Escape the Past: The Anatomist (Edinburgh)

Step into history

How has Dr Malcolm been procuring bodies for dissection? What research takes place here late into the night? And what terrible ‘crime’ did Mr Patterson witness that caused him to flee in fear?

Dr Malcolm’s journal will reveal all, if you can find it before he returns…

When anyone asks for recommendations for escape rooms in Edinburgh, you can pretty much guarantee that The Anatomist by Escape the Past is going to get a mention. It was a no-brainer that we were going to get booked in when we were in town.

We arrived at the rather imposing building and immediately headed down the steps to the entrance to the briefing room. I say briefing room as the area where we met our GM and where we played the game were slightly different locations. The Anatomist takes place in a building that is on the edge of Edinburgh’s old surgical district which adds an element of authenticity to this game.

When we arrived we were greeted by our GM, Beth. Beth was dressed in era appropriate clothing and spoke the Queen’s English (or should that be the King’s English now?). We had a brief chat and did all the health and safety stuff in the small waiting area and then Beth escorted us out of the room, outside, and then back into some more corridors to the room.

Once in the room there was an area where we could leave our belongings so they wouldn’t interfere with the game. Then the most impressive change of the day, Beth suddenly switched to the perfect Scottish accent, leaving us wondering if she was actually Scottish or English – a mystery! With the newly Scottished Beth, we were given the mission briefing and then left to our own devices to find out what on Earth was going on with this anatomist.

IMMERSION/ROOM DESIGN

Walking through the corridor to get to the room felt a million miles from the history of the place, but as soon as we stepped through the entrance to the room we were teleported back through time and ended up in a distinguished looking office. Of course there was more to this room than our initial observations and arguably the final area we explored felt even more authentic than the first.

The rooms were as one would expect for the time, quiet. There was no ambient noises or music playing in The Anatomist, the only noises we had to accompany us was the squeaking of the floorboards as we rushed around trying to solve the mystery.

It’s probably worth pointing out that this is not a horror game, and there are no live actors. Ok, it’s dark and creepy with maybe one or two jump scares, but that’s as scary as it gets. Surprisingly for a darkly themed room, it wasn’t actually that dark. There was one area were it was tricky to see, but lanterns were provided, and other than that the lighting was more than adequate to see everything.

PUZZLES

Other than trying to work out if Beth was English or Scottish (I’m going to assume she was English), there was a good variety of puzzles that all felt like they belonged in the era that we were supposed to be located in. Searching, observation, following directions, logic, decoding, physical, minor maths, and wordplay made up the bulk of the puzzles in The Anatomist, and they worked off the theme and location perfectly.

The puzzles were all logical and fair and a lot of the game was non-linear, allowing us to split up and work on things independently. The only issues we had were because of our own stupidity and assumptions. As soon as Beth chimed in to tell us how we could interact with something, we knew instantly what we had to do. Don’t be like us and assume there is no tech in this game, as there is. Ok a lot of the puzzles resulted in codes for padlocks, but there was still tech so leave your assumptions at the door.

Another nice touch was that a notepad and pen was provided for taking notes, but this was not just a regular pen, oh no, it was a quill pen – but fortunately not an actual ink quill or that would have got very messy, very quickly.

I must admit, one of the final things we interacted with was really cool and was something we hadn’t seen before. It was arguably just a giant padlock input device, but none-the-less, it was cool and a way to enter a code that we hadn’t seen before in over 500 escape rooms.

GM/CLUE SYSTEM

From the moment we met Beth we knew she was going to be a great gamesmaster. Her welcome was warm, her briefing was enthusiastic, and her delivery of help when needed was timely and perfect.

It’s a shame there wasn’t a way to make the clue system a bit more ‘of the era’, as clues just came from a voice in sky through the speaker system. Saying that though, Beth was clearly watching us closely as she chimed in at the right times to help us avoid our frustrations when we were being a bit dim – mostly notably with making a stupid assumption about the game and confusing ourselves in the process.

ANYTHING ELSE

The Anatomist is one of those games that you could probably class as a ‘traditional’ escape room. It probably won’t blow you away, but it’s likely to give you a good time and help you feel like you’ve lived some of Edinburgh’s ‘darker’ history. There aren’t a huge amount of games in Edinburgh, but if you’re looking for games to play while you’re in the city, then this isn’t a bad shout.

Success/Failed

Final Rating:

Team: 2 players – escaped in 43 mins

Address: Basement 1, 25 Nicolson Square, Edinburgh EH8 9BX

Website: https://www.escapethepast.co.uk

*Disclaimer: we weren’t charged for this experience, but this has not influenced our review