City Mazes: The Runner (Bristol)

Run away

You probably don’t remember how you got here (or much at all) but your name should come back to you soon. This area that you are in now will be only be safe for a short while, but something is coming for us all….you have about 60 minutes before this place is crawling with them…..you must ESCAPE!

The overriding theme of the rooms by City Mazes seems to be that they are based on popular movies and television shows. Their website says they have teamed up with 20th Century Fox, so it’s possible they actually have the rights to use the intellectual property they have, but I can’t help but think 20th Century Fox could have teamed up with a different company and gotten a much better result.

The Bristol location of the company is housed in what they have called a warehouse, but I would be more inclined to call a series of shipping containers. This set up actually works for The Runner, but it doesn’t make for effective climate control, and if you have the world’s tiniest bladder, like I do, you will be relegated to the porta-loos outside.

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.

If you actively spend any time on the company’s website, you pick up right away that they cater to the stag and hen crowds. Perhaps inebriated guests wearing Mankinis and sex toy tiaras find the room difficult, but the most difficult thing about it is that there is actually no where for your belongings, which might allow one team member to hide a clue after moving another’s handbag….

PUZZLES

The puzzles within the room worked well in the context, but weren’t particularly challenging. The most interesting part of the room came with the introduction of Augmented Reality. I had one moment of “that’s neat” when the AI was introduced, but then managed to solve at least two of the puzzles using it by guessing as they failed to follow any sort of logic.

IMMERSION/ROOM DESIGN

The Runner, visually at least, is very reminiscent of The Maze Runner, and the story pulls elements from the film, dropping you in The Glade, with the names of previous Gladers etched into the walls around you. But then, this is what you expect to see if they really have teamed with 20th Century Fox. Unfortunately, other than the visuals, this room was a little lacklustre. This is billed as a 3rd Gen room without padlocks, but the only thing that might set it apart from other rooms is the use of AI, and even that didn’t add anything special. The room also runs into problems with wear and tear, probably from their mankini-clad clientele. Despite hiding a clue with my handbag, I managed to pop open the door to a secret compartment with no more force than I have in two fingers and bypass the need to find that sneaky clue.

GM/CLUE SYSTEM

Had we needed them, clues would have been delivered via walkie talkie. I’m not sure if anyone was actively watching us, as we exited the room to the surprised faces of the staff, who were definitely not expecting us as we exited the door with a palpable air of, “was that it?”

ANYTHING ELSE

In addition to Bristol, City Mazes has locations in Cardiff, Oxford, Swindon, and London. After completing both The Runner and Subject 11, our overall opinion of City Mazes is that the rooms are average at best. Will I ever do more? Possibly, but I would exhaust all other possible rooms in any given location first. If we did do more rooms with City Mazes, I wouldn’t pay full price, as they always seem to be on Groupon.

Success / Failure

Final Rating: 

ADDRESS: The Clanage, Clanage Road, Bristol, BS3 2JX

WEB ADDRESS: https://citymazes.com/bristol/