Locked In – how to find your nearest Live Room Escape Game

Did you use to watch The Crystal Maze when you were younger?

I had a bit of a love hate relationship with it. One the one hand, I loved the games, and wanted more than anything to be able to play them myself. On the other hand, I found it incredibly frustrating – how could these permed idiots in their matching tracksuits not see the answer?? It was obvious! And yet all they’d do would be shout inane things like ‘Can you see the crystal?’ and ‘Keep going!’

As if other wise the contestant was just going to stop?!

Moments like this drove me a bit bonkers:

OBVIOUSLY I could do better, so a month or so ago I took my fiancé to the new Crystal Maze game that has opened recently in London, as a long awaited birthday treat. It could have been awful, but they had done it really well, and it was awesome. The thrill I got when I won my first crystal, after a few games in succession where my fellow team mates had been complete imbeciles, was AMAZING. It wasn’t quite as exciting of course when I did my second challenge, and didn’t quite finish in time, but I made a good effort at least. I didn’t stand around looking like an idiot, not knowing what to do.

We even got to go into the Crystal Dome and pick up the gold tickets as they were blown around us with fans. That bit was much harder than it ever looked on the television, and I’m very glad there is no televisual record of me looking like a loon, snatching randomly at the air.

Unfortunately for you, I think the Crystal Maze experience is pretty booked up, but if you love the idea of a challenge, how about one of those new ‘locked In’ escape room games? I’ve had a look at a few online already, as my sister wants to do one as part of her hen do this summer – what can I say, we are a family that loves a puzzle.

The idea behind the ‘locked in’ room games is that you and a bunch of friends, (hopefully ones you like), get locked in a room, (dur), and you have an hour to work through a series of puzzles to work your way out. I think it sounds ace, but then I did get very excited indeed on Sunday morning about completing the cryptic crossword in Country Life magazine all by myself while fiancé was still asleep.

Doing my hen party research though, I have found it a bit confusing, as there seem to be a lot of different live room escape game options, all on a similar theme, and I wasn’t really sure what the differences were, how to compare prices or where the best place to go might be.

And then I had a very timely email from a company called Safe.co.uk, telling me about the new interactive map they were putting together of places in the UK where you could play live room escape games! I kid ye not. Honestly, I couldn’t have planned it better if I had been making it up for a blog post, which I’m actually not.

The map looks like this:

live room escape games

Go and visit the page in the flesh though and you will find it’s interactive. Click on any of the pins and an information box will pop up giving you the exact location, website details and an idea of prices. Safe.co.uk plans on adding to the map, so if you’re thinking you might like to have a go at a live room escape game at some point, it’s worth bookmarking the page to come back to.

And just in case you were in any doubt that you can do better than your average Crystal Maze contestant, here’s a classic for you, where the woman in question gets flustered and starts demolishing the set.

“The radar Sarah!! The radar!!”

Have you played any live room escape games? Let me know how you got on!

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7 Comments

  1. 19 April, 2016 / 12:58 pm

    Ohhhhhh! This is perfect timing! I just did Time Run in east London and had the BEST time. Absolutely loved it. I’d love to do more and I know the kids would too as they get older. I didn’t know there were so many (although there aren’t enough, in my opinion). Totally going to try and check some more out.

  2. 19 April, 2016 / 8:35 pm

    Oh. My. Goodness.

    Loved the Crystal Maze. Can’t believe you can do a real life version – GENIUS!!

    Am now totally over-excited.

    • Jo Middleton
      Author
      21 April, 2016 / 10:32 am

      It was AMAZING Sally – they put it together so well, you really felt like you were on the TV show. I was very impressed with the quality.

  3. 20 April, 2016 / 11:15 pm

    Oh wow this sounds like so much fun – it’s a strange one for me, growing up in another country the whole Crystal maze sort of past me by but still I love puzzles and adventures and challenges and have seen re-runs of Crystal maze and would love to try it out for myself

    Laura x

  4. 22 April, 2016 / 2:08 pm

    Jo I’m literally too busy crying with laughter at that first Crystal Maze clip to write anything coherent right now. HA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA!!!

  5. 22 April, 2016 / 4:34 pm

    I LOVED the crystal maze and always shouted at the TV when they money catching bit came on at the end, thinking I could do it better! haha – this map sounds like a great idea, I must see if there’s anything similar in Northern Ireland. x

  6. 27 April, 2016 / 9:48 pm

    How cool does this sound! Such a brilliant idea for a hen party or birthday…will have to keep this in mind as my husband would love to do this x

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