didn’t quite complete everything. So let’s add on 30 minutes for “going back in and looking for hidden clues I missed”. To get 100% achievements, you’re probably looking at 3 hours. Each ‘room’ itself takes around half an hour to solve, so you’ve travelling through the game quite quickly.

I had almost no technical issues with the game. I say almost, because I did tweak the settings in order to make my playthrough slightly more comfortable (I like my mouse sensitivity as low as possible!), and secondly because I’m convinced that after searching a room top to bottom that a key item was missing – and needed to reset the level in order to find it in it’s place. Personally, I think the extra item disappeared into the ether. Knowing me I probably picked it up and moved it, but after a good 15 minutes of searching, I had no choice but to reset the room.

The Verdict

I’m giving Escape from Mystwood Mansion a solid 4.4/5. Yeah! That’s quite high, but I stand by it. I genuinely had fun playing the game. There’s been a big “escape room game” shaped hole in my life right now that nothing on Steam was quite scratching, and this game came along at the perfect time. It felt spooky, and cosy and exciting in all the right ways, and I felt the designers attention to detail was second to none. I’m also genuinely in awe that it’s the company’s first game. It had a really professional level of polish and I’m absolutely certain this game will be a success.

Is it perfect? No, of course not. But is it good? Yeah! It really is.

I’d recommend this game for just about anyone, but if you’re a big fan of physical escape rooms, this one is fantastic.

Please Note: We were offered a free Steam key in exchanged for an honest review. This does not affect the content of our review.

Escape from Mystwood Mansion can be downloaded from Steam.

Mystery Guides: The Mystery of the Gunpowder Snitch (York) | Review

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Moments before Guy Fawkes lit his fuse an anonymous letter tipped off the authorities and foiled his dastardly plot… Who wrote the letter? Nobody knows, but a dusty diary found beneath the floorboards of an old York pub could finally expose him, and this is where you come in…

Date Played: August 2023
Time Taken: 3 Hours
Number of Players: 3
Difficulty: Easy

The Guy Fawkes Inn in York is famous for a couple of things. Firstly, the pies. Steak and ale with a beautiful pastry. Very tasty indeed. The other thing (arguably the main thing) is being the birthplace of Guy Fawkes – hence the name…

Yup, Fawkes is kind of a big deal around these parts. Him, Dick Turpin and Vikings. If you’re looking for a theme, then one of those three will probably do the job, and in The Gunpowder Snitch the notorious plotter’s deeds take centre stage.

Presented in a colourful, well-put-together booklet, The Gunpowder Snitch has you eliminating suspects, colours, seasons, and several other things Cluedo style until you are left with the pieces required complete the final puzzle. These allow you to discover exactly who was responsible for the writing of secret letters that, ultimately, foiled the plan. You do this by following a route, finding the relevant landmark, and then using it to somehow decipher a coded message before moving onto the next. Between the puzzles are background details, diary entries and antiquitorial titbits to help fill out the story.

Location, Location, Location

York is the perfect city for such an activity. It’s dripping in history – both horrible and otherwise – and you can’t kick a bush without several ‘most haunted’ pubs scurrying out. There are so many interesting nuggets lurking around, that this mystery barely covers a quarter of the famously condensed city, however that’s not to say there’s a lack of content. The distance travelled was just over three kilometres, took roughly three hours, and included many points of interest that could be missed easily as a tourist. In fact, even having lived there for over a decade, some of the plaques and shields that were required for the puzzles had somehow managed to evade us until this book pointed them out.

The Hunt for the Snitch

Following the clear directions on the pages will see you traverse a section of the famous walls, duck through a snickelway*, and witness plenty of other quirks. Though, if you wanted, you could easily stretch the experience out to a full day by exploring on your own between clues.

Usefully, when the planned routes presented potential hurdles (no dogs allowed or the steepest, narrowest stairs ever created) an alternative was always provided. Though, York can get extremely busy at weekends and some of the areas you need to pass through are obstacle enough in themselves. Especially if you’re looking to stop, stare and ponder instead of being pushed along with the crowd. One puzzle required us to locate and read something that was literally being smothered by a street performer and the huge crowd that had gathered to watch. Another was in one of York’s smallest and busiest streets where every molecule of space was filled with people queuing to secure themselves a small pottery ghost**. Thankfully this has been thought of and, as well as further hints on the back of the book, the clues are available via QR code should you simply be unable to reach your desired destination.

York-based Family Fun

The challenges themselves shouldn’t tax seasoned puzzlers. Most of the tasks are simply a case of finding a particular object and substituting letters for symbols in one form or another. It’s fairly basic, but that’s by design. The bright colours and cartoony Horrible Histories feel telegraphs the experience as one for the family and kids will love searching for clues and helping with some of the easier decoding. There’s certainly a little something for the adults too, though… As well as starting and ending in two of York’s oldest pubs, there are another two visited along the way, offering suitable points to sit, grab a drink and – in our case – argue about what Minerva was the goddess of*** without succumbing to Google. Fun times.

The Verdict: The Mystery of the Gunpowder Snitch

This isn’t a breakneck, high-octane race around York full of fiendish puzzles. It’s a great family day out. It’s also an excellent way to see some of the sites if you’re visiting for the day and partial to the odd anagram. If that’s what you’re after, then you’re sure to have a great time.

Notes

* Essentially a narrow street. A portmanteau of snicket, ginnel and alleyway. Legend has it that the Barghest roams them waiting to prey on lone travellers, so maybe bring a friend.

** The York Ghost Merchants on the Shambles benefitted from their model ghosts going viral on TikTok. They are VERY popular.

*** Loads of oddly unrelated stuff, apparently. Including justice, weaving, wisdom, medicine, trade and strategy. It’s no wonder we couldn’t pin it down.

The Mystery of the Gunpowder Snitch can be purchased from Mystery Guides website here.

Note: We were not charged for our experience but this does not affect our review.

Bowness Escape Room: Down to the Wire | Review

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Down to the Wire Review | Being in Russia undercover for the government isn’t easy at the best of times. Especially during the Cold War. Even more especially when someone has tipped off Russian intelligence about you….and they aren’t very happy. Wanting to destroy your work; and everything attached to it. You have one hour to save yourselves, and all your secret findings. The Countdown is on. Tick tock.

Date Played: 24th August 2023
Time Taken: 40 minutes
Number of Players: 2
Difficulty: Medium

Whenever I go on holiday, wherever it is in the world, I look and see if there are any local escape rooms. For a sunny week in August my family had booked a trip up from London to the Lake District, and being just an hour away in Edinburgh I thought I’d come along to escape the Edinburgh Fringe. There’s something so lovely about taking a week away to work in little cottage in the middle of absolutely nowhere, miles from the nearest tiny town. So what I wasn’t expecting to find was… An escape room!

I’ll be super honest. I almost didn’t book the room. The bus to get there would take an hour from where we were staying, and it only ran 5 times a day (so if we missed it we’d be screwed). To make matters worse, whichever bus we took we’d be arriving into Bowness 5 minutes after our room was meant to start. On top of that I made the mistake (or enthusiast judgement) of looking up other enthusiast reviews before. Other enthusiast reviews were… Not great. One reviewer said it was one of their least favourite rooms in the UK. Sheesh. That bad? So I chewed up whether I’d book it or not over the whole week. Until, on the very last day of the trip, I thought “What the heck, when else will I ever be in Bowness?! Lets just do it.” Besides, I only ever book good rooms, and I kinda wanted to see what a not-good room might be.

But on that front, I was disappointed. You know why? The room (or the company) wasn’t bad at all. Not in the slightest! It was lovely. Welcoming, super accommodating, and the room was the perfect example of making a fun, light-hearted experience on a small local budget. If asked, I’d probably even recommend it. But let’s get into all the specifics.

What to Expect at Bowness Escape Rooms

Bowness Escape Rooms is located in the heart of Bowness, just a short walk from most of the town’s bus stations. If you’re in town for a walking holiday, plenty of bus routes go through Bowness, so it’s a fairly conveniently location for the Lake District. On the other hand, if you live in the area then – oh my god you’re so lucky it’s so pretty – you may already know all about Bowness Escape Room and how to get there. Either way, despite my earlier bus complaint, it’s a convenient location.

The entrance is located on Lake Road (not Quarry Rigg, as Google Maps indicates), and is a part of a little stretch of cute shops and cafes. At this site, they run two rooms:

Cutting Room
Down to the Wire

We only had time for one, so we picked the less scary Down to the Wire, though it is worth noting that Cutting Room can be made less spooky if you want.

In our case we were running late, but the team were super responsive via Facebook and gave our GM a heads up that we’d be running a little late. It seems like they have bookings comfortably spaced apart and so despite showing up a whole 15 minutes late, we didn’t feel at all rushed.

Our Games Master was the enthusiastic Raphael (or Raffi for short) – please excuse spelling! Raffi greeted us at the door and had us wait in the waiting room with a couple of ingenious puzzles to play around with. Then came the usual briefing (no force, nothing high up, don’t poke the plug sockets, and so on), before we were transported back into the Cold War and off to a flying start.

Down to the Wire

Down to the Wire begins with you, the players, contained in a separate space from the main room. It’s a classic ‘escape into the room’ beginning, where everything you’ll need to use is tantalisingly just out of reach, and you need to figure out how to break into the main game area. Here, we were greeted with a few linear puzzles. Solve one, gain access to the second, and so on. Now, I’m a complete sucker for something slightly gimmicky that tests your skill level rather than puzzle solving level – but I know these aren’t always the most popular. There’s something that happens in this first room which we found brilliantly fun, but we definitely were lucky with our skill.

After only a little bit of faffing, we finally escaped ‘into’ the main room, and from there the game was truly afoot. With the theme being the Cold War, our central goal was to deactivate a bomb that stood in one corner ticking away in the background. There were a number of things we needed to do before we could get to the bomb. A number of locked boxes, some padlocks, and a tantalising class case in one corner with plenty of puzzles inside it.

We managed to ‘beat’ the bomb in around 40 minutes. There were a few notable places we could have shaved some time off, but besides trying to make up for showing up 15 minutes late, we weren’t especially in a hurry.

Overall, the puzzles felt fun. The entire room is linear, meaning it’s less practical for a larger team, especially where a few puzzles can really only be solved by one or two people at the time. There were also one or two where the solution was in fact something much more obvious than we thought, where we’d spend a while trying to ‘solve’ a puzzle when the solution was staring us in the face. Similarly, a few maths puzzles where the real answer wasn’t the complicated thing we were trying to do. But overall, they clicked with us. I can see how some groups – especially enthusiasts – might be frustrated with some elements of the room, and so maybe I wouldn’t recommend it to a super, super enthusiast, but for our little two player team it clicked well.

In terms of decor, this room is painted a sleek Cold-War military green and white. It looks mostly like a scientist’s office, with books on the table and test tubes and microscopes dotted around. Similarly, there’s a little Cold War bleakness. It’s furnished fairly sparsely and most of the puzzles or locked boxes you need are on display around you. That’s not to say there weren’t a few surprise reveals – there were, such as a keycard being swiped in just the right place to trigger a secret door… But generally speaking we knew where each ‘secret door’ was hiding from a carefully concealed wire behind tape, or a slightly fraying design that had definitely been handled a lot. All that to say, not a bad thing, just a thing. It felt on the low budget side, but what it lacked in fancy decor it made up for in enthusiasm and love.

The Verdict

We enjoyed Down to the Wire! It was an unexpected bonus onto a non-escape room holiday. It wasn’t a perfect room, but for a little hidden treasure found deep into the countryside, we were greeted cheerily and enthusiastically, and found in the room a lot of love and a few clever puzzles along the way. It’s not going to wow enthusiasts, and it’s best not to go in with super high expectations, but for us it was the perfect way to spend a morning. I’d recommend it for anyone in the area who wants a fun challenge!

Down to the Wire is one of two escape rooms that can be played at Bowness Escape rooms in the Lake District. You can book it here.

Escape Key: Plague | Review

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Back in 1636, half of Newcastle’s population had succumbed to the Black Death. Enter our plague escape room, which overlooks a real plague pit. Can you outwit the crazed plague doctor and escape before the horror of the Black Death gets you?

Date Played: August 2023
Number of Players: 4
Time Taken: 23 minutes
Difficulty: Medium

Since moving up North, I’ve realised the UK is more than just London… I kid, I kid. But in all honesty, fun escape room destinations like Newcastle are so much closer now. Which is why on a sunny Sunday morning we took a trip down to Newcastle to celebrate a friend’s birthday. The best way to celebrate a birthday? 4 escape rooms, of course. First up, Escape Key’s well-recommended “Plague” room.

Escape Key is one of Newcastle’s most loved escape rooms, and it’s located just a 10-15 minute walk from the station past a few cute coffee shops and overlooks a rather spooky looking graveyard. The graveyard would only feel spookier and spookier as, when we watched the briefing video, we realised the very escape room we were about to enter into was based on the rather large plague pit located just a stone’s throw away out the window. We all glanced at each other as we wondered- wait a minute, is this a horror room? Well, yes it is. But also no it’s not. It strikes a comfortable balance between “spookiness” and “this is real history so we’ll be respectful”, and I liked that a lot.

The story of “Plague” takes players back to the 17th century when plague was rife in the city of Newcastle. We had to get in, find a mysterious urn of ashes, and get out before the plague doctor returned. I’ll be honest, there was definitely more to the story than that, but it being our first room of the day had us in fits of excitement, eager to get into the experience. So, I’ll admit, we didn’t pay quite as much attention as we should have done – but thankfully, the story wasn’t too central to the puzzle solving. So long as you understood it was “find an urn and get out in under 60 minutes”, then you’d be fine in this room.

A really nice touch about Plague was the incense burner in the corner. Partially marking the time it takes us to complete the room, and partially just adding some historically specific ambiance to the room, it was a pretty cool touch. After so many rooms, it’s nice to be able to say “I’ve never had incense in the room with me before”. Besides the incense, the room was also very well decorated, just as a plague doctor’s creepy house should be. Complete with a jail cell, locked doors, and one or two jump scares. In a rarity for an escape room, the owners have uploaded a 360 degree ‘view’ of the room on Google Maps which you can go and explore here. Super useful for remembering all the little details, and of course for grabbing a photo or two for this review!

As well as the décor, for me the room really shined with it’s puzzles too. Okay I could be biased because we managed to escape with an all-time leader board score, but either way: The puzzles just really, really clicked for us. Maybe it was that it was so early in the day (believe me, the later rooms we did we didn’t escape quite as quickly), or maybe it was just that the style worked particularly well for our team, but we were off to a flying start. The room has a mix of locks and more outside-the-box thinking and some manual puzzles mixed in. Nothing overly challenging, but just enough to really get the braincells working. The room as a whole was also non-linear, meaning dividing and conquering was key. Most puzzles could be solved by one person, and a few perfect for a smaller ‘solving team’ of two.

Last but by no means least, I have to offer a shout out to our GM – Luna. Luna was absolutely excellent in every way!

The Verdict

We really enjoyed Plague. It was the most fun of the rooms we played during our trip to Newcastle, and at Escape Key, and I wouldn’t hesitate to recommend it to anyone. For folks afraid of jumps scares – there are a few small ones, but it isn’t by any means a ‘scary room’, just more on the side of eerie. In terms of difficulty, despite the website saying it’s hard, we found it a comfortable ‘medium’. If you’re in Newcastle and only have time to play one room, this should be very high up on your list!

When I play with this specific group, we call ourselves Chicken Nuggets. A spin off team from the Chicken Nugget Choir, who you may occasionally see on leader boards around the world.

Plague can be booked by heading to Escape Key’s website here.

Mystery Guides: The Midnight Body Snatcher (Edinburgh) | Review

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Old Town Edinburgh Treasure Hunt Review| In 1695, Edinburgh’s Old Town was haunted by a mysterious grave robber known as the ‘Midnight Body Snatcher’, who when supply ran out.. turned his hand to murder!

Date Played: July 2023
Time Taken: 3 Hours
Number of Players: 2
Difficulty: Easy

Here at the Escape Roomer we all kinda have that one thing we write about “the most”. For example, I actually don’t write about (or play) nearly as many escape rooms as my co-writers. But what I do obsessively play are outdoor puzzle trails. The moment I spot a new one on the market, come rain or shine I’m out there with a pen and paper ready to explore. There’s just something so much fun about combining puzzles with exploring an urban space. You get to see things in a new light, you learn historical facts, and you get a pretty fun work out too…

*cough cough*

…Well, this particular trail gave me quite literally the work out of my entire life. But even that was kind of cool in itself!

So when I heard about Mystery Guides, I had to get my hands on one. They sounded absolutely awesome. And you know what? They were! But wait, I’m getting ahead of myself. Let’s go back to the start.

So, what are Mystery Guides all about?

Mystery Guides is a company based out of Portsmouth. They’ve got that small, independent feel, and you can tell the creator really loves what he does. Fast forward a few years from their foundation and now Mystery Trails has setup popular trails in many, if not most major cities around the UK. Luckily for me, one of those trails is in Edinburgh.

The format of a Mystery Guide is fairly straightforward. With your order you’ll receive a physical, printed clue book. These books are lovingly illustrated and come packed with puzzles that guide you around the city. With each new puzzle section, there’s a snippet of map showing you where to go next, the actual clue to be solved, and then a snippet of story. In our case, this was in the form of diary entries. Many clues also had local information about the history of the area, or useful tidbits about local businesses / street names / and fun facts.

The games are very much intended for single-use, as you’ll need to write all over them to solve the puzzles.

The Midnight Body Snatcher

In our case, the Old Town Edinburgh Treasure Hunt was a story about “The Midnight Body Snatcher”. Set in the cold winter of 1695 where the streets of the city were gripped by tales of a shadowy body snatcher. In true Burke and Hare fashion, we were hot on the heels of a body snatcher trying to figure out exactly who they are thanks to environmental clues.

I say “hot on the heels”, but what I actually mean was that we were playing in 2023. A new piece of evidence in the 300 year cold case has proven to be the key we need to figuring out who the body snatcher was. The fact he’s probably been dead for centuries didn’t detract from the real sense of urgency to solve the case. And for that, it was a lot of fun.

In terms of gameplay, the Midnight Body Snatcher sort of plays out like a logic grid. Well, sort of anyway. There isn’t too much ‘logic grid’ to it, but the idea is there are:

Five suspects
Five symbols
Five colours
Five items of jewellery

And with each puzzle solved you can eliminate one of these. The puzzles were a mix of more well known puzzle styles, and ones that were totally unique to the environment. But, in most cases we arrived at a landmark and had to use the physicality of the landmark to solve. Sometimes that meant looking at a plaque, other times it meant counting the letters, or getting up close and personal with a particular landmark to try to find a hidden detail on it.

At first I was a little surprised the categories of “symbol” and “jewellery” felt… Well… Quite random. But then as we neared the finale it all fell into place beautifully with the local history, in a satisfying and fun climax.

Puzzling around Edinburgh City

I played this game in a team of two with my co-writer Rebecca. The game arrived, and no sooner than it did we made a plan to play together on the next Sunday. The fact the weather forecast said it was due to rain all day almost put a dampener on our plans – but not quite. Because it turned out the weather forecast was completely and utterly wrong, as it was a beautiful sunny day. So sunny, we even stopped for ice cream!

If we had just one criticism about the whole experience, it would have more to do with the city than the game, and that was: THE HILLS. I’m writing this review days later and my calves are still aching. Yes, yes, Edinburgh is a hilly city. I live here and I’ve made my peace with it. But The Midnight Body Snatcher took us up and down and up and down and up and down. The whole thing takes place within a fairly small “central city” area. The beautiful old town around the Royal Mile. We began at the Royal Mile, then went up, then down, then back up to the Royal Mile, then back down the other side, then back up the Royal Mile. It’s a good job I don’t skip leg days at the gym.

But one of the good things about Mystery Guides is that the experience is entirely self-led. If you need to take a break, you can. In fact, our trail offered three opportunities to take a break in pub stops.

The Verdict: Mystery Guides Edinburgh

We really enjoyed Mystery Guides’ Edinburgh Trail. There’s fewer pleasures in life than spending time in the sunshine with a friend.

We’d in particular recommend it for families – it struck just the right balance of educational vs fun in an almost Horrible Histories style, and we felt the style of puzzles that pushed us to search about the physical environment would go down a hit with a younger audience. We would also recommend setting aside a full day for this. It does recommend around 3 hours to finish, but there’s so much to see and so many wonderful places you might want to stop and stay a while in. Plus that will definitely break up the hill-climbing!

The Old Town Edinburgh Treasure Hunt can be purchased from Mystery Guides website here.

Note, we were not charged for our experience but this does not affect our review in the slightest.

PostCurious: Light in the Mist | Review

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Light in the Mist Review | Your friend’s mysterious disappearance results in the discovery of an unusual item, leading you to embark on a journey through time and memory. In this narrative puzzle adventure by PostCurious and Jack Fallows, an intimate coming-of-age story is told through an object that serves as a tarot deck, a puzzle game, and a work of art.

Number of Players: 1 – 4
Time Taken: 6 Hours
Date Played: May – June 2023
Difficulty: Medium

Why, oh why do I leave the very best games to play very last on my to-play pile!? If I texted any of my puzzle friends right now and said “Hey have you played Light in the Mist? It’s really good” I’d be laughed out of the WhatsApp chat. To be honest, I think it’s because I either buy them and keep them on my shelf for years waiting for the perfect opportunity to play it, or don’t purchase them at all thanks to extortionate extra-EU shipping fees games have these days *wipes tears with the UK flag*

Light in the Mist is one of those really good games I played very late. But in this case, it wasn’t me but a friend who bought it. And little known to me til I ended up chatting to the creator, PostCurious actually has distributors in the UK so shipping fees are… Surprisingly affordable!

Hey, better late than never, eh?

I first got my hands on a copy when my super lovely friends at Escaping the Closet and I boarded a ferry from Hull to Rotterdam en route to play a weekend of escape rooms in the Netherlands. We were sitting lazily on the top deck of the ship, listening to the drone of a singing-dancing-castanet playing ferry performer, when Ash suddenly reached into her bag and brought out a little box. “Oh hey, I brought a game! Shall we play?” She plonked a copy of Light in the Mist down on the slightly sticky plastic table, brushing aside the remains of dinner. And, as the boat left the port and sailed off into the deep water of the channel, we all started playing Light in the Mist.

I didn’t get a chance to finish the game until a month later, when I bought myself a copy and, completely forgetting where we’d ended up on the ferry, I started again from scratch in the comfort of my own home. So in short, at the time of writing, I’ve played Light in the Mist not once but twice… And you know the strangest part? Both playthroughs felt completely different. I understood the story in a different way. Different things happened to me. I collected different items. I learnt different things. Wow!

“There really is something weird about these woods, you know?“

Light in the Mist can’t be described as a game so much as it is described as a “puzzletale“. It’s a character driven narrative story, but the medium isn’t pages and ink, it’s told through a deck of tarot cards.. And of course, puzzles. As you work your way through the deck you choose which cards to draw in an almost choose-your-own adventure flow of the dreamlike meandering story. To navigate through the tarot cards, you solve each tarot card’s puzzle. Each solved puzzle will take you to a new page in the book and you’re encouraged from there to go at your own pace and follow your intuition. You’ll collect items, loop back on yourself sometimes, and uncover more and more with every metaphorical step you take through the woods.

With each puzzle solved you, the players, get a glimpse into the life of your friend Sam. You see, Sam is missing in these woods and the only item you have to guide you back to her is this deck of tarot cards. What follows is a story that unfolds non-linearly. It’s compelling, intimate, and in some parts quite upsetting.

Over the course of the game, which is around 5 or more hours (but I think I came in at at least 6), you’ll build up a complete picture of Sam. There are some trigger warnings at the start of the guide contained in the box, but it’s all handled gracefully and with respect. I believe somewhere in the trigger warning it mentions the intention of the game is to help tell painful stories, so nothing is in there for fun, it’s all essential to the story.

The woods are lovely, dark and deep

I don’t know why but the whole time playing this game I had this poem going loops in my head. I love this poem. I also have a tattoo inspired by the poem, which features a little path curving through the woods (DM me and I’m sure I’ll be happy to share it the tattoo, haha). But all this to say, I had ~ that vibe ~ in my mind when playing the game. Not in a small part thanks to the illustrations by the ever fantastic Jack Fallows of Cryptogram Puzzle Post, who was PostCurious’ collaborator on the project.

On each new tarot card a new scene loosely inspired by the usual tarot imagery. Yet Light in the Mist takes place in a deep and dark woods, and Fallows has rendered these scenes absolutely beautifully. Dark trees rising from the mist, a shining moon hanging in the sky, and soft lights that glow from the depths in colours more vivid than I thought possible to print on the card.

These woods for sure are lovely, dark and deep.

DIAMOND BADGE awarded to the most visually appealing experiences!

Given how beautiful this game is, we’ve also decided to award it a special “diamond badge”, awarded to puzzle games which are beautifully visually amazing. You can read more about our award badges here.

Last but not least, the puzzles

It says a lot when it takes me this long into a review to even mention the puzzles. But what can I say? There’s just so much else about this game I wanted to talk about first.

The puzzles in Light in the Mist are varied. As a designer myself I usually like to mention some kind of “puzzle arc” or the overall “gameplay flow” in my review, but Light in the Mist presents a peculiar challenge in that it’s a non-linear game. Meaning players can tackle the puzzles in any order they want to. They might encounter a difficult one first, followed by an easy one. They might ramp up logically in terms of easy – medium – difficult. Or they might do something else entirely. I can’t say.

But what I can say is that players can expect to encounter a range. When I played in a team of 4, we seemed very well matched to play together, as different puzzle types played to our comparative strengths. However when I played solo, I had much more of a challenge. At least, with the ones I had left to solve. Without a second person or two to rely on for support, I found myself spending more time looking at the hints and mulling over different theories before I’d eventually crack the codes.

Nothing felt too insurmountable. There were frustrating moments, and other moments where the puzzle just clicked the moment I flipped the cards out. In the end, it balanced out to be satisfying across the course of the game, and with each puzzle being so surprising and varied never once did I ger bored or feel like I’d already seen something similar. But it is a unique aspect to the game in that people might end up playing it in an order which isn’t necessarily conductive to satisfying gameplay. Notice I said MIGHT. My gameplay experience was fine, but it’s just something to watch out for.

A Mystical Convergence of Puzzles and Palms

When we were done – on the ferry I mean – I grabbed the deck of cards and started to read everyone’s tarot more traditionally. There’s something super cool about having a game that also doubles as something else when you’re done. In Light in the Mist’s case, it’s a deck of tarot cards that yes, you can read as a tarot. Not only does this give way to some lovely arcana imagery, but it also means you’ll be able to keep and treasure the deck once you’ve completed the game.

For the purposes of this review – not that I really know what I’m talking about – I decided to do a card reading for you. Yes, you reading this! I thought really hard about the type of person who might be reading our review. Who you are, what your hopes and dreams are, and where you’re going in live. Then I asked the special Light in the Mist tarot deck if they had any special message I should share with you. I drew:

The Queen of Swords (upright)
The Three of Cups (upright)
The Knight of Swords (upright)

The Queen of Swords generally refers to independence, perception and organisation in one’s life. The Knight of the same suit usually means ambition, haste, and communication. Inbetween these two cards we have the Three of Cups, which indicates groups coming together to focus on a common emotional goal – a sense of community and the sense of getting involved emotionally. When the Queen and the Knight of swords appear together it seems pretty significant. Court cards usually mean specific people, and because the two in the suit are side by side it probably means two connected people.

Now I’m not sure I really believe in this tarot stuff, but there’s a clear message shouting out to me in these three cards, and that is: Get together your two people, your real people-people (friends, family, whoever they are to you) and come together for a common goal – such as solving a puzzle together, and you’ll all grow closer together emotionally. If I sit back and think about that for myself then yeah, I do have two people I usually play puzzle games with, they are connected, and one of them is more perceptive and one is more the ambitious type. We usually play games together and it does bring us closer together emotionally. They’re my community. It’s nice to think of it in that way.

I’m not gonna say the cards are saying to go out and buy this particular game – but if you are here for a recommendation. Well then. This one ain’t bad.

Light in the Mist | The Verdict

There is a really good reason PostCurious and Light in the Mist are so well known for their puzzle games. Sometimes the pressure of expectation can make a game fall flat, but somehow Light in the Mist avoids that and still pulls itself off as a perfectly well-rounded, beautiful and thoughtful experience.

I would recommend this for, well, pretty much anyone. It’s not traditional in any sense, but with the rules it breaks, PostCurious and the team have executed it near-flawlessly to create a compelling experience. Part puzzle, part story. A round of applause and a standing ovation from us at The Escape Roomer.

Unlike many other games, Light in the Mist is regiftable – though I’m equally sure you’ll want to keep this one for yourself. There’s one destructible element, however this element is provided twice just in case you want to regift it and keep it pristine. At a price point of around £30 GBP (£37 with UK shipping), it’s on the slightly expensive side for what is essentially just a deck of cards. But as someone who has spent close to that on a particularly pretty deck of tarot cards that doesn’t contain any puzzles, I think you’re getting an excellent value from Light in the Mist. There is also a collectors edition available for £90. Do with that information whatever you will.

Light in the Mist can be purchased by heading to PostCurious’s website here.

All photos in this article belong us at The Escape Roomer for the purposes of this review. Please seek permission before using them.

Gourmaze: The Time Traveller’s Space Bytes | Review

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The Time Traveller’s Space Bytes Review: Super computer G.P.S. has travelled back in time to better understand humans and find the missing data that’s causing it to glitch! You and your team of space cadets have been called upon to find this data on a journey through Space & Time. Along the way you will travel to different eras… expect to devour delicious pizza with the Romans, sip spectacular cocktails with movie stars & indulge on a sweet dessert in the Seventies. Buckle up and prepare yourself for an epic adventure!

Date Played: 6th June 2023
Time Taken: 47:45
Number of Players: 4
Difficulty: Easy
Location: Mayfair, London

I’ve said it before but I’ll say it again. Puzzles AND FOOD?! Sign me the heck up. Gourmaze is just about one of the most unique things you can do in the capital city. It’s the quintessential good vibes, special occasion, summer activity- and no, I’m not just saying that because I seem to always book and play Gourmaze on my birthday.

Team The Escape Roomer is on the quest!

The Time Traveller’s Space Bytes starts in a cute little pub in Mayfair – perfect for having a quick drink in before you get started on your mission. Like with many “outdoor puzzle hunts”, clues are delivered via a back and forth on your mobile device. In this case, Whatsapp. Every member of the team gets a link, joins the party, and when you’re all ready you type START to begin your delicious time travelling quest.

Gourmaze: Food Thats Outta This World

The story of the Time Traveller’s Space Bytes is fairly simple and fun. You’re guided by a robot called G.P.S. whose goal is to understand humans and what makes them tick. Unfortunately their data is incomplete, which is where you come in. You and your robot companion over the course of two, maybe three hours (if you eat slowly) must journey through the worlds of TV and film trivia, the musical world, religion, and of course food and drink. All the things that make the world turn round – and they can all be found here in London.

Our first clue arrived!

Unfortunately my player 2 and I had since moved out of London up to Edinburgh, and there’s absolutely nothing like this up north. So it was really nice returning to the capital and seeing how everything had changed. Over the course of our walk, we learned new things about our city, saw some seriously cool new streets and perhaps most importantly – discovered some new favourite places to eat and drink. As I write this, I’m back in Edinburgh and already missing the delicious smells and bustling hubub of some of the places our puzzle trail took us. How soon until I can come back to London and go back to all those places? The pizza is calling me!

Pizza is Calling, The Escape Roomer Answers

Gourmaze has been going for some time now and at the time of writing they have three puzzle trails available. One is themed around desserts, the other about Asian food. This one is all about pizza. My favourite! In terms of food it did not disappoint. In this review, we’re not allowed to disclose where the locations are – which is fair – the puzzles are all about actually finding them and saying the secret code to your waiter in order to get your food. We wouldn’t want to spoil the surprise. So instead of giving away their locations, I’ll just describe the food instead:

Our first stop – pizza!

Our first stop, piping hot and extra cheesy pizza in an absolutely gorgeous building. Probably the least likely building I would ever expect to find pizza in. But there it was, waiting to be taken out the oven and served to us.

Our second stop, a cheeky cocktail spot hidden excellently behind a bookcase. For real! If we didn’t know it was there – we wouldn’t have spotted it at all.

Have you ever tasted smoking popcorn?

Our final stop? Dessert! And to a place I’d actually been fortunate enough to pop into earlier that very same week and already knew exactly what I wanted to order. This final place was in an excellent spot for toasting our success with a drink or two, and for catching a train home after as the sun set over the city.

Bitesized Puzzles for the Hangry Mind

In terms of puzzles, Gourmaze won’t be for the hardcore enthusiast. I’ll be upfront about that for sure. They aren’t the most difficult puzzles – but here, I think that really works. There’s nothing worse than a HANGRY group of puzzlers, so we rather appreciated having a quick win to get food in us. One of the things this trail did do fairly well however was make use of the waiting time once we’d ordered our meal. In more than one case, we were given something physical with our order – a laminated piece of card, or paper we needed to solve. These were designed to be solved whilst we waited, or whilst we ate, and the solution would come in handy for our next stop.

Similarly, these weren’t overly challenging – in all cases we spotted what we needed to do and got on with it. What they lack in difficulty, they make up for in being well placed and fun to play. They used up otherwise quiet down time, and then once we did get back on our feet we found that the exact routes the puzzles took us were almost always unique and exciting lesser-trodden paths.

A puzzle with our pizza? Don’t mind if I do!

The Verdict

I really, really enjoy Gourmaze. Whenever people ask me for recommendations for something to do in London that’s a little bit different but still scratches that escape room itch, I think of Gourmaze first. It’s perfect for fans of food (I mean who of us isn’t?) and it’s perfect for puzzle enthusiasts as well. Whether it’s just a more fun way to do date night, or a full-blown corporate shindig, Gourmaze is a lovely way to celebrate.

My only caveat, and it’s really quite a small caveat, is Gourmaze does come with a hefty price tag. This trail is around £49.99 per person. Let’s assume the average pizza is about £14, the average cocktail about £10, and the average dessert around £8 (hey! I did say this was London, didn’t I?). Your total food, bought outside of the game probably only comes to about £32. Lets round it up to £35 when we include the service charge. Of course, you also get a discount at each of the locations for extra drinks and snacks, which we did go for… And perhaps most importantly you also get an excellently good fun puzzle game that takes you between each location. But this means you’re paying about £15 pp for the game, and about £35 pp for the food. I’ll let you be the judge of it – you know your own budget, and who knows how much food will cost by the time you’re reading this, what with the spiralling cost of living crisis. But for me, and considering I saved this for a special occasion (my birthday), it felt worth it! By comparison, the closest competitors are probably Hidden City (at around £25 pp but no food), or Street Hunt (£16.50 pp and also no food). For a more affordable Gourmaze alternative, The Sweet Escape is (at the time of writing) £27.99 pp, and the Talisman Treats £39.99 pp.

In any case, back to the review at hand. The Time Traveller’s Space Bytes was a fun, light-hearted and unique play on traditional outdoor puzzle trails. Gone are the days you have to plan your own food breaks into your day out – Gourmaze does it for you. I really can’t stress how much I enjoyed it. It’s not going to impress the hardcore puzzle enthusiast, but who among us isn’t a pizza enthusiast, and it absolutely ticks the box for them!

The Time Traveller’s Space Bytes can be booked by heading online here.

We were not charged for our experience but this does not affect our review.