“Where we’re going, we don’t need roads!”
Isn’t Back To The Future one of the BEST movies ever? I’ve been a huge fan ever since I first saw it during uni. Not only does it feature time travel (always a winner), I love movies that reward viewers who pay close attention, and which riff off themselves. The BTTF triology does this in spades.
So when I saw on Facebook that there was a game called Outatime (a nod to the famous DeLorean’s number plate), I knew I HAD to go. I only had a few short weeks left in Leeds when I made the call, and this room ended up being my last before I moved south. And it was a great call.
Escapable
I hadn’t visited Escapable before. They’re located a short hop down the M1 from Leeds, in Ossett. It’s a lot easier to reach certain escape rooms now we have a car! (Note: since completing this room, they have now moved to a new location in Wakefield.)
The waiting area was dominated by a huge wall of signatures – everyone who has successfully escape an Escapable room is given the opportunity to sign their name. We even spotted a Becky and a TC on the wall right next to each other – maybe we had already been here, in spirit!
Their other rooms are also movie-aligned: Titanic (obvious link) and Avast (pirate movie of your choosing), and two more in development. In fact, they will shortly be moving to a new setting, where the waiting area will be reminiscent of a cinema. I think movies are a great hook for escape rooms – provided they’re done well, of course!
On to the game! Our game master for the day, Drai, led us through the mysterious door to a corridor. This room, it appears, was to start before we even made it inside…
Outatime
Can you head back into the past and solve the puzzles left for you by the Professor to re-jig the thingamy whats-it and save human kind as we know it?!? You will be transported back though the decades, you will need to work with your team to overcome several obstacles that are currently blocking your only path home! This room is ideal for a group of 4 people, although a family of 5 would be ok.
~ Escapable
Theming
It is hard to review this room without giving at least something away. There will be some very minor spoilers (nothing past the first 5 minutes of the room) but if you’re in doubt, just hop over to Wakefield and do the room rather than keep reading.
For the very opening of the room, you’re in a corridor and told it’s Doc Brown’s office. I won’t lie, I wish they had an actual space for this, rather than just being in the corridor.
But you’re not out there for long, and once you make it inside the room itself… BAM, you’ve travelled in time, back to some 50s kitchen. The attention to detail in this room is pretty good, though small aspects like the modern cereal packets do slightly break the immersion.
However, this is not the end of your time travel adventure. I won’t go into any more detail, but you’re definitely in for a journey – and not via the route you might expect. And as for the finale? It is so incredibly thrilling as a BTTF fan…
I also want to give a big shoutout to whoever put the sound track together for the room. I had The Power of Love in my head for days afterwards!
Puzzles
This room was very fast paced – there were a LOT of puzzles, and overall they weren’t too difficult to solve. We got stumped once or twice, but generally managed to move pretty quickly through them. It was also a branching room, rather than a linear one, so a larger group than two may well have worked, though the set itself is quite physically small, so it could have ended up cramped with too many.
The signposting from one puzzle to the next, or from a clue to an input, is some of the best that I’ve seen in an escape room. There were one or two places where we got confused, particularly in the first room where there were a few different locks that needed a four digit code, but overall it was straightforward to follow the path laid out for you.
There were all the locks you see in most escape rooms – number locks, letter locks, directional locks – but also a few more unique interfaces. One challenge in particular, we made a lot harder for ourselves. Let’s just say we got a little “off-track”… but rather than let the GM come in with a long stick to get us back “on track”, we powered through and managed to turn a corner, so to speak…
One more small niggle I had with the room – Drai was clearly very keen for us to see the whole room! This meant he gave us clues a little quicker than we expected. Not a big deal, but possibly worth saying that you’d rather wait to ask for a clue, if you’re competitive about this sort of thing.
Summary
A must-visit for any Back To The Future fan. Not the hardest room that I’ve done in terms of complexity, but the sheer number of puzzles keep you busy. And the soundtrack and finale are some of the best I’ve seen at an escape room.
Theme: 4/5 | Puzzles: 3/5 | Difficulty: 2.5/5
Clue system: ask verbally, receive via a walkie-talkie
Success: yes, 15:09 remaining (and we got our name on the wall)
