On the 2nd of February completely last minute we decided to book an escape room. Pagan suggested Abducted, after a short browse of the information this room seemed perfect for us. It was dark, horror-based and most of all scary! All the things we live for. We set off and arrived around half an hour before for our game and located in quite an unassuming location just on the edge of a side street was The Great Escape Game (which we should remind is also multi-award-winning). This was our first time visiting and the ratings for the company were high so we were wondering would they meet our expectations. The answer to that is hell yes and even more so. On entering the building we were met by Lee, a gracious and welcoming host who took us through to the bar area which is beautiful by the way and got us all checked in which is done quickly and efficiently over a QR Code.
We had a little look at the paperwork and soon spotted one of our favourite sentences to see "You may be manhandled". With that, our excitement for the game just rose even more. We then met our absolutely brilliant star of a games master Tori who took us to our eagerly awaited doom. Now it's worth noting at this point we asked if we were going to be touched and she said maybe, I then replied with "Do whatever you like with us" and she said do you want Hardcore?. HELL YES and we implore you now, if you want the full immersive experience to ask for Hardcore!
We won't go into much detail however we will say prepare to be bound, head locked and possibly fully picked up on your entry into the game all with your sweet sight removed. However, in reality, it was so much more, Left pretty much helpless with the Doctor who at this point we had already met but due to disclosure we shall not mention names, Just to say he played the role with sinister glee and it was fantastic. Without giving spoilers at this time we shall say this, all the rooms within Abducted are themed beautifully, Well we say beautifully...they are pure horror brilliance with no attention to detail left uncovered. Now onto the detail.
Potential Spoilers Ahead - Read at your own Risk
Abducted uses three main rooms, The padded cell, the operating room and the security/observation room. The 1st being a mildly lit room with padded walls and a TV screen where we met the past victim of the Doctor, this scene is played brilliantly and really sets the tone of urgency for the room. After a little amount of searching we found the way into the 2nd room which is the Operating room, A dank and dark room lit only by our torches. The room is rusty and grim again perfectly in tone with the story, This area has the bulk of the puzzles which were mainly padlocks however somehow these just seemed to work and fit the theme so well, cue some well-timed jump scares to add to the mix. The final room was the observation room. Another lit room with a few more puzzles to solve, we must mention our only issue with the room here. There was 1 combination lock near a phone that would not budge, we actually had to get very forceful with it to get the lock to work which was a little stress-inducing but these things happen and believe me when I say it was the only minor fault of the game. It might not seem like much happens but that is because we are purposely trying to keep this review as spoiler-free as we can. There is a lot to do and a lot to happen on the journey. We finally backtracked to the 1st room for the final puzzle with just 5 minutes left on the clock, obviously, we didn't know this was the final puzzle, it's just lucky for us it was. One final item and found and with 2 minutes left on the clock we had just escaped Abducted, Left cheering and applauding one the best horror escape rooms we have ever done!
We want to give a huge congratulations to the entire team who run The Great Escape Game-Sheffield. They are all stars especially once again Lee for his warm and welcoming introduction and our superb games master Tori, Who was helpful but not to the point of handholding. The clues given were only really handed once we had pretty much worked out what we had to do, this approach was very appreciated. And one final word, Sorry Doctor that Dan looks heavier than he is.
We honestly can't praise this company enough and will be back very soon.
The Great Escape Game has locations in Sheffield and Leeds.
If you want to book go to this link https://thegreatescapegame.co.uk/
Until next time PSG Signing Out