The Panic Room: Enigma (Gravesend)

We’d have made Alan Turing proud!

This is a matter of national security! There is a traitor amongst us! Your mission: locate the traitor and escape, before something unthinkable happens! Your country needs you!

A small group of cryptographers have been stationed within Bletchley under orders to uphold National Defence through intercepting and deciphering intelligence. This department became the “Bletchley National Defence Cybersecurity Unit” in 2010. Just recently, one of the cryptographers uncovered a threat to the Government network and was horrified to realise the traitor was in the team!

Your commander has narrowed the suspects down to five people, but has now mysteriously disappeared leaving only a trail of clues behind!

An awesome Cluedo-esq adventure of deduction and intrigue. The quintessential escape room experience, perfect for veteran players and newcomers too! Can you find the traitor and escape in time?

Once we had received our LOOP report, we were approached by a strange man in a trench coat. As we crept down the hall, avoiding detection, it was clear our next adventure had begun, and this time, we were spies!

Enigma started off well. Perhaps too well, however, as we discovered a padlock that had been missed in a reset, allowing us to bypass almost every puzzle at the start. Our GM swiftly noticed, and swooped in to let us know that we hadn’t reached that point yet,and we were back on track.

Still, we progressed rapidly through the puzzles, and were swiftly narrowing down our options for the traitor. Enigma was full of plot twists; just when you thought you had achieved your goal, the goal post was moved, and you needed to figure something else out. I had narrowed down our traitor, but didn’t read properly, and almost selected the wrong one; luckily I had been trained by the American education system to always check my work, as you’re only given one opportunity to name the baddie.

Of the rooms at The Panic Room that we completed, Enigma was one of the more traditional escape rooms, but it was made a bit more interesting with the plot twists, and is a solid, entertaining room. We were relatively quick for a team of two, at 45:08, but due to the size of the space, and the number of puzzles, this room would be well suited to a team of four to six.

PUZZLES

Puzzles were generally quite standard for an escape room, with a number of them resulting in four digit combinations for padlocks, but there was also a nice mix of searching for things, and some things that were triggered automatically. There was one logic based reasoning puzzle, where the pressure was on as you were only given the one opportunity to input a correct answer. But aside from the padlocks, of course, what room named Enigma would be complete without an Enigma machine? The directions on how to actually use the Enigma machine were a bit confusing, but we got there in the end, and it was a nice element to the game.

IMMERSION/ROOM DESIGN

The immersion started out right from the beginning, before we even reached the room, with our sneaky journey to our door. Unfortunately, there were a few issues that necessitated a break in that: a padlock that was missed in resetting, and also a technical issue with the Enigma machine. Along with the slightly confusing directions, the cable on the machine was a bit loose, which meant it kept coming unplugged and resetting itself.

Room design itself we pretty basic at first, but as you move through the room, you move from one space to another, and each is quite different from the last, so you do feel as though you are on a journey to find the traitor and save the country!

GM/CLUE SYSTEM

Clues for Enigma were delivered via a screen, and our trench coat-clad GM was ready with prompts when needed, or just assistance when the tech was being troublesome.

ANYTHING ELSE

Perhaps it was because we had just completed LOOP prior to this, or it may have been the loss of immersion due to being able to enter a space before we should have, but we weren’t overly enamoured with the room. However, while Enigma is lacking the WOW-factor of other rooms at The Panic Room, it was still a solid, and enjoyable room.

Success / Failure

Final Rating:

Team: 2 people – escaped in 45:08

Address: 23a St Georges Centre, Princes Street, Gravesend, DA11 0TB

Website: https://www.thepanicroom.net