No Escape — Local services in London

EDIT: following our experience, management got in touch and definitely put in effort to make this right; we played Gates of Hell (in Victoria) and that was a super fun experience, would highly recommend that room! The set is awesome and it's very immersive. The puzzles are cool as well. Still can't say I'm impressed with the GMing but this time at least our GM definitely paid attention to our game and knew where we were in our progress. Hints came a bit too fast and loose at the end (without us asking for them). It would also go a long way to learn the briefing by heart so there's no need to refer to the computer screen while delivering the briefing. Hence the update to 4 stars! Thank you for the game. :)

ORIGINAL: We visited No Escape today to play The Dentist. We were a team of two, but we both work in an escape room so we know our way around a lock or two. The room itself was good, the puzzles by and large made sense and flowed from one another, but unfortunately the customer service and GMing of our game left us a bit disappointed. The biggest issue was that the first thing we managed to open in the room was definitely not supposed to be open when it was. We were convinced we opened it in a 'legit' way, with a code that worked, only to be told at the end that that was not in fact the right code. When we suggested that maybe the item was open from before, the reply was 'I didn't reset the room', which is irrelevant - it doesn't matter who reset the room, the end result was that it changed the flow of the game for us. While we were playing the game, we obviously got very confused at one point when we reached the puzzle in question, and our GM hadn't followed along with our progress and kept giving us hints for things we already solved. A bit miffed as we wasted at least 6-7min in the room waiting for a reply from our GM and they didn't actually manage to get us on the right track. A shame, as the game itself isn't bad and the level of difficulty is quite challenging. Managed to get out with just over a minute in the end. Better customer service (and GMing) would have definitely salvaged...

The Dentist - Halloween special Oxford street.

Pleasantly greeted by Rowda on arrival. Had lots of laughs whilst we waited which was very warming. Very clear on instructions and explained well. The whole team were great fun, especially the dentist!

Difficulty is 5/5 and we escaped with 6 minutes on the clock. 5 of us played, 2 of my friends first time. We skipped a couple of steps from pure genius which got us out in time (we’re pros like that)

I have been in much more heavily designed rooms in the past, it didn’t completely feel like I was in a dentist but the props helped. You’re very limited in this aspect for a dentist room so they did well considering. (3/5)

Lots of reviews about directions. It’s a 1 minute walk from the tube into the convenient store and up the stairs, I looked at Google maps to make it straight forward on arrival prepare before hand otherwise you might run late.

Overall really fun experience, my mates loved it as their first time and can’t wait to do more rooms. Shame that Rowda and her team can’t be the hosts of every room 😂!

See...

Pros: Nice game master. Knew when to offer hints and backed off when we declined. We like Sweeney Todd, so the demon barber theme was neat. Props and puzzles were in mostly good condition for a popular escape room.

Cons: The location was weird. Don’t let that put you off, but the premises (and signage) could’ve been more inviting.

(No spoilers, but I’m gonna talk about the game now) The puzzles did not really flow. There were probably 2-3 that actually fit the theming of the room, the rest were just generic. The final puzzle made no sense and there was no clue in the room for it. The only way to solve it was guessing or asking for a hint (which we had to after almost 15 minutes on this one puzzle). I also lost track of the story. Then when we escaped, I’m not sure of what we actually accomplished. For a beginner room, I’d feel bad if someone had never done an escape room before this one. There are rooms with better flow, story, and connected puzzles. Would’ve been a 2 star, but the games master was really nice and I have a soft spot...