NOTE: Trapped In has now closed, but Clue HQ has since opened in its place with a reworked version of this game titled “Clueston – We Have A Problem”.
It was my birthday yesterday, so with a day off work, we headed off to play two games. The first we played was the actual worst we’ve ever done out of nearly 120 – I’m not going to review it just yet for certain reasons, but look out for the review of it next week at some point.
The second game we played saw us head to Trapped In for their latest game Interstellar, and it definitely made up for a poor start to the day…
“You and your fellow crew mates find yourself aboard a spaceship. That’s the good news, the bad news is the engines are dead and you’re drifting towards a black hole. According to the on board computers you have just 1 hour to restore power or you’re all doomed. Setting a new level in escape game immersion, this room does not have a single padlock. From the moment you step on board Interstellar you’ll be immersed in the environment, loosing all links to planet earth until you can successfully restore power to your vessel. 60 minutes may sound like a long time, but it goes very quickly when danger is imminent. This is a 5* room, with lots to do within the hour. Be warned, there’s no time to rest in this game. Bring your crew mates, you’re going to need as many helping hands as you can find.”
WOW. The theming at Trapped In has certainly taken a massive step up from previous games. The Interstellar spaceship looks fantastic – a well designed, fun, immersive set to play in. It’s also very overwhelming, as there’s so many buttons, levers, puzzles, dials, and more scattered around the control room.
The game play definitely matched the theming in being top quality. The mix of puzzles were perfect – logic, observation and skill are all needed. A lot of the puzzles are very unique, and one in particular requires a LOT of precision and patience. We spent ten minutes attempting this bit and still didn’t get it, with our host having to skip us onto the next bit of the game. It’s always a nice touch that particularly tricky skill based challenges can have a workaround, otherwise they can be a game ender, as we’ve experienced in the past! There’s a LOT to do in this room, and it all comes to a head with an intense, panic stricken finale.
Overall, this is a fantastic game. We thoroughly enjoyed playing Interstellar, and as much as we’ve had fun at Trapped In’s other games over the past couple of years, this one is absolutely lightyears ahead (pun intended). Enthusiasts, take 3-4 players, newbies 4-5.
Host: Our host was owner Adam – it was great to see him again and have a chat with him about all things escape. During the game, he gave us helpful clues at all the right moments.
Clue System: Clues are delivered via a screen, but you have to press a button to accept them, meaning you can ignore them if you feel you don’t need them. The button also sends a clue request. We like this system, and although we requested clues a few times, a good number of others came through when it looked like we were stuck!
Success? Unfortunately not. There was so much to do in this room, and although we were allowed to finish, our final time saw us go six and a half minutes over. Fairly beaten!
Website: trappedin.co.uk
Lock Us Up 
A brilliant room. A massive leap in theming from their other rooms, and even they weren’t bad. So much to see and do and definitely a mad panic rush around at the end. So much fun! All puzzles lead to one major central puzzle. All very cleverly done and a delight to look at at the end when all items are in place. Great mix of puzzles….and….no padlocks! The puzzle midway through that requires patience and precision is hard work with just 2 people. We almost, almost nailed it when we were then given a pass that we were thankful for. We were quite exhausted playing this room but I didn’t want to leave it, just stayed and looked around at everything for ages after.
A brilliantly themed room up there with Operation Odyssey’s spaceship at Can You Escape Edinburgh and Time Run’s spaceship in Lance of Longinus (enthusiasts will know these great rooms!) with great puzzles (quite Crystal Mazey!) makes this a must play. It could just scrape into my top 10 rooms (there’s major competition and I’m still adjusting it!), if not then it gets a very notable mention!
Play it!
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