The best of the Wild Wild West
Do you have TRUE GRIT?
Are you THE SEARCHERS the Sheriff is looking for?
No matter how GOOD, BAD or UGLY, gather your POSSE to earn your FISTFUL OF DOLLARS…
Having previously completed, and thoroughly enjoyed, the other room at Clever Dilemma, Dracula’s Chamber, we had been looking forward to returning to Faversham to try out their new room, Murder at the Wild Wild Quest Saloon (quite a name!).
Faversham is a beautiful town and we’d highly recommend having a little stroll around if you get a chance, the cake at The Yard is wonderful and great pre or post game! But I digress, when we arrived at the venue we were welcomed by two of the team, Nicolette (our GM) and Tazzy.
As with a lot of these family/enthusiast run rooms it’s very easy to chat for hours about escape rooms, after a decent chat it was time to head to the Wild West! Our mission, as explained by Nicolette, was not to escape but to identify the killer and find their gold within sixty minutes.
Walking to the room with the lights in the hallway turned on, it felt very different to the walk to Dracula’s Chamber, surprising what a difference lighting makes. There wasn’t much in terms of theming in the hallway but there were some little touches which were on theme. I’d prefer a wonderfully themed room and bland hallway, rather than the opposite, and fortunately that is exactly what we found when we entered the room.
PUZZLES
A good mixture of puzzle styles kept us on our toes in this room, there was some searching/observation needed and one thing was invisible to us despite not actually being hidden!
The room played out in a fairly linear fashion although there were still things to get on with independently to help move forward, but at no point was either of us standing around with nothing to do.
The puzzles were arguably on the easier side in places but they also throw a few curve balls just to keep you guessing.
Padlocks are a love/hate thing and this room had a fair number of them, but this didn’t detract from the experience for us as the room was designed in such a way that it was pretty obvious which padlock required the code you had just obtained. Anyway, I quite enjoy padlocks.
It was refreshing to see a puzzle, which at first glance could be reliant on colour perception, have a secondary feature which means even those who are colour-challenged can complete it. We spoke about this puzzle after the game with Tazzy and it sounds like it was possibly accidental, but it still makes this puzzle more accessible without making it easier.
IMMERSION/ROOM DESIGN
Wild West Rooms are starting to become quite prominent and are cropping up everywhere, but Clever Dilemma have created a masterpiece in terms of room design. When I entered this room I was instantly impressed, features which you see in Wild West movies were on show here and you could actually interact with them.
When you entered the saloon you really felt like they had studied lots of movies to see what features they needed to make this place feel authentic. Clever Dilemma actually have a liquor license so it wouldn’t have felt out of place to see an in character barman in there serving drinks while you solved the mystery!
In places the room was dark but it was never so dark that you couldn’t see what you were doing, or see the numbers on the padlocks. If you did find it too hard to see they did provide tools to assist you, although we didn’t really need them.
There’s a lot about this room that I would love to talk about but part of the fun is experiencing it yourself first-hand, so I’ll just leave it at that.
GM/CLUE SYSTEM
If you needed a clue you simply ring the bell that is on the bar and your GM will chime in with a clue that is displayed on the screen that also shows your time. We didn’t request any clues but Nicolette could see where we were being particularly dim and gave us a couple of perfectly timed nudges in the right direction.
Clever Dilemma are one of our favourite venues (joining an ever growing list) and I really love the walk-through they do at the end of the game where they take you through all the puzzles and how you solved them – a great thing if you’re in a bigger team and perhaps missed something that a teammate did.
ANYTHING ELSE
Clever Dilemma have a great room here and Wild Wild Quest Saloon is easily my favourite Wild West themed room that we have done. Fun puzzles, a beautiful set, and a story that keeps you guessing right up to the end – get to Faversham and do this room!
Success / Failure
Final Rating:
| Operation | |
| Puzzles | |
| Room Design | |
| GM/Clues | |
| Excitement |
Team: 2 players – solved the mystery in 44:13 with a couple of clues
Address: 27 Preston Street, Faversham, Kent, ME13 8PE
Website: https://cleverdilemma.com
*Disclaimer: we weren’t charged for these tickets, but this has not influenced our review.
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