Lakes Escapes Workington – Dr Frankenscraft’s Monster
Venue: Lakes Escapes Workington
The Team: TDM, Mr Carrot
Date: 24/12/2017
We’d decided a couple of months previous to get some Escape Rooms in over the festive period, and a quick bit of research uncovered that Lakes Escapes up in Workington had created a special Christmas themed room for over the holiday season. We didn’t need much more convincing than that, so we got all three rooms they had booked for Christmas Eve, along with the local Travelodge.
First up was Dr. Frankenscraft’s Monster, which gets a
The Story:
In a European village, a young scientist, Dr Ivan Frankenscraft and his Lab assistants, are piecing together a human body, the parts of which have been collected from various sources. Frankenscraft desires to create human life through experimentation and electricity which he has perfected.
His fiancée Elsa, is worried over his peculiar actions. Determined to rescue Frankenscraft from his own devices Elsa insists he is to holiday in Florence to arrange their wedding. While they are away she has set a task for her old friend Dr Winston, who was Frankenscrafts old professor, to find and destroy the Monster that is driving Frankenscrafts career into disrepute.
Frankenscraft is concerned with Elsa’s motives with regard to leaving their home town and has insisted that work must continue on his creation. As his lab assistants you are to decipher the clues left for you and bring the Monster to life. A word of warning you must work quick as Dr Winston will be arriving in the next hour with a group of angry villagers to destroy anyone and everything in his way. Your only hope is to bring the Monster to life so he can protect you from the lynch mob.
Lakes Escapes is situated a short distance from the town centre on a retail/industrial park, which was great as it meant there was plenty of free onsite parking right outside.
We were soon met by John, the owner, who was very friendly and extremely enthusiastic about both his own rooms and Escape Rooms in general. He gave us a bit of background and told us that he’d designed and built Dr Frankenscraft’s Monster from scratch, and he certainly deserves to be very proud of what he’s created as it was heaps of fun.
Once in the room, we found it was dominated by a rather large and impressive piece in the centre. I won’t give away what it is, but from the story and theme of the room I don’t think anyone will have too much trouble working it out! The rest of the theming was also well suited to a mad doctor’s laboratory with dark surfaces and various scientific looking equipment.
Puzzle wise there were a few easy entry types to get you started, along with a few things where we could see what we needed to do, but just had to complete a couple of other tasks or find a few more objects first.
What made the puzzles in this room though, and one of the main reasons we enjoyed it so much was the tactile element. It’s so much more satisfying to physically plug things in, connect things, or move things to make ‘something cool’ happen than it is to simply open a padlock. Not that we mind padlocks, we like them too, but you can really not only see, but also feel the planning and attention to detail that’s gone into a room like this.
We’re actually so unused to having to do tasks like this, that there was one point where we were hesitant to do something for fear of causing damage. Our trains of thought were obviously overheard though, as we got a message through on the clue screen saying ‘DO IT!’… so we did, and it was great!
We did need a few clues along the way as usual, but we managed to finish with just minutes to spare with an excellent and very satisfying finale.
Loved it.
