Exit Strategy Liverpool – The Illuminati

The Story:
Reclusive conspiracy theorist Ziggy Roswell has gone missing!

No one believed him when he claimed that The Earth is run by a cabal of shape-shifting intergalactic lizards.

He claimed that they run the EU, NATO, the NSA, The Vatican, China, Russia. That they control every war, every uprising, all the intelligence services. That the moon is a hollow, reality-controlling super computer, and that they use wifi to enslave the human mind.

No one believed him, everyone thought he was nuts…But maybe he was on to something.

Enter his world, find out what he was working on. See what info he’s left lying around and eventually work out what’s become of him.

I think one of the reasons we’d taken so long to visit Exit Strategy was that it had a different booking method to other local venues. Instead of the usual online system we’d encountered in other places we had to either call or text a mobile number, and as we’d got used to doing things a certain way we’d just been going with the familiar. The process turned out as easy as you’d expect though, and a few texts later we were all sorted and booked in.

The venue is located in the basement of a 19th Century Gothic style building, and after making our way downstairs we were welcomed into a brightly lit space and were offered complimentary drinks. We were a little early, but after a quick chat to establish what sort of experience we’d had of Escape Rooms everything was ready to go.

Our briefing was given inside the room and were told that any clues we needed would come in via a TV screen accompanied by a doorbell sound to alert us.

The decor of the room was that of a slightly run down office, which was ideal for the story and worked well. One of the advantages of this kind of theme is that it’s so much more achievable for the ER company to create something that suspends your disbelief.

Once the clock was started (which was a timer on the wall next to the door) we noticed a few nice easy puzzles in plain sight to start us off. As ever, it was good for morale to ease us in gently.

With searching being one of our many weak points, it was a relief to find there wasn’t any excessive hunting about required throughout the room, everything seemed to either be out in the open or inside a locked object and obvious once opened.

There was a good mix of puzzles including a couple that were a bit tricky, but made perfect sense once we’d been given a clue or two. Nice use of some simple tech as well.

One final thing is that I’m not sure if Exit Strategy are more used to visitors during the daytime. Our game was at 6.30pm, and when we exited the building we found that the metal security gate in front of us was locked, by which point we’d also pulled the door closed behind us.

We found ourselves facing the challenge of being trapped in the small entrance area and having to escape for real! We cheated and asked for a clue… well, we phoned them and asked them to let us out. Can we count that as a win?

Don’t be deterred by the non-automated booking system as we really enjoyed The Illuminati, and it’s definitely made us want to come back for Exit Strategy’s other room, Nostromo.