Cluetopia: Chaos at Calamity Mine (Clacton-on-Sea)

Don’t forget to communicate!

Whilst your team of explorers were travelling through a cave you stumbled across a long abandoned mineshaft. Suddenly, tremors fill the cave and the walls begin to collapse, separating you from the rest of your team. Can you escape the mine before you run out of air, or will you be caved in?

It had been a long time since we visited Cluetopia, in fact last time we played there they were called Tricky Escapes. We were passing through the area so decided to stop by but only had time for one game, Chaos at Calamity Mine had been recommended as the stand out game to us so that was the one we chose.

There was a good size car park not far from the venue, which was convenient. When we arrived we were greeted by our GM, Phoebe. Phoebe greeted us warmly and we had a lovely little chat before getting down to business.

Both the health and safety and mission briefings took place in the reception area, before we were escorted down the corridor to the entrances to the room. I say ‘entrances’ because this is indeed a split start game. So with our hard hats on, we chose our doors and entered the mine.

IMMERSION/ROOM DESIGN

This seemed to be a very accessible room, the doorways seemed wide and the floors were flat. It’s always worth checking with the venue, but there was a lot of space to move around in here so it should work for those with limited mobility, or larger groups.

As I mentioned, this is a split-start game so be prepared to be split up from your teammates (don’t worry, it’s not a scary room in the slightest).

Strangely, I have actually been in a few mines, and even spent the night sleeping in a cave (but that’s another story) and this room was certainly much brighter than those. Going into a mine themed escape room we expected it to be dark, but we were very pleased to see that it was well lit and we had no issues seeing anything.

The room was well themed, nothing to blow you away but everything in the room(s) felt like it belonged and the music that was playing helped to make us feel a world away from Clacton. The only issue was that the music was rather loud at times which made it harder to communicate with the team trapped in the other half of the mine.

I’ll be the first to admit that I’m not great on story and often I will forget it as soon as the GM has finished telling it to us. But even Liz came out of this game saying the story felt a little thin. We may have just missed it, but it didn’t really affect the game for us.

PUZZLES

Playing a game that has a split-start it will be no surprise to hear that communication was a big part of this game. Other than that; searching, observation, maths, colours and following directions were the rest of the puzzle types. Of course, the communication early on was trickier while trying to shout through a door and be heard over the music.

A digital notepad was provided to one side of the room – which came in very handy! And it seems like a number of puzzles could have been done in a different order to what we did them. This is one of those games where having more people could actually be a benefit as I must admit, one side of our game (Liz’s side) missed something that was key and REALLY slowed us down.

This game had a number of padlocks, but then again wouldn’t you expect to find padlocks in a mine? Probably. There were also a number of things that were triggered by tech just to keep us guessing. Signposting was generally ok and it was clear what went where and what we needed to do next.

GM/CLUE SYSTEM

Phoebe was friendly and enthusiastic and was always on standby when we needed her. This was one of those games that really didn’t click with us so I’m sure without Phoebe’s help we’d still be stuck in there. In the end we needed two clues and only escaped with just over six minutes left – much closer than I would like!

When we needed clues we had to simply ask out loud for them and then they would be displayed on the screen in the room, this screen also displayed the timer. When clues arrived they were either text or image based (depending on what was needed) and were accompanied by an audible clue. The clues were limited to three though, so use them wisely!

ANYTHING ELSE

I’d like to think that we’ve played enough escape rooms to know when a room is good even if it doesn’t click with us. Chaos at Calamity Mine is a good game I’m sure of that, but it was just not the game for us.

Success / Failure

Final Rating:

Team: 2 players – escaped in 53 mins

Address: 175 Old Rd, Clacton-on-Sea CO15 3AU

Website: https://cluetopia.uk/