Escapism: Legacy (Plymouth)

Good clean fun (not scary)

A forgotten will from an eccentric relative informs you of a vast wealth of inherited riches belonging to a late Lady Mary. Lady Mary was filled with greed and upon her death she hoarded her wealth behind elaborate puzzles to keep them from unworthy hands, but a crack team of codebreakers could sneak their way into her tomb and reclaim her legacy.

The silent skeletons are not the only inhabitants of the graveyard, however, as a mysterious Crypt Keeper patrols the area every hour. Perhaps they wish to keep the riches for themselves, but it would be foolish to wait to find out.

We seem to use escape rooms as a way to tour the country/world, yet we never actually seem to see any of the locations we visit and spend all our time in escape rooms. The latest location for our typical escape room visit was to be Plymouth, specifically Escapism Plymouth.

It’s very easy (when they’re not on strike) to get the train to most places where there are decent escape rooms, so we decided to hop on a train and nip down to Plymouth for a cheeky day trip where we were going to play all four games at Escapism.

If you think you’ve heard of Escapism but can’t quite place why, it’s because they also have a branch in Chester. Their games seem to be mostly shared between venues, so chances are that if you’ve played at one, then you’ll probably not want to play the same game at the other venue.

After a few delays to our train, we finally got to Plymouth and headed straight to the venue. When we arrived we were enthusiastically greeted by the staff. We received the health and safety (and ‘what are padlocks’) briefing in the reception area with another team who were waiting for their game. The venue is rather new (it only opened in May 2022), and we couldn’t tell if it wasn’t finished or they just went for a minimal design as there was nowhere to sit while waiting to play.

With our knowledge about what padlocks are and how they work sufficiently refreshed, it was finally time to play our first game of the day, Legacy. We were shown to our room by our GM, Tash, who gave us a very brief story to clarify our mission. Tash then left us alone in the room where we then received a bit more of the story over the TV screen. Now we were clear on what we needed to do, get into the crypt, get the gems, get out. Simple.

IMMERSION/ROOM DESIGN

With words like ‘graveyard’, ‘skeletons’ and ‘crypt’ you’d be forgiven for expecting this to be a dark and non-family friendly game, but that is strangely not the case. Legacy was actually really well lit in all areas we encountered and we never struggled to see anything in the game, even without torches. It also wasn’t scary in the slightest so I can’t see any reason why it wouldn’t be suitable for family groups.

The spaces were surprisingly spacious and would easily accommodate slightly larger teams without getting in each other’s way. As a team of two we had plenty of space to move around and accessibility in this game wasn’t an issue at all. I would guess that this game is probably also wheelchair accessible.

The room had the usual things you’d expect to find with a theme like this; gravestones, skeleton bits, skulls, and at least in the first part of the room nothing really felt particularly out of place. The ambient noise and music being piped into the room added to the feeling of eeriness, and took away the silence that I’m really not a fan of.

PUZZLES

Another reason why this game could be good for families is that the puzzles seemed to range in difficulty, and the game had a mostly non-linear structure with only a few choke points. Some puzzles were very, very simple while others were a bit more cerebral. We managed to get through most of the puzzles without any difficulty, all except for one. One puzzle stumped us for a little while, and just when we were considering asking for help, Liz had a moment of inspiration and solved it.

The puzzles generally resulted in a combination for a padlock, and there were quite a few of them. But thanks to decent signposting throughout the game it was easy to know what went where.

There was a good mix of puzzles but they fitted into the usual escape room types; searching, observation, wordplay, dexterity, spatial relations, teamwork, maths, riddles, and directions. There really is something for everyone in this game.

GM/CLUE SYSTEM

We gave Tash an easy run in Legacy as we didn’t actually need any assistance at all. This game just clicked with us, so much so that we were less than a minute away from the room record (fastest team of two though, we’ll take that). I’m sure that if we did need any help that it would have been received quickly and been enough to get us back on track.

Any clues received would have been displayed on the screen in the room, accompanied by a raven noise just to make sure they weren’t missed. When not being used for displaying clues the TV showed a countdown time, and also an eerie warning at the 30 minute mark.

ANYTHING ELSE

Not the hardest of games, but we had a good time in Legacy. The puzzles ranged in difficulty and type and the openness of the game allowed us to split up and do our own thing. A good first game to start off our Escapism Plymouth binge day.

Success / Failure

Final Rating:

Team: 2 players – escaped in 32:01

Address: 17 Bretonside, Plymouth PL4 0BB

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