ClueFinders Liverpool – The Tomb

The Story:
Avid explorer and archaeologist Ernest Peter Sanderson has made the discovery of his life – uncovering no less than 3 tombs, each full of enough treasure to make him rich beyond measure. But before he reaps his reward he discovers a map containing the location of a secret fourth tomb that was thought to only exist in myths, containing a treasure so precious it has never been seen by any living human. Ernest drops everything to hunt down this fourth tomb and bring this treasure home. Unfortunately this was the last anyone ever heard from him.

This was 50 years ago. Now the map has come into your possession – can you track down the tomb, complete Ernest’s life work and take the treasure for your own?

When we drive in to Liverpool for an Escape Room, the parking can easily add another £5.00 or more onto the cost if you’re there at peak time unless you get lucky, so one of the first things to note about Clue Finders is the easy availability of free parking right outside the building. As it says on the Contact bit of their website ‘Yes, there is free parking available outside of the venue and you are welcome to use our car park for the duration of your stay’. Nice, off to a good start then!

We were welcomed inside by our host for a quick chat and the usual safety briefing, before we eagerly ascended a short staircase and entered the room to begin. It was themed as a small office/store room with suitable furnishings and decorations, though we did note that it had quite a low ceiling and was a little cramped with three of us in there. I imagine with any more people it could possibly start to be an issue if trying to be involved with every stage as there just physically wouldn’t be the room for everyone to gather round. I do realise this last point is probably true of almost every room, but it was certainly highlighted for us here.

I think there was maybe one puzzle in this first section that we felt was a little vague and unintuitive, and we’d have struggled with if we hadn’t had a clue. We’d have probably got there in the end with simply trying a certain item everywhere, but then time as ever was against us.

It wasn’t long before we’d opened up the play area a little more though which gave us a lot more breathing space, and I really liked the method through this was achieved. For me, something a little more unusual yet still quite simple as this was, adds a certain sense of making it into more of an ‘adventure’ and makes it stick in your head afterwards.

Throughout the room we found a good variety of puzzles and tasks from simple searches to ordering items, assembling smaller objects to solving a large physical one. With the large one it was clear from the start what needed to be done, but actually doing it was the challenge here and it proved to be a fair bit more difficult than it seemed at first glance. Tricky indeed.

We felt a good sense of progression as we worked our way through as we could see several areas that would need to be tackled one at a time, which also gave us a good idea about how close we might be to the end. This didn’t really help us too much though as we didn’t have a timer in the room… I’ve no idea what people think of this generally, but I do much prefer to be able to keep an eye on the clock so I can prepare for the panic to set in properly!

Despite this small gripe we really enjoyed the room and found enough little flourishes and slightly unusual things to keep us thoroughly entertained, and we’re now looking forward to returning for Remy’s Room.