If there has ever been an escape experience where one is more inclined to stay inside than break out, London’s new Escape Arcade is the one.
I’ve been to my fair share of escape rooms across the world, and I’ve yet to experience one like this.
Enigma Quests has just opened its Escape Arcade in Holborn, the first of its kind in London, and we went down to take a look.
It was fast-paced, immersive, and highly promising despite a couple of teething problems.
They boast 30 challenge rooms where you play a game for five minutes, a little reminiscent of the objectives behind The Crystal Maze.
The aim of the game is to collect as many points as you can as a team in 60 minutes to make it onto the leaderboard.
Immediately as you walk in, you’re greeted by reception and invited to sign a safety waiver on an iPad.
There, you also fill out your team name and player information, which they use to register your group’s entry.
Group sizes are up to four – your party will unfortunately need to split into different groups if too large – but it does make a lot of sense based on the smaller size and mechanics of each room.
The team captain then collects an electronic wristband, which is the key to unlocking each challenge room within a labyrinth-like laboratory.
Each had a vague description displayed next to the door, however, there was no way to be certain of what you’d be faced with.
That made for some pleasant surprises, and some challenges where we just endured the five minutes and tried to score a reasonable number of points.
There was a good range of rooms from physical to mental that would accommodate a lot of people going into the experience, and it simply didn’t suit us.
It seemed to have a couple of minor issues. For example, sometimes the instructions – which were written on the walls inside each room – weren’t always the clearest.
A timer that counted down after your entry prompted us to jump in and figure it out as we went instead of thinking about the instructions for long.
Some games also felt drawn out and low scoring which felt a bit frustrating especially as you are unable to start another game until the five-minute countdown is over, even if you leave the room.
There were many highlights though, as we particularly enjoyed a film identification room that was modelled after a movie rental shop, and a room of switches which you had to dart around and turn off.
It was also a mostly seamless interaction with the wristband and unlocking rooms. We had a hint of trouble when we tried to replay a room, but it just needed a minute to reregister.
At the end of the hour, your score gets put up on a daily and all-time leaderboard at the venue.
It also gets sent to your email, which was nice to keep at the end of the experience and to compare with new scores should we want to go back.
And go back I would, with our group only finishing 10 of its 30 rooms.
Even though some rooms were rather frustrating, there were also many intriguing ones we didn’t get to try as groups were inside whenever we walked past – promising due to Escape Arcade’s apparent popularity.
It also felt like a fun option to either have your team-mates work together or compete against each other within a larger group.
The Escape Arcade is open seven days a week in Holborn and tickets are £25.
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