If you loved Crystal Maze there’s now the next best thing on your doorstep waiting to be discovered.
Last June, Calum Ross Jones decided to put his entrepreneurial skills to the test and establish Escape Rooms Cardiff. After several difficult months of hard work, including set backs due to location issues, this vision is now a reality and looks set for success. Finally settling in St Mary Street, this is a prime spot for this quirky new game. Set on two floors, with three games to choose from, teams of up to five players have sixty minutes to escape from a locked room by solving puzzles and working out codes.
Launched on 29th January this looks set to be the new craze in Cardiff. Appealing to friends, families and even team-building for work, this form of entertainment has something to offer for everyone. Prices range from £17-£25 depending on the number of people in a team.
There are three rooms with varying levels of difficulty: The Tomb (difficulty rating 4), Finding Sherlock (difficulty rating 3) and The Heist (difficulty rating 4).
Cleverly designed, the rooms present several challenges and nothing should be overlooked or taken at face value. The Tomb has sand on the floor and hieroglyphic symbols on the wall; it’s dimly lit and requires a torch, which gives an added challenge when you’re not sure if there really is going to be a mummy inside when you find all the keys and open the padlocks on the tomb. With a variety of games including wooden jigsaws, a kind of pinball maze and symbol matching puzzles this room has a lot to offer.
Finding Sherlock is surprisingly minimalist, although clearly this means that everything in the room is significant, which makes it an incredibly mentally taxing game, as one would expect from something dedicated to the super sleuth. With books, maps, wooden chests, combination locks and tiny shrunken heads hung on the walls, this room presents a challenge where teams will have to be very detailed in their approach and really think inside as well as outside the box. Not everything is simply elementary.
The Heist is perhaps the most complicated as teams really have to work together to steal a huge jewel from a museum. The main room is divided into three, with an office area on the left, a main gallery with art and sculptures in the centre, and on the right is a dimly lit room split several times by green laser beams which one must negotiate to get to the prize on the other side. Dividing into smaller groups, players help each other across the main part of the ‘art gallery’ from both of the other rooms and really work together in order to beat the clock.
There were plans to rotate the rooms regularly but cost and practicality will prevent this, although the current rooms they have will no doubt keep people busy for a while. There are plans, however, to introduce a virtual reality room eventually to ensure they are offering players the most up-to-date escape experiences.
So if you fancy a challenge, then why not crack out your leopard print leggings a la Richard O’Brien and flex your mental muscles in a bid to escape.
Address: 1st & 2nd Floor, 119 St Mary St, Cardiff CF10 1DY
Phone:029 2167 9700
words LUCY MENON