“The UK’s largest escape room”
Twenty years ago, six paranormal investigators, armed with state-of-the-art ghost hunting equipment, entered the infamous 43 Paradise Row – East London’s most haunted house – to discover the dark secrets which lurk within these blood-stained walls. What did they discover? We have no idea! They went missing that night and were never seen or heard from again.
London has been screaming out (you see what I did there) for new escape rooms for a long time, and answering that call is ScreamWorks with their Haunted House room. We hadn’t really heard anything about ScreamWorks but it sounds like they have a decent reputation in the horror world for producing immersive experiences, and now they’ve wandered into the escape room industry too.
Their advertising certainly got our attention with claims like ‘The UK’s largest escape room’, and boasting a capacity of 3 to 48 players! They claim that this is the UK’s largest non-linear escape room, and is set across nine rooms over two floors. I can’t verify the size claim of this experience, but it was certainly expansive.
The Haunted House is located a short walk from Bethnal Green tube station and at night the area certainly adds to the creepy feeling that they’re going for with this game. When we arrived we were greeted by our host, and CEO of ScreamWorks, Gary. Gary showed us the storage area where we could put our bags and suggested that we may want to keep our coats on as some areas could be chilly. I left my coat in the storage area and personally didn’t find it cold at all and was a good temperature throughout.
With our bags stored away, it was time for the briefings. Gary showed us to a TV screen in the waiting area where we watched a short presentation by him that explained the history of this location and what we were there to do (as well as some vital health and safety instructions). This was an interesting briefing as it felt like it blurred the lines of fact and fiction – the ‘Condemned Building’ sign on the main door, was this real…?
With the briefing understood and our mission fresh in our minds, it was time to finally enter the haunted house. We were given a torch for the team and a walkie-talkie, and then we were on our way.
IMMERSION/ROOM DESIGN
It’s quite clear that ScreamWorks have experience in the horror genre, and the set for this experience had us questioning if they had built it or if it was indeed original (as per the story). I can’t comment on how this game would work with multiple teams playing at the same time, but as a team of four, we found there was plenty of space for us to explore. Which is no surprise, as it is, in fact, a house.
The gameplay of the Haunted House is very much expected to be linear. But the strangest part of the experience was that you could, if you wanted to, explore a great deal of the set, without ever actually solving any of the puzzles, making the experience a little confusing. Our inquisitive nature led to quite a few squawks of the walkie with a message from Gary, encouraging us to go back and focus on what we had already found. Once we understood the parameters of the game, it was a bit less overwhelming, and we started to find a groove.
The whole building had a very eerie feel about it, but I wouldn’t say that this was a full-on horror experience. There was no live actor but there were one or two jump scares. Going into this game we weren’t sure if there was a live actor so we were expecting to find some ghost or ghoul at every turn.
For the most part, this was a low-tech game, but it wasn’t tech-free, and in those instances, the tech was used in quite a cool way, which certainly added a bit of extra ‘wow, that’s cool’ to the experience.
You’ll need to be quite mobile for this game as there are stairs, ladders, and crawling. I can’t recall seeing a workaround to avoid any of the ‘active’ bits, so if this is a concern then it would be worth reaching out to ScreamWorks directly as they will be able to advise better.
The rooms were for the most part dimly lit, but I wouldn’t say they were ever especially dark. Saying that, it would have been nice to have been given more than one torch. As a team of four, being given one torch is always a bummer as it just slows everything down and gets annoying for those without the torch. If we were indeed a team of paranormal investigators, I would like to think that we’d be prepared and would each have a torch.
PUZZLES
Horror experiences that have been converted to escape room experiences are always very hit or miss as generally they have to compromise on something to appeal to the masses. The Haunted House did have puzzles, but it did seem like they were a bit more limited than we would have liked.
With that said, there were some of the traditional escape room types of puzzles that you’d expect to find; searching, observation, communication, teamwork and decoding. Padlocks were used in the game but they were varied.
We didn’t find any of the puzzles overly taxing, but they did fit the theme and pushed the narrative of the game forward. Thinking back on our experience, I can think of a couple of puzzles which were quite clever and made good use of both high and low-tech devices.
GM/CLUE SYSTEM
Our GM set the tone for our experience from the start, and he obviously knew the story of the game like the back of his hand, as he delivered our briefing perfectly. Clues were delivered through walkie-talkies which we were provided before we entered – a delivery method that fitted the theme so no issues there.
We did find that we were perhaps fed clues a bit too quickly. This could have been because they have to move players through the game at a certain speed to allow for the next team (or keep you from running into the previous team). In some instances, it was definitely because we were just wandering through the space, but it could also have just been a conscious decision on how they clue. Either way, I think for us we would probably have preferred a little more time to solve the puzzles.
ANYTHING ELSE
The Haunted House was an interesting experience and I think it would be fascinating to see how it is run with the maximum 48 players. One thing that was clear from our experience was that ScreamWorks are constantly experimenting and developing their offering, so there is a good chance that your experience could be slightly different to ours.
The team photo was done in a clever way and gave us a nice memento of our experience. I’ve also never played a game with so much chocolate dotted around the rooms (which was a lovely surprise).
Success / Failure
Final Rating:
Operation | |
Puzzles | |
Room Design | |
GM/Clues | |
Excitement |
Team: 4 players – escaped in around 51 mins
Address: Secret Location, Paradise Row, London, E2 9LE
Website: https://www.screamworks.co.uk
*Disclaimer: we weren’t charged for this experience, but this has not influenced our review.
Leave a Reply