The aircon was a nice touch.
For years, the infamous mastermind known only as “404” – a name whispered in fear and still never found – has played a deadly game with the authorities. His bombings have reduced cities to rubble, claimed tens of thousands of lives, and left chaos in his wake. A ghost in the system, a shadow in the real world – he’s always been one step ahead, leaving cryptic messages mocking those who dare to chase him.
Now, London is his next target, and for the first time, intel has uncovered his location. The authorities have devised a plan to draw him out, giving you – an elite team of private investigators – around 20 hours to infiltrate his hideout, unearth his secrets, and bring him down before he can strike again.
But something feels off. What if 404 wanted you to find him? What if the real trap isn’t for him – but for you?
His apartment is a twisted maze of puzzles, riddles and deadly surprises. Every move could be your last. Stay vigilant, stay quiet, and trust nothing – because in 404’s world, the only thing more dangerous than his bombs is his mind.
Can you outsmart the ultimate mastermind, or will you become the next victims in his game of destruction?
Overnight escape rooms, i.e. escape rooms that come with accommodation, seem to be cropping up all over the country and we couldn’t be happier about it. Prior to playing Operation 404 we had only played one, the Escape Room Cottage in Tewkesbury but we loved it. At the time of writing I can think of at least three other overnight escape rooms that are open in the UK (and an amazing looking one, The Wild Heart Ranch, in Joshua Tree, USA.
We had spotted a sale which made it a little cheaper to book Operation 404, so we assembled the squad and got booked in, stupidly planning it for the last weekend of the school holidays (traffic, yay). You can choose to stay at this accommodation for as long as you want, but we stayed for just one night and this felt like long enough.
The Chester House estate was easy enough to get to, even if it did take us four hours from Somerset, but there is plenty to do nearby (yes, including more escape rooms). The estate seemed lovely when we were there, which is both a blessing and a curse. Saturday night there was a loud 21st birthday party going on, and Sunday there was a farmer’s market, so we had early morning noise from the setup of that.
But I’m getting ahead of myself. We stopped off on the way and played Spellbound at The Escape House, which was good fun. Then a 40 min drive saw us arrive at the Chester House estate. It’s worth noting that there seems to be two entrances to the estate, and our sat nav originally took us to the back entrance which is not the one you want!
We arrived (to the correct carpark) and met up with our teammates before unloading the car and heading to the entrance to the property. The property is set over three levels, two of which are the living areas, and as such there are plenty of stairs and some quite weighty fire-doors to contend with.
CONCEPT/EXECUTION
The concept of overnight escape rooms are great, it’s accommodation but with puzzles – extra points if they can make them really feel like an immersive experience. I’ll talk more about the accommodation and the puzzles later, but suffice to say it was quite easy to see what was going to be a puzzle, and what was just set dressing – although there were some choices that were interesting.
Trapp’d list this as a 180-240 minute experience, so if you’re staying for longer than one night, you will probably run out of puzzles pretty quickly, even if you try and spread them out. Unlike the other overnight experience we have done, this one takes place completely in the confines of the apartment and there is nothing that takes you outside or exploring the estate.
I don’t know if Trapp’d had limitations placed on them about what they could and couldn’t do with this experience, but there were many opportunities that with a little tweaking could have made it much better. I don’t know how long this game was in the planning for, but a lot of stuff just felt thrown together with not much thought to the gameplay. I would guess this is not an experience designed for enthusiasts.
PUZZLES
I love it when an escape room experience starts strong. Nightfall: Operation 404 was the opposite of that and it started, or at least we started with a puzzle that had one of our team wanting to quit, and the other three bored beyond belief. We spent a leisurely four hours on the puzzles of this game, and of that, at least 60 minutes was spent on this one ‘puzzle’. I try to see the positives in things, but this puzzle needs to die a death.
There was a very small amount of tech in this game, but generally there were padlocks dotted around to guide us. The game also played out in a very linear way where one puzzle led on to the next and there was no real scope to solve out of order which was annoying when we were bored of the ‘first’ puzzle. Then a number of the puzzles felt like an internet based search rather than actually utilising the accommodation or surrounding area.
There was one thing we spotted in the accommodation that I actually said ‘that’s really good signposting’, only to later find out that it wasn’t. It was a maintenance issue that was for some reason just left, in plain sight? An odd choice but I can see why other players would have done what they did.
There was one cool reveal in this game, although again, wear and tear let it down a little. But what it then revealed felt like a massive wasted opportunity where they could have done something really cool. Instead, a generic, albeit cool, prop was the only thing in the space. This prop was fine, but solving parts of it required outside knowledge – which again could have been an easy fix. But the worst thing, and something we tested as we were curious as to what would happen if one failed… it still had the generic message on it. Nothing about the mission, or 404, just a message saying “game over sound effect place holder”. Not what you’d expect from a supposedly premium experience.
I could talk for ages about the puzzles and how ‘bolted-on’ and at times lazy they felt, but let’s not. For not much money or effort they could easily enhance this experience. Oh actually there was one more puzzle, which was possibly the laziest ‘puzzle’ I think I’ve ever seen in an escape room experience!
CLUE SYSTEM
Fortunately there was a clue system that one could access, although it’s worth noting that I think you have to solve a puzzle to get on the wifi so if you don’t have a phone signal, you may struggle to get online in the first place. Actually, there were two wifi networks, one that felt like it fit the story well, so we tried to join that one – nope, that wasn’t it…
Looking at the clue system again, it seems like each puzzle is broken down into a few clues and then finally it gives you the option for ‘just give me the answer’. So one way or another, you’ll get through the puzzles.
ACCOMMODATION
So the highlights? The accommodation was actually really quite lovely. The ground floor was just a utility room type of area where shoes were to be left. The first floor contained a bathroom and two double bedrooms (one en-suite), and the top floor had a toilet room, dining room, kitchen, and living room. The dining room also had a bed set up that worked as a double.
One nice touch that we weren’t expecting was the addition of air conditioning units in the bedrooms and many fans throughout the accommodation. I don’t know if these are normally there, but as we were visiting during a heat wave, we very much appreciated them.
Like I said earlier, this isn’t an accessible property, but it was surprisingly spacious, and other than the evening and early morning noise, it was quite peaceful. One more thing, even though it’s got two bedrooms, you can only get into one of them when you’ve got to a certain point with the puzzles, so if you turn up late and want to go straight to bed – good luck!
FINAL THOUGHTS
I love overnight escape rooms, but sadly, not this one. The puzzles felt lazy, at times annoying, and often just not enjoyable – I don’t want to have to do an internet scavenger hunt through a certain website, I want proper puzzles!
The accommodation was pleasant, although the peace will be dictated by any events they have going on, so may the odds be in your favour for that one.
I had high hopes for this game and really wanted it to be something special. But instead the highlight of the stay was when we finished the game and spent the evening talking about how it could have so easily been better.
Success/Failed
Final Rating:
Operation Puzzles Room Design GM/Clues Excitement
Team: 4 Players
Address: Claudius Way, Chester, Wellingborough NN8 2DH
Website: https://www.trappd.com/
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