Locked In A Room - Timelock

Ever since I took on my first escape room I have absolutely loved doing them, working our way through the story of the room and solving the puzzles. So much so that I've decided to start reviewing them as part of the adventure section of my blog.

"You are respected scientists individually working on secret government funded projects in laboratories located in an abandoned warehouse in the Theater District of Milton Keynes. One of the scientists, Professor Samuel Pottenger, has just been dragged kicking and screaming along the corridor by unknown armed assailants. Pottenger is known to you as a very level headed man of immense intelligence and absolutely not one prone to an emotional outburst… Discover his secret."

This is the description for the easiest room by Locked In A Room, and the first in their story line which links all of their rooms. I joined the fun at their Milton Keynes location, though they have more in London, Bristol and Southampton.

At Milton Keynes they have 8 rooms in total, 4 of which are identical and where you can play Timelock as we did. Each room holds a maximum of 6 players and 

(something that I really like) when you book a room it is secured just for your team, even if you don't fill all 6 places. I won't say too much as spoilers would ruin the nature of the game but I did really enjoy this room. When you first arrive you are greeted as one big group before all 8 teams break off to play their separate rooms at the same time. You are asked not to make too much noise as the rooms are all next to each other but we couldn't hear anything from the rooms either side of us so they must be decently soundproofed.

We completed our room with 21 minutes of our hour remaining and although that may seem quick I feel that we did still get value for money as the puzzles were good and everyone got to do something, plus we did get stumped for a while with one of them! There was also a good range of puzzles so each person in our team got to use their strengths and the room definitely encouraged teamwork. Once finished we also got to take a fun team photo using their props and set in the welcome room.

One thing that is worth noting is that there is nowhere to wait if you are early, and you will only be admitted 10 minutes before your start time (which is also the amount of time that they advise you arrive early), so if it's cold weather like it was when I visited you may want to plan to eat of get a coffee nearby before your game to avoid waiting out in the cold. Overall though it was good fun and I'm looking forward to returning to play one of their other rooms.