Enigma Quests: World of Witchcraft and Wizardry (London)

It was fun, but could be better

Having graduated from The School of Witchcraft and Wizardry, your team of novice magicians now needs to use all of their powers within the real world as part of a dangerous and thrilling job interview.

We don’t often play Escape Rooms in London. There are a variety of factors playing into why; pricing is one, but aside from that, with the exception of a few, the games and the venues just feel much more corporate and commercial than we like. And that’s probably because many of the venues are from one of the big Escape Room franchises, like Escape Hunt or Escape. But there are other independent companies in London that aren’t the usual recommendations of clueQuest or Escape Plan, and thanks to a good deal we secured when they were raising funds to relocate their games we decided to give Enigma Quests a go, based on their reputation at their Shoreditch venue.

Enigma Quests’ new Holborn venue has a very convenient location, and was incredibly simple to find.

One of the first things we noticed upon walking into Enigma Quest’s building was that while it is not a chain and is an independent company, it does have a very corporate feel, with the industrial style architecture, plenty of open space, and of course, a bar. This does make the venue an ideal choice for larger groups like corporate team building, stag/hen-do’s and birthday parties, and they definitely cater to these things.

Our team arrived 15 minutes ahead of schedule as requested, so we had plenty of time to secure our belongings in the provided lockers, and have a nose around the large open reception/bar area. But it wasn’t too long until we were told it was time to make our way down to the basement where our GM would greet us. True to their word, our GM, Ev, was waiting for us at the bottom of the stairs, and we were led through another door to prepare for our adventure.

First up on the itinerary for the day: World of Witchcraft and Wizardry; not to be confused with School of Witchcraft and Wizardry – the wizard themed game that was in place at Enigma Quests’ former venue. The story of World of Witchcraft and Wizardry is sort of a continuation from that School, but it isn’t necessary to have played the previous game (Good thing too, as it’s now closed). Ev made sure we were well informed with any mission critical information before opening the door, and we stepped through into another world: the World of Witchcraft and Wizardry.

IMMERSION/ROOM DESIGN

First things first: The build quality of the sets is excellent. Enigma Quests have clearly worked hard to create a beautiful environment for the game. The game spaces we encountered were well decorated and felt robust; it was easy to forget we were in the basement of a very modern building in the centre of Holborn. Not only that, but there were some more “magical” moments, that fit with the theming very well. *Added by Gord: the set design was good, true. But there were a couple of ‘interesting’ choices made that totally wiped the immersion for me, and felt very odd/rushed/cheap.

But what they didn’t have was a cohesive flow with the narrative. The story we were given in our briefing fit well with the start of the game, but as we progressed, the narrative sort of fell away, leaving us without any clear sort of resolution once we solved the final puzzle. In fact, the whole thing felt rather abrupt as we performed our final spell, and the exit door just opened, without any sort of fanfare except a small change in lighting. It probably didn’t help that there wasn’t much in the way of ambient noise either, to really help sell the magical world we had found ourselves in.

PUZZLES

In my opinion, the puzzles were where World of Witchcraft and Wizardry really fell short. Maybe we just didn’t click with the game, but several times, we found ourselves floundering around regarding where to start, and where to go after, primarily due to “whimsical” clues and somewhat muddy telegraphing. But it also probably doesn’t help that sections of the game were totally linear. Linear game design is great for beginners (Enigma Quest’s core market), but in a group of enthusiasts, it can easily become frustrating, especially if the one thing you have to do just doesn’t click with anyone.

That’s not to say the puzzles were bad. Some were actually quite clever, and the ones that were lacking, could be great with a tweak or two. But because they weren’t clear, it took far longer than it should to arrive at a solution, and they lacked any really satisfying “Ah-ha!” moments. Not only that, there just weren’t that many of them. Those that were present relied quite heavily on word play, a bit of logic, pattern recognition, maths and observation, but the game was sparse on content, instead relying on obfuscation to take up the time.

GM/CLUE SYSTEM

Ev was friendly and engaging when we met in front of the desk at the bottom of the stairs, and delivered our health and safety briefing swiftly and with a bit of humour before moving on to explain exactly what we were there to do before ushering us through the door to the World of Witchcraft and Wizardry.

Credit where credit is due, Ev was great at hosting during our game, giving well timed nudges using the speaker system  to ensure we stayed on track when we found the puzzles a bit unclear. We had been advised during our briefing that if we needed a clue we would need to ask by performing a ridiculous waving/dance in front of the cameras, but thankfully Ev’s timely intervention meant that no one had to endure this, which was very much appreciated. Ev also handled a reset error as cleanly as possible at that point, which just goes to show that our progress was being very watched, and allowed us to avoid any more confusion than we were already experiencing from the puzzles that really just weren’t clicking with us.

ANYTHING ELSE

Enigma Quests’ World of Witchcraft and Wizardry has a beautiful set, and a couple of clever puzzles, but something was lacking from the experience, and left us feeling just a little flat after. It’s not a bad game, and with a few tweaks could be a good, or maybe even a great game. And of the three options currently on offer in Holborn, it was probably my favourite (although it wasn’t Gord’s).

Success / Failure

Final Rating:

Team: 4 players – took around 30 mins

Address: 86 Fetter Ln, London EC4A 1EQ

Website: https://enigmaquests.london/