Locked In Glasgow: Doll’s House (Glasgow)

This Dolls House is NOT for kids

You and your fellow podcasters decide to launch the first episode of your show from the house of the Carson family, where the notorious doll maker’s daughter disappeared. Robert Carson was arrested in connection with her disappearance- but is he guilty or is there something more at play?

You intend to uncover his secrets when suddenly there is a strange noise in the walls, a floorboard creaks… will you make it to episode two?

Our second game of the day at Locked In Glasgow was Doll’s House. We’d just played The Glasgow School of Magic and still had Bloodline and Ghost Hunters still to go (a fun day). Doll’s House was another game that we knew nothing about, but in our escape room experience it’s very rare that a game that has ‘Dolls’ in the title and is not a horror/creepy room.

Between our games we chilled out in the spacious reception area. Because we’d already had the health and safety briefing we didn’t need to get that again so our GM, Emma, took us down the corridor and into the Carson family house.

Once we stepped in the room, things changed. Emma quickly switched into character as part of the production team for our true crime podcast, and we were there to get to the bottom of this mystery. Emma gave us a room specific briefing and then once she left there was an audio introduction that played to give us a bit more background on the story.

Locked In Glasgow are on the fifth floor of a large office building, but there is a lift which makes life easier. The playing space in Doll’s house was quite cramped at times but the spaces were quite accessible, except for one part where you’d need to duck/crawl/limbo – so if accessibility is a concern it would be worth checking with the venue.

IMMERSION/ROOM DESIGN

As you may expect from a creepy game called ‘Doll’s House’, there were times that it was quite dark but it was never too bad. We did find a torch at one point which made things a bit easier – although why we couldn’t find two torches, one for each of us, I’ll never understand.

There was a lot to take in in this room and some of our time was spent simply investigating all the set dressing and working out what was part of a puzzle and what was there just to add to the atmosphere. As I mentioned earlier, the game was mostly accessible, although some spaces were small and a little bit of ducking/crawling is needed to get to one area.

This game had plenty of ambient music and noises which helped to immerse us in the world and forget about the busy Glasgow street outside. The music was also interrupted at various points so that recordings could be played to further progress the story of what was going on.

I’d describe this game as a creepy one rather than a full on horror, as there were no live actors and it didn’t get scarier than the occasional jump scare (and the rather macabre theme, obviously).

PUZZLES

Unlike the Glasgow School of Magic, Doll’s House felt like a much more linear game where we had to solve puzzles in a certain order and with minimal chances to split up (especially at times with only one torch).

Not the most challenging of games, but there was a good variety of puzzles and they all felt like they belonged in the theme. One or two puzzles we solved before we probably should have, because we could just see what needed to be done, but that didn’t affect the flow and we still got through it. We asked our GM about one thing after the game as we hadn’t used it, but apparently it was just to point us in a direction and connect things, which we already had done without it.

We found a good mixture of; observation, searching, colours, audio, basic maths/counting, and perhaps a little logic. These puzzles resulted in a mixture of padlocks or a tech trigger. The signposting in this game was decent and we generally knew where to go next, there were also some extra ‘guides’ for one or two things where I guess perhaps teams have struggled in the past.

GM/CLUE SYSTEM

I don’t believe we needed any clues in this game, which tallies with why I probably can’t remember what the clue system was! I have a feeling that if we needed any help we simply had to request it and Emma (from the production team) would be there to point us in the right direction.

One nice thing that did come in handy at a couple of points for us was a digital notepad. With memories like gold fishes, it’s very useful for us to be able to write down things when we’re solving a more long winded puzzle.

ANYTHING ELSE

A creepy experience but certainly not full on horror. The puzzles in Doll’s House, and all the items we found felt like they fitted the theme nicely. Again, nothing ground-breaking from Locked In Glasgow, but still a fun experience and worth playing if you’re in the area.

Success / Failure

Final Rating:

Team: 2 players – 26:53

Address: Central Chambers, 93 Hope St, Glasgow G2 6LD

Website: https://escaperoomglasgow.com