Newcastle is home to quite a few escape rooms and on todays agenda was Volatile Laboratories at Exit Newcastle. The venue is really easy to find and whilst there is on street parking, it's a max one hour stay, we advise that people planning to go find a car park nearby, but it is really easy to walk to. We arrived and were greeted by our host and the general chit chat happened with the usual have you played before. He then said it was time for our room to begin and he showed us into the lab. He explained the room and then shut the door. The screen played and our game begun.
Warning: Potential spoilers ahead
Our group of four immediately split to explore the first part of the multi-room room. We quickly opened the first room and then the second. Within the first ten minutes we had done a wide range of different puzzles, from physical, to searching, to just plain mental ability. There's also a puzzle that I've never seen before but I really enjoyed it. I won't spoil the puzzle but it's silly fun and I felt like a member of border control.
The room was simple in its design but it worked really well for what the theme of the room is. The pace was also great as no one was just stood around. There's a lot of different puzzles so everyone will be kept busy. I did require a nudge as I had completely forgot that you can scroll through files on a computer, but other than that we didn't require any clues. The room is ideal for first time players or those with a low escape room count, but experienced players will also enjoy it because it's a pretty chilled room. but the big question is, did we escape and if so what time did we get out in?
Of course we escaped and it turned out that we smashed the room. Admittingly we skipped a puzzle because one of the group managed to work out a padlock, so we managed to escape in 36 minutes and 6 seconds which placed our team second on their monthly leader board. I just want to say a massive thank you to our host (whose name I didn't get, sorry) and to the whole team at Exit Newcastle for being so lovely and engaging with us.