Tick Tock Unlock - Leeds Live Escape Rooms — Attraction in Leeds

Myself and my partner have done about 30 escape rooms, and while the escape room itself was a pretty good and a unique concept, the execution didn't feel the best for me personally. First of all, note to anyone going, they do not have toilets! They apparently put this on the email, but as I went in a group of 9 people, I was not aware of this, so had to disappear to a nearby pub to go to the toilet before starting. Also I found it a bit strange that they didn't tell us this upon entering, and I actually had to ask ... Kind of feel like most would assume there were toilets and I do think this should be communicated on entering just in case. The place and people gave me creepy vibes, not sure how to explain it. They stayed in character the whole time, but it made me feel pretty uncomfortable .... A couple of the party felt this way as well, but obviously aren't going to hold that against the place. The hosts also didn't do the normal health and safety briefing or go through different types of locks which you will find, as you usually would in escape rooms, I would have preferred something like this out of character before starting the in character stuff. The rooms were okay, but I was kind of disappointed to be honest because I was so looking forward to it, but the 'books' were all independent and felt quite disjointed. I really didn't want to sound too critical in my review but I feel it might have come across this way. Based on other reviews it is obvious that most people absolutely loved their experience but unfortunately this one wasn't...

This was terrible. It used to be amazing but we did the one with the vaults was awful. It had no challenges to speak of, it was rushed and had no plan or cohesion. We had no idea what was happening and we were heavily guided through every puzzle. I say puzzle loosely.

Ticktockunlock used to be great, this was rubbish and I don’t recommend.

It ended walking through a bin store and a car park. Lovely.

(Update after the owners responded) I stand by my review that it was disappointing. I accept this was not a traditional escape room but the experience was still poor. The theatre elements were OK but the ‘puzzles’ were far too complex and had no real link to any of the experience and we were all confused as to what to do. This meant the actor involved had to basically give hints so much as to tell us the answer. For example one lock wouldn’t open and he struggled to open it himself - thereby defeating the point. None of the puzzles were linked with each other and it felt like we did an arbitrary puzzle and then were told ‘put it all back’ before being whisked to another room without knowing why. It was so rushed at the end we didn’t even solve some of them before being told ‘get your stuff and get out’. It was so abrupt and took us out of any immersion before the lovely ejection through the car park.

Lastly - it was meant to be max 8 people but there were 9...

Unfortunately this has gone downhill since they did proper escape rooms, their new concept just doesn't work well. Firstly it was pretty cheesy and cringe worthy, it feels like it's aimed purely at young children, either that or they need to tailor communication with their audience much better. Secondly, it felt poor quality, one part didn't work as it should and they had to stand there testing it, sort of spoils the fun a bit. Thirdly, there is no sense of achievement. You're not told a time limit, you don't get told at the end what you've achieved / any leaderboard placing or indication of how successful you were, how many were left, how close you were, nor how it affected "the story". This takes away the excitement that an escape room provides. Finally, after we booked, we got a marketing email, where they copied in all of their client list. We hadn't agreed to marketing communication and everyone on their distribution could see other customer's personal information (email addresses) which they did not do much about other than recall the email once it was pointed out. They have the space to have several room escapes in there but use it all for one thing which you wouldn't really repeat so they can't really get returning customers, so can't see it lasting very long if they don't go back to escape...