Houdini's Escape Room Experience - Sheffield — Local services in Sheffield

I recently visited this escape room with a group of friends and unfortunately, while the concept and some of the puzzles were enjoyable, the overall experience left me quite disappointed.

Upon arrival, we had a very brief and vague briefing, the standard "don’t use excessive force" and not much else. What immediately stood out (and worried me) was the fact that the staff had to discuss among themselves who actually knew how to run our room.

The room theme was escaping from Alcatraz, but the story introduction felt quite unenthusiastic and lacked immersion. We began in a small room and, while there were some good puzzles, communication was lacking from the start. For example, we weren’t told how to ask for clues until halfway through, when someone popped in to tell us something then added, "Oh by the way, if you want a clue, just bang on the door” which perhaps should have been part of the initial briefing.

Throughout the game, we encountered several moments of confusion—not because of the puzzles themselves, but because we had no idea whether certain items were relevant or broken. We spent ages working on a few items only to be told they “might be useful later” so we thought ok we’ll save them for later and when we returned to them we were told that they were “red herrings” which is fine in small doses but became frustrating. Even more frustrating was learning at the end that several of those things in the room weren’t red herrings, they were just broken, which explained why they didn’t make sense.

To make matters worse, we learned that there were only 3 hosts running 4 games, meaning the person giving us clues hadn’t actually been watching our game. The games host was confused, unsure of what we had already done, and had to be caught up by us in the middle of the experience.

In the end, we did escape and had fun as a group, but the experience was let down by lack of preparation, broken game elements, and understaffing.

I do want to emphasize that the hosts themselves were friendly and doing their best—but they were clearly overstretched and unable to provide the quality of experience that escape rooms should offer.

As someone who has both worked as an escape room host and played many games, this felt more like a management issue than a staff one. If things are broken, they should be fixed. If the game can't be monitored properly, reduce the number of rooms or hire more staff. Otherwise, it puts customers through a frustrating experience that could easily be avoided.

I do think this could have been a great escape room if it weren’t for those things. We did pay a discounted price as it was a weekday evening so that was good but I’m quite disappointed that this was my friend’s first escape room experience and so I probably wouldn’t...

My friends and I recently went to the Creepy Carnival escape room in Sheffield and unfortunately, had a very negative experience.

One of my friends was hesitant to do the escape room due to the use of live actors in the experience, but was reassured by the host that the initial entry room will not be entered by live actors and will essentially be “live actor free” After this reassurance, my friend agreed to go ahead with the escape room.

However, about 45 minutes into the experience, a live actor came into the entry room where my friend was, which caused her to cry and ultimately led to a panic attack later on after we’d left the room. I repeatedly told the actor to stop and that my friend was upset, but the actor continued to approach my very upset friend. We then repeatedly pressed the emergency escape button, but the experience carried on, with actors banging on the door and further causing distress to my friend. We were then let out a couple of minutes later.

Afterwards, we went to complain but were told this was “part of the game” I don’t believe continuing the experience after being told repeatedly to stop is part of the game, nor stipulated in the waiver.

I hope this feedback is taken on board and that this does not happen in the future - my friend now has to recover from a panic attack that was further worsened by the delayed response of staff and actors at Houdini...

Fantastic experience, enthusiastic, knowledgeable, passionate, welcoming and friendly team of people running this venue in the centre of Sheffield. Having never been to the venue before or ever visited an escape room, we didn't know what to expect but hoped it would be challenging, exciting and fun for a multi generational party booking. What we experienced far exceeded any preconceived ideas we may have had. A great slick operation where you are made to feel like the only people there despite it being very full in the other rooms. Google and Trip Advisor reviews were instrumental in helping us make our decision on which of the dozens of Escape room venues we'd entrust our investment of half term activity money. I urge you to read and take note of the phenomenal number of 5 star reviews available and make a decision as we did, based on these comments and details. The Half Term deal was a great touch and now having tried one out, I am sure we'll be making a return visit to try a different experience very soon. Don't shop the rest. Book the Best; Houdini's...