Secret Studio: The Emerald Phantom (London)

It’s been a long time coming!

A diva, a director and a deputy stage manager desperately need your help to investigate a peculiar theft – what is happening on the set of The Emerald Phantom?

Our relationship with Secret Studio goes back a long way, in fact as long ago as August 2015 when we played our first ever escape room, Escape in Time. So in a way, they’re at least partially responsible for our addiction, and this blog. We have actually been debating going back and playing Escape in Time just to see how much we remember and how it holds up having now played nearly 600 games. That is still the plan, but we were very excited to see that they’d finally opened a new game, The Emerald Phantom, and we were even more excited to get booked in to play it!

It was actually the evening before we were heading on a little road trip in Belgium/Netherlands (yes, for escape rooms), so as we were already planning to be in London it was the perfect time to get booked in to see how things had changed in the 9.5 years since we last visited Secret Studio.

The mystery of The Emerald Phantom started well before our allotted time, as the instructions on how to find the studio were delivered via email. Nothing as commonplace as a simple address, oh no, we were told to be at a certain street corner at a designated time and then take X steps in a direction, and then look for something that would guide us to our entry point – all very clandestine!

We found the location, and rang the bell. On delivering our super secret code phrase, we were then greeted by our host, Oscar. After a short walk we entered the building and descended the stairs where we found the rather large and comfortable waiting area. We stored away our personal possessions, made a quick bathroom break, and then it was time to get down to business.

In the reception area, Oscar gave an enthusiastic, in-character, and fun introduction to the story and then escorted us to the room where it happens – the dressing room. In the room the briefing continued, but before long we were on our own and time started ticking away.

IMMERSION/ROOM DESIGN

Liz, being an actor, has been in more dressing rooms than I have so I probably can’t comment on the authenticity of this one – although it had the things that one would expect to see so I guess that’s a good start!

For me, I think the thing Emerald Phantom was lacking the most was some form of background music or score. It just felt a little too quiet for me and I’d have liked something to just take away from that silence – still, it’s better than music that’s so loud you can’t think or communicate.

You’re meant to be extras in a film being shot at Secret Studios, so If you really want to take the immersion to the next level in this game, you can actually dress up as your character. We kinda missed this point as we were just straight to the puzzling, but it’s a nice touch if you’re a group who want to have a little more fun.

PUZZLES

All the puzzles in The Emerald Phantom felt like they belonged in the era that it was set, and let’s face it, it’s a film set so they can basically get away with anything. We found the puzzles to not be overly challenging, but that could be down to our experience, or that they just made sense to us (good puzzle design). We even solved one puzzle without finding an additional piece of information that was designed to signpost us to it.

The puzzles themselves were varied, and enjoyable: searching, observation, and logic all made an appearance – oh and a little magic! Generally solving the puzzles resulted in a code for a padlock (again, decent signposting here) but there was a little tech too. Actually speaking of tech, there was one really cool bit of tech that I loved!

We played this as a team of two and found we had enough to keep us busy, and were able to split up and work on different things on a couple of occasions.

GM/CLUE SYSTEM

Oscar was a most wonderful host and did everything possible to make us feel welcomed and immersed in the Secret Studio world. If we needed any help it would have been delivered over the speaker system in the room. From what I can recall, I think Oscar gave us a nudge at one point to do something that we had been putting off (we were excited looking at all the other shiny things in the room).

ANYTHING ELSE

It’s hard to compare this to the first game we played at Secret Studio as it’s been a while, and that one was our first. However, The Emerald Phantom is a fun game and still has those lovely little touches that make it part of the Secret Studio experience.

Success/Failed

Final Rating: 

Team Size: 2 people – 34 minutes

Address: Wentworth Street, London, E1 7SA

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

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