The No Work Club: Experiment X | Review

Experiment X Review | News of a new vaccine has spread but the Corporation are keeping it under lockdown. You have had enough and, with the help of an inside informant can you retrieve the vaccine and get out in 60 minutes?

Date Played: August 2024
Time Taken: 45 Minutes
Number of Players: 3
Difficulty: Moderate

As mentioned in our other review, we were recently invited to have a go at one of The No Work Club’s eight (yes, eight!) activities, and us being The Escape Roomer meant that some of those were of course, escape rooms. The No Work Club is a really interesting, brand new venue located in Lincoln. It hosts axe throwing, mini golf, interactive darts, shuffle board and much, much more. It’s the type of destination you could spend a long time in, even if you’re not an escape room enthusiast.

As soon as you step into the venue, it’s clear that decoration is something that they put a lot of effort into, and as a result are great at. Whilst we did not play mini golf, the whole golf set looked ace, and we would definitely be keen to return back to have a go.

After successfully escaping the submarine with our lives, we were then taken into the zombie apocalypse (Al’s favourite catastrophe genre).

Escape… The Zombie Apocalypse!

Again, this escape room was entirely played within a shipping container, but this time with a completely different backdrop. Experiment X, as expected, was very clinical in its setup. Once more, the container format worked well for this setting with it’s long corridor and a number of rooms off to the side. For such a spooky setting, this really added to the sense of unease right from the start, with ominous noises coming over the speakers, suggesting the apocalypse was perhaps not that far away at all…

In terms of gameplay, Experiment X itself was quite linear and we moved as a team of three working on all the puzzles together. Out of these, only one puzzle required us to work together across the space of the room, which was a great opportunity for honing those teamwork skills.

We made good progress for the first 20 minutes or so until we hit some technical difficulties. The games master was really responsive, and came in to help with these very quickly, as well as pausing our time. Luckily, the clever use of video/audio in this game soon helped to bring us back into the immersion, as we battled to discover the vaccine! 

With a shout out to the excellent decor of the room, there were some surprising spaces to be discovered. These included moments like unlocking cupboards we did not expect to be cupboards, and the rooms feeling much longer than the shipping container length we had seen from outside. Now I think about it, it is a bit disorienting playing in a space where you think you know the parameters, only to discover that maybe they aren’t quite what you expected! 

The final puzzle of this room was by far our favourite, with a satisfying input mechanism that led to a solid ending. 

We found this room more difficult than the 7 Miles Deep one, so would recommend this as your second (or third, or fourth..! There are 6 games at the venue, so you could take your pick to get some practice in) escape room if you wanted to try them all. Our host informed us that their Quest of the Worthy game was the hardest on offer, so perhaps we will be making a return journey to play some golf and see how we get on with the hardest room in the series.

All in all, a very enjoyable afternoon escaping, with a lovely Games Master, nice sets, and some solid puzzling. With no work and all play, although none of us are called Jill, we certainly won’t be becoming dull girls any time soon!

If you’re after a night out in Lincoln, The No Work Club would be a great place to go.

Experiment X can be booked at The No Work Club in Lincoln.

In the same experience, we also tried their other room, 7 Miles Deep. You can read about this here.

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