The Escape House: Spellbound (St Neots)

Puzzles!

Welcome, brave adventurers, to the Kingdom of Eldermist!

For years, this land has suffered under the dark curse of the malevolent wizard and his fearsome dragon, Grimfang. The once-thriving kingdom now lies in despair, its people yearning for a hero. Are you brave enough to step into the wizard’s lair and break the enchantment that grips the kingdom?

Your mission is clear: infiltrate the wizard’s tower, locate his spellbook, and cast the Spell of Unbinding to lift the curse. But beware, time is of the essence! Can you break the spell and escape before it’s too late?

We had never visited St Neots before as I think last time we were in the area there were no escape rooms around. We were in the area as we had booked in for the Trapp’d overnight escape room at Chester House so we decided to drive a little further and check out The Escape House, and their 90 minute game, Spellbound.

We were early so had lots of time to walk around St Neots, and it’s beautiful. If you’re there on a sunny day, then a walk along the river is a great way to kill time. But I digress. At the time of writing, Spellbound by The Escape House has rapidly risen up the ranks of Escape the Review, and sits at position 13 for the whole of the UK – an impressive feat.

After our stroll around town, it was easy to find the venue. Neatly tucked down a mews-like area just off the market square, there was no doubt we were in the right place. When we arrived, we entered the waiting area and were greeted by our GM.

A few minutes later, our teammates arrived and it was time to get down to business. Our GM disappeared, and a remarkably similar looking chap arrived, in character, to take over our hosting. The briefings took place in reception, our items were locked away safely in the lockers provided, toilets were made use of, and we escorted down the corridor where we stopped outside the entrance to the room.

Before we entered, we were given a lighting source (each, yay), and then we were escorted into the darkened room where our time began.

A quick note on accessibility, The Escape House website mentions that one area is not accessible by wheelchair and some puzzles may be positioned at a height that is inaccessible from a wheelchair. Other than that, the rest of the game is wheelchair accessible, and indeed mostly takes place on a level area.

IMMERSION/ROOM DESIGN

First impressions of this game were good, and if people are looking for a set that is well done, then I can see why it’s rated so highly in the UK. The attention to detail was spot on, and really made a difference. I particularly enjoyed the effort they had put into the lights we were given. They could have been lazy and just given us regular torches, but no, these were much cooler. That attention to detail permeated through the entire game, helping everything feel like it belonged in this wizardy world.

The spaces that we encountered were never huge, but as a team of four we never had any issues with space. Ok, so the very first spaces where the game starts are a little tighter, but this still wasn’t problematic. Because of how the game was designed, with some back-and-forth between spaces, the game felt oddly bigger than it actually was.

I can imagine this is one of those games that would appeal to the entire family, and if you bring along smaller escapers, The Escape House are able to modify the game slightly so that they can have their own quest of searching for hidden magic wands!

PUZZLES

If you’re looking for a game that’s chocked full of puzzles, then this could be that game. Spellbound, being a 90 minute game, has a good number of puzzles and we found that as a team of four, we were kept busy.

Being a split start game, you’ll need to be hot on your communication skills. But if you get that right, you won’t be separated for long. Other than that; observation, searching, teamwork, following directions, decoding, logic, and colours all play a part.

For me, personally, the heavy reliance on colours was really the only negative with the puzzles. It’s unlikely that an entire team will be colourblind, but because of the use of colour on a couple of puzzles, I couldn’t fully engage with them.

There was one puzzle in particular that had a chance to be particularly evil, but the designers decided they wanted the game to be fun, and not frustrating. So instead they built this particular bit of tech with fun in mind, and it had a nice system in place to feedback when you were doing things correctly, and you weren’t penalised if you made a mistake – perfect.

Oh and one piece of advice, if you play a game and they don’t say “nothing is used more than once” don’t forget that and default to discounting things once they’re used…

GM/CLUE SYSTEM

There was only one moment in this game when we needed assistance, and that wasn’t because of poor puzzle design, it was that we forgot to double-check something that one of our teammates had done. So while they were repeating what they had found, they missed off one key piece of information that would have provided the signposting we needed to complete it.

Our host held off giving us help until we requested it, and that was fine. We were flying through most of the game, so we had plenty of time to spare. But when we asked, the help came quickly and was delivered in a rather cute way – but I would assume there were a few different clue systems in this game depending on what part you were in.

ANYTHING ELSE

This is a fun, puzzly game, and I can see why it’s so highly rated in the UK. A couple of big puzzles that relied on colours tainted it a little for me, but I’m not normal. We’ll definitely be back to check out their new game, which we just missed opening.

Success/Failed

Final Rating:

Team: 4 Players

Address: 13 Fishers Yard, St. Neots PE19 2AG

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