GamEscape Liverpool – Golden Cage

Venue: GamEscape Liverpool
Room: Golden Cage
The Team: TDM, Mr Carrot
Date: 01/08/2017
GamEscape in Liverpool is a bit further out of the city centre than some of the other Escape Rooms there, which I thought would mean easier free parking, but it seemed most spots around were reserved for local businesses during the day. Fortunately we were visiting later on so managed to get a space without any problems and made our way to attempt Golden Cage.
The Story:
You have been transported back over 300 years, where a mystical wizard has locked you in a mysterious, magical room. You have 60 minutes to escape the Wizards clutches and come back to the present day.
Use the clues, solve the puzzles & identify the way to escape or get stuck in a world where you don’t belong.
We actually arrived far too early for our booking, but as there was a free slot before us our host kindly allowed us to start almost immediately after the standard short briefing.
The room was enjoyable with a few nice moments of satisfaction as things fell into place, and we thought the clue system was really fun and involved notes slipped under the door rather than the TV screens we’d been used to in other places. This fitted the theme here much better though, and led to us shouting ‘Thanks Clue Pixie’ every time one appeared. I’m sure our host got bored of that quickly, but we kept laughing to ourselves like idiots for ages.
I think if I had one small criticism of the room, the one thing I would change is that there was a window looking out onto a street which lessens the immersion a little, and I think it would probably be a simple matter to cover it over or disguise it to solve this.
Speaking of immersion I have seen a complaint directed at this room from other sources which relates to a specific puzzle near the end. There are a couple of pieces of equipment that you have to use to solve something which are definitely anachronistic in this room, but my thoughts were if we’d been transported back 300 years, well so had they. Not really something to complain about in my opinion, and not something that bothered us… and before someone points it out, yes I know I went on about the window so I’m contradicting myself… but let’s ignore that and move on…
In the end, we actually ran out out time, but as we’d started early our very kind host allowed us an extra 5 minutes at the end to finish off as we were so close. Our main failing this time was not searching thoroughly enough, as there were a few vital bits and pieces that we’d missed along the way, but we did finally make it out.
We still classed ourselves as failing though, because we’re just too damn honest for our own good!
Result: FAILED
(But they let us finish with another 5 minutes.)