A room that won’t blow you away (no pun intended) and is very padlock heavy, but if your observational skills are on point then you’ll likely have a good time.
South West
List of the rooms we have reviewed in the South West. In date order from newest to oldest
Clue HQ: Cell Block C (Somerton)
We haven’t done many but this was the best ClueHQ room we’ve done so far. Good room design and only one annoying puzzle, not a bad way to spend an hour
Lock and Code: Can Opener (Taunton)
A few too many red herrings and generally puzzles that just didn’t click with us meant that we didn’t particularly enjoy our time in this prison van – but that’s the idea of prison vans, right?
Red House Mysteries: On The Last Train to Paris (Torquay)
Probably the best of the games at Red House (both locations), but a weak ending with annoying puzzles made this a train we were pleased to get off
Red House Mysteries: The Strange Disappearance of Arthur Moon (Torquay)
The theming for this room was fun but weak puzzles that were easily bypassed and a lack of atmosphere took away from the excitement we should have experienced, and one GM for multiple rooms is never a good way to go.
Red House Mysteries: The Shadow Darkens (Exeter)
A very traditional room which suffered from the usual GM issues and some potentially glitchy tech. We completed in 25 minutes even after being slowed down by issues
Red House Mysteries: The Heist (Exeter)
A room with a solid premise but ultimately the execution was lacking. Couple that with a distracted GM and it doesn’t make for the best experience
Live Escape Salisbury: Spectre (Salisbury)
People often visit Salisbury due to the proximity of some ‘large standing rocks’, but ditch the rocks and make Live Escape your destination, you won’t regret it.
Incarcerated: The Tortured Soul (Swindon)
This room was much better than we expected and as a creepy (not really horror) room, it was good fun. The only bit that was lacking was the ending. I’m sure it’s not easy to make exiting into a corridor fun, but it was just a bit anticlimactic
M4 Escapes: The Bunker (Chippenham)
A beautiful room (in places) but the generally weak puzzles let it down. A confusing journey and too many red herrings made us more annoyed than anything else
Co-decode: Sub Terra (Swindon)
Sub Terra was a delight from start to finish. With a strong story that’s reenforced by a fantastic set, and great puzzles, it has firmly secured a place on my list of Top Ten Favourite rooms (to date). If you haven’t made the trip to Co-Decode yet, what are you waiting for?
Trapped: The Bletchley Blueprints (Okehampton)
This is one of those rooms that is difficult to review. It’s a good room, but I didn’t overly enjoy it and I’m not sure why. Give it a try and make up your own mind
Trapped: Templars – The Secret Service (Okehampton)
Templars possibly ranks as the hardest room we’ve ever done. We’ve seen other teams getting decent times so it obviously just didn’t click for us. Give it a try if you want a challenge
Lock & Code: Dead on the Hour (Taunton)
Lock & Code rooms won’t blow you away but they are solid rooms that will give you an hour of fun. Dead on the Hour was fun, and at times challenging, but once again we left Lock & Code with smiles on our faces
The MacGuffin Project: The Magician (Bournemouth)
A short and arguably easy room that should probably be a 45 min experience rather than 60. A pretty average room with above average GMs but a weak ending. We expected more from MacGuffin.
Incarcerated: Cops and Robbers (Swindon)
If you’re looking for a corporate team building exercise then this is probably a good room. If you’re an enthusiast then it isn’t
Co-decode: Professor Dunstan and the Search for the Ancient Statuette (Swindon)
Don’t wait to be passing by Swindon to do this room. Make it your destination, it’s worth it!
Lock and Code: The Alchemy Enigma (Weston-Super-Mare)
The hardest part of this room was quite possibly the searching. Just when I thought we had looked at everything, we would discover a prop that hadn’t been used before and discover yet another piece of a puzzle or a key
Lock and Code: The Night before Christmas (Weston-Super-Mare)
We were on for a record time, then we encountered a puzzle we couldn’t solve, but apparently kids can!
Lock and Code: The League of Superheroes (Weston-Super-Mare)
A fun room that is perhaps past its prime and they need to do some maintenance to get it running as it should.
Lock and Code: Breakout (Weston-Super-Mare)
This was a really enjoyable room, a little bit rough around the edges in places but had a good mixture of finding things and solving things.
Puzzlair: The Cold War Catch (Yeovil)
If you like more traditional rooms, or want an introduction to escape rooms then this is a good room to go for. We didn’t rate their other room in Yeovil but this one was the standout winner of the day.
Puzzlair: The Lost Artworks (Yeovil)
This room is probably a love/hate type of room and I’m sure some people will love in. In fact looking at TripAdvisor you can see that many people do, but for us it is one that we’d advise our friends to avoid.
City Mazes: Subject 11 (Bristol)
As mentioned, the room was visually appealing, but some of the immersion was lost when the technology failed.
City Mazes: The Runner (Bristol)
Despite being billed as one of the company’s more challenging rooms, we breezed through this room as a team of four, obliterating the current record and topping the leaderboard.