REVIEWS

Breakout Liverpool – Classified

Classified
Breakout Liverpool

Venue: Breakout Liverpool

Room: Classified

The Team: TDM, Mr Carrot, JM

Date: 25/08/2018

Still glowing in a slightly smug yet ‘we can’t quite believe it’ manner from our surprisingly speedy success in The Detective Office, we moved onto our second room of the evening – Classified. We’d heard from a couple of people that this one was quite a toughie, so we tried to ready ourselves by psyching ourselves up into a spy frame of mind… though we were probably feeling a bit more Johnny English than James Bond.

The Story:
The classified room sees players sitting their final entrance exam to become a secret agent. You must escape from the room to pass the exam. This is Breakout’s most explosive and technologically advanced room yet! Think James Bond, Jack Bauer and Lara Croft. Classified is the prequel to Sabotage.

It’s interesting to note that as the story states, the objective for the room is literally to escape from it. A lot of places we’ve played build a story which introduces an element of peril behind the reason why you have to escape (such as you’ve been kidnapped, or you’re in a killer’s lair and they’re on their way back), but Classified’s whole point is that the room has been built for you to escape from as a test… and what a fun test it was.

One of the first things we noticed on entering is just what a large and open space the room is. I think nearly everything we needed to interact with was placed around the walls leaving us plenty of room to spread out for our initial search.

You have to collect a series of objects which then enable you to work out a code to escape. The order isn’t really linear as you could attack the puzzles in any order as you encountered them, though you may have occasionally needed to find a few items first. This meant that we always had something on the go, even if we weren’t quite sure what it was to begin with.

There were a few easy things just lying around waiting to be found to start us off, which progressed into a variety of puzzles – no real theme to them as it seemed a rather deliberate mix to throw as many different types as possible at us, and it was nice to encounter a few practical bits of tech we had to use.

We were stumped a little at one point as we’d found an item that we hadn’t actually found a use for but which definitely looked like we should have to, but we were told later that we’d actually managed to bypass it (though I’m guessing if we had used it it would have sped us up a little), but in the end we managed a pretty respectable time anyway.

Result: Escaped in 44 minutes

Breakout Liverpool – The Detective Office

The Detective Office
Breakout Liverpool

Venue: Breakout Liverpool

Room: The Detective Office

The Team: TDM, Mr Carrot, JM

Date: 25/08/2018

Following on from the shame of our failure in Warped a month before, Mr Carrot and I were returning to Breakout Liverpool to hopefully claw a bit of self respect back. This time we’d brought JM with us as a reinforcement as we took on two rooms, and first up was The Detective Office.

The Story:
In this tale, a young detective has sadly been murdered in his office and you are being framed as his killer. You are on the run and have gained access to his office, the crime scene, for one hour. Can you save yourself by finding out who killed him, why someone killed him and how they killed him?

I suspect that The Detective Office is one that gets booked a lot for company teambuilding events and suchlike, as there are two identical copies of the room which enables teams to play head to head which can introduce a more competitive element while still being a cooperative activity. No such extra pressure for us though thankfully!

The room is decorated in a ‘noir’ style with a comfy sofa, wooden furniture, and retro movie posters which suits the theme well and sets the tone perfectly.

To start us off there were a few easy bits and pieces to find, which were either very simply hidden or pretty much in plain sight, and there were also a couple of keycode locks that were immediately accessible, where we could see we’d have to work work towards opening them later on as we collected the relevant info.

The puzzles were nicely varied, and while I don’t think there was anything I hadn’t seen before, they were used effectively and worked well for the flow of the room.

I’m not sure whether we were just on form, or if it was because JM brought along the much needed actual ability that myself and Mr Carrot are so often lacking, but we sailed through this room. I think we only hit one stumbling block, which was a hiding spot that we were kicking ourselves about later on. Seems so obvious after the event, but all three of us just completely glossed over it.

A fun room, but definitely at the easier end of the scale of Breakout’s challenges.

Result: Solved the murder in 39 minutes

Breakout Liverpool – Warped

Warped
Breakout Liverpool

Venue: Breakout Liverpool

Room: Warped

The Team: TDM, Mr Carrot

Date: 28/07/2018

Despite this being our sixth visit to Breakout Liverpool, this was actually the first time we’d ever ventured into the upstairs bit. As chance would have it, all the rooms we’d tried so far had been down in the basement.

So, as we embarked upon a most excellent adventure through history in Warped, we wondered whether this change of elevation would bring us good fortune or throw us off our game and work against us.

Spoiler alert… it worked against us…

The Story:
Your genius friend has been working on a new project, promising that it will change the way you view the concept of time itself! She reveals she has made her own time machine and invites you to take it for a test run. However, when you show up, she’s nowhere to be seen and has left you instructions to help her recover the items she accidentally left scattered throughout history…

Can you stop this butterfly effect before it destroys the future?

OK, so maybe blaming the unfamiliar floor we were on is a bit of a bad excuse on our part, but despite our poor performance we did have a great time in Warped as it packs quite a bit into what is a fairly small space.

The room has a definite linearity to it, as there are several ‘sections’ which you must progress through, first completing the previous area each time. I imagine in larger groups this could actually prove to be a little problematic as everyone would need to crowd around the same spot and I feel there just wouldn’t be room to do it. Thankfully there was just the two of us though so it wasn’t an issue.

I don’t think it’s any kind of giveaway (given the theme and background story of the room) to say that a form of time travel is involved, and upon visiting certain ‘destinations’ I found myself reliving and reminiscing about some major bits of my youth, complete with soundtrack! Couldn’t keep the grin off my face.

The puzzles themselves were nicely varied, with a fair bit of simple observation, a little relating items to each other, and some quick and easy physical tasks… but then we got to the last bit, and this is where it went a bit wrong.

One of the final puzzles in the room involved fitting something together to reveal a code… so we did, and were absolutely convinced we had it right. We were so convinced that we’d stopped trying to solve it and started looking for something else we may have missed about the code we’d worked out.

What we’d actually missed though, is that the puzzle also fitted together in another way, and as we frantically tried variations of our code the time finally ran out. I have to admit that I initially felt a teeny tiny bit cheated by our failure… but I also have to grudgingly admit that when our host showed us how we should have had it afterwards it was a much better fit and the only people we could blame were ourselves.

Oh well, not had a fail in a while, but it’s always good to see that losing can be so much fun!

Result: Failed

Exit Strategy Liverpool – Nostromo

Nostromo
Exit Strategy Liverpool

Venue: Exit Strategy Liverpool

Room: Nostromo

The Team: TDM, Mr Carrot

Date: 28/07/2018

This was our second and sadly last visit to Exit Strategy as we’d previously played their other room, The Illuminati, so with Nostromo we’d run out of their rooms to play.

The Story:
NOSTROMO…

In Nostromo, you enter an abandoned spacecraft. We suspect that the Reptilians have killed the crew, disabled the critical systems on the craft set it on a course to crash to Earth and fled. In one hour the craft will enter the Earth’s gravitational field, the point of no return. You must convince the onboard computer HAL to change course… but how?

As on our previous visit we were offered complimentary drinks when we arrived which we were allowed to take into the room with us, not that we planned to have time to stop for refreshments once we’d started!

Before visiting I’d read a few reviews which seemed really positive and made clear the fact that Nostromo was a little different to most rooms in that it doesn’t feature any padlocks. That’s not to say there aren’t a couple of keys involved or that you don’t have to work out numbers like you would for combination or normal padlocks… but actual padlocks? A big no!

The decor of the room fitted the theme of an abandoned spacecraft very well, but more in a Red Dwarf style than Star Trek though. Painted in what I would imagine to be the dark grey of a storage hold and with a large retro style display screen it made an immediate good impression.

The room is designed is such a way that you need to keep returning to a central control area after completing each puzzle or task in order to progress. This works well as it also gives you a good idea about how far through the room you are at any given time.

The puzzles themselves were varied and creative with some really nice uses of tech along the way, some of which we’d not encountered before and had obviously been created as custom things for the room.

We did struggle a little on the last part as we were examining and re-examing some quite obvious bits and had missed something quite subtle in the same area. A clue (which came through as the ship’s computer voice) made us focus a little more in the right direction though and we soon had it sussed and made our escape.

This is a great room which reminded me a lot of Armageddon at GamEscape Liverpool (which has now sadly gone) in both it’s style and execution.

I imagine the booking system of having to arrange your booking by phone/text still remains a small barrier for some when it’s easier to book online at other venues, but Exit Strategy is well worth the extra effort for a visit.

Result: Escaped in 49 minutes

Escapism Chester – Legacy

Legacy
Escapism Chester

Venue: Escapism Chester

Room: Legacy

The Team: TDM, Mr Carrot

Date: 29/06/2018

After a pleasant day strolling around Chester’s walls stopping for several cups of tea here and there, we ended the day with a visit to one of our favourite Escape Room companies, Escapism Chester.

We’d previously played all of their rooms, but since our last visit back in October 2017 they’ve replaced Area 51 with Legacy.

The Story:
An old will has been uncovered from a distant relative. It explains that a vast number of jewels have been buried with them ready to be found by one of their heirs. However, it won’t be no easy task, there will be a few obstacles along the way and the crypt keeper patrols every hour.

Discover your legacy and claim what is rightfully yours!

On our last visit we’d noted just what a leap forward in quality and design their last room, The Missing, had been for Escapism Chester and we were keen to see if they’d maintained the standard.

For Legacy, from our briefing outside the room it seemed a bit of tomb robbing was in order, and once inside we found ourselves in a small graveyard facing our first goal of entering the tomb itself.

To achieve this there was a nice progression of separate but ‘connected’ paths which utilised a good variety of puzzles. These culminated in a final task which we thought we’d solved ok but then couldn’t get it to work…

It turns out we’d had the correct solution but encountered a minor tech fail. Our host, James, sorted it out quickly and without fuss though so it didn’t affect our experience at all.

Inside the tomb we found ourselves working towards what soon became a clearly defined goal. This was great as it meant we could keep a check on how far along we were, and more importantly how much we still had to do.

One puzzle caused us a small hiccup, as while I do like rooms that give a work out for some of our other senses, we had issues with this at one point. I don’t think it’s really a giveaway to say that we had to identify some smells for a puzzle, but one of the smells seemed to really overpower our noses. It wasn’t that it was stronger than any of the others, but once it flew up our nostrils we really couldn’t ‘unsmell’ it and it stopped us getting the rest as everything just smelled the same to us! Not sure if anyone else has ever had this problem, but we needed a big clue to carry on. 

The theming in the room was great, though a tiny criticism would be that it could maybe do with a little more ‘weathering’ as it all looked a little too new for a crypt. I know a bit of dirt (cosmetic of course) and maybe some spray on cobwebs aren’t everyone’s idea of fun, but in a scenario such I this I think it would really help to enhance the atmosphere.

Overall, Escapism Chester have come up with another corker, and while I think I’d still say The Missing is my favourite room of theirs, Legacy definitely comes in a close second.

Result: Discovered our legacy and claimed what was rightfully ours in 54 minutes.

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