On a bright Saturday morning, I set off to do something new – three escape rooms in a day!
I’ve done two in a day before, which had sadly turned out to be a bit of a let-down because the rooms were not particularly good. But we headed over to Birmingham with high hopes and three of the best rooms in the city booked.
I had already done the number one rated room, The Legend of Miyalock, but was excited to come back to Clue HQ to try out two more of their rooms, before visiting Exciting Game for their horror room, Fun House.
Clue HQ
There was some building work going on at the venue, so we had to go in through a side door. But no worries – Clue HQ gave the same warm welcome I remembered from last time. Our game host was Emma, and she was full of energy and enthusiasm, talking us through the rules and regs for the room, then giving us the dramatic intro.
As we were waiting to start, we watched the leaderboard on the screens. Would we make it up there?
The Hellevator
As reality shows dominate your televisions, Clue HQ decided to team up with Clue Tube to bring you the latest Escape Room, but with a twist. Face trials concocted by the genius minds of Professor Errol Tepet and Dr. Psik as you compete for the prize of your life! Can your team reach Floor 13 before time runs out? Come on down and see for yourself! You could be the next reality television star. That is, if you can make it out in one piece. Sign up now to take part in the pilot episode of The Hellevator!
~ The Hellevator, Clue HQ Birmingham
Theming
The Hellevator is definitely a unique room. The setting is an elevator, and let’s just say it’s very realistic!
At the start of the room, there is a video intro which set the tone for the room. Despite the name it’s not a horror room, although there are a few aspects that people may find unsettling. It is smaller than your usual escape room, but they pack an awful lot in and get very creative with their use of space.
Unfortunately, our experience doing this room was plagued by technical issues. The screen in the room wasn’t working, and Emma had to come in more than once to try to get it turned on. She did pause the clock while resolving this issue, and if that had been the only thing we would probably have been able to overlook it. However, unfortunately while resolving this she missed that we’d completed a stage of the puzzle that required a GM trigger, which meant that we lost more time trying to work out why the answer we’d input was wrong. And finally, at one point a panel that was supposed to open got jammed, and she had to tell us via the clue screen what we would have found inside.
Still, there were lots of fun and creative elements around the room, and the theme is worth experiencing.
Puzzles
The room relies heavily on locks, but features an interesting variety of puzzles demanding manual dexterity, teamwork, maths, and being willing to put your hands in creepy places.
The room was tricky to get started with at first, but once you got going it became more straightforward. Signposting within the room was generally fine – you worked around the room in a fairly logical way, so even though there were so many locks it was generally pretty obvious where to put your next four-digit code.
Some of the lockboxes were guarded by multiple locks, so you needed to solve more than one puzzle to get in. In some ways this made the room more branching, but it also meant you didn’t get the same rush of endorphins as you get from opening a lock and seeing what you’ve unearthed. However, there were also lots of fun dials and buttons to push and twist, which were very satisfying.
Finally, the room sadly featured one of the worst puzzles I’ve seen in an escape room – no brainpower required to crack it, just plugging away at a difficult coordination test. We did finally manage to beat it, but not without a certain amount of frustration.
Summary
A room worth visiting for the theme, but with a few very frustrating moments – and some significant technical issues. If you’re only doing one room here, I’d recommend Legend of Miyalock or Captain Riddle’s Forgotten Fortune (review to follow shortly).
Theme: 3.5/5 | Puzzles: 2.5/5 | Difficulty: 3/5
Clue system: in-room screen
Success: yes, 22:38 remaining
