‘Knockout Reading’ have upped their game!
For many years, you have been intrigued about the goings-on in this cabin. The workers have downed tools and this has given you the chance to enter and explore.
The risks you face are the danger of what’s inside and if you can escape before they return or be trapped forever. At last, you may find out answers to your curiosities, BUT will you return to tell the secrets?
Venture into – The Curious Cabin…
We were yet to have a bad experience at Knockout so had high expectations for their new room, ‘The Curious Cabin’.
The last time we visited Knockout Escape Rooms they were based in Twyford in a lovely old building; since then they have relocated to an industrial estate in Reading. Although the building can’t be described as lovely anymore, they’ve taken the time to upgrade their waiting room experience and improve it where it matters.
Upon entering the building we climbed the stairs to the waiting room and were greeted enthusiastically by the team. We were given the standard health and safety talk and then got sidetracked talking about rooms we had all done, or wanted to do, it was like old friends meeting up and telling war stories and we could have spent hours chatting. Then of course we remembered we were there to do a room so our GM, Liam, took us down the corridor and gave us the room specific brief.
As we entered the room we could see that this was a step up from their old rooms – don’t get me wrong the old rooms were good, but this was a different level entirely for the room design.
PUZZLES
Before entering the room we were asked what difficulty setting we wanted, so of course one of our ambitious (competitive?) team-mates decided we should do the hardest setting, and they set the room accordingly.
The puzzles were all on theme and nothing felt out of place. A little bit of searching was needed, but not much so if that’s not your thing you should be ok, but they are a little sneaky.
I particularly enjoyed the variety of puzzles in this room, that were different in style but all stayed true to the theme. Arguably there was one puzzle that felt like a bit of a stretch and took a long time to complete, but this was because we had it on hard mode and they had a different system in place for less challenging modes.
There was one puzzle which was time-consuming and if you got it wrong you had to start again. This took us two attempts, and I was adamant I didn’t get it wrong the first time however the owner, Andy, kindly reviewed the footage afterwards and phoned us to inform us that it was a severe case of fat fingers on my part – not for the first time.
IMMERSION/ROOM DESIGN
When we first walked into this room we were impressed with the attention to detail. Ok there were padlocks and a few things which were arguably anachronistic but I like padlocks so I’m not going to moan about that.
This is one of those rooms that you enter and think you know what you’re getting but then it finds ways to surprise you and fill you with excitement. On the surface it looks like a simple room but behind the scenes there is a lot of tech working hard to keep you on your toes.
The only part of the room where things felt a bit flat was the ending. It was building up to this one epic finale and when it came to it it just kinda fizzled out. Without giving anything away it would have been nice to see some special effects such as smoke and noise for the ending, these guys certainly have the skills and experience to pull it off.
GM/CLUE SYSTEM
In the room was a screen which was used for delivering your countdown timer and also any clues you needed. Liam was on the ball and provided us with one clue that we asked for and then chirped in with nudges when he could see us getting frustrated.
ANYTHING ELSE
I love rooms that are run by enthusiasts and this is certainly that. A nice touch that I’ve not really seen anywhere else is a notice board that shows their group escape photos from rooms they’ve done around the country. I could quite happily have spent much longer chatting with them about the world of escape rooms, such a friendly bunch! Oh, and they have wonderfully tasty sweets in the waiting room which give a good mid-room sugar boost.
Success / Failure
Final Rating:
| Operation | |
| Puzzles | |
| Room Design | |
| GM/Clues | |
| Excitement |
Team: Five players – escaped in 52:46 (on hard mode), with one clue
Address: 75 Milford Rd, Reading RG1 8LG
Website: https://knockoutescaperooms.com
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