Skip to main content

Review: Contraption - Escapologic, Nottingham

Room Story - from Escapologic

Strange machinery breathes in the stillness of the laboratory. Bubbles rise in a mysterious green liquid. Cogs tick. Gears clank. And in the air, the unmistakeable sound of fear...

show more.... As your breathing stills, and your pulse slows to normal, you take a look around. What happened here? It looks like the previous occupant of the room has left in a hurry. But why? Your eyes grow used to the dusty light, and you begin to make out the discarded pieces of arcane mechanisms. There has to be a pattern, a code, something to show you the way out.

Contraption was the first of our Nottingham escape rooms, and its fiendish ingenuity has given it legendary status! Can you put the clues together before the clock hits zero?

You'll need a combination of wits, nerve and inspiration to beat the machine and find your way out. With false steps and wrong turns waiting to confound you, the only way to outwit Contraption is to work together. Use your team's skills to solve physical and mental puzzles, crack cryptic codes, and unravel the secret escape route left behind by the mysterious inventor.

Will you solve the riddle of this fiendishly-designed Nottingham escape room? Or will the last sound you hear be the cogs of the lock, as they turn and seal you in forever?

Join the intrepid souls who have tried to defeat Contraption. Many have attempted the challenge. But this room is smart. Some might even say... it's alive...

...show less

Contraption Logo

Key Stats

Room NameContraption
VenueEscapologic
LocationNottingham, UK
Date05/11/2016
Escape Time58:20
Team Size3
My Recommended Team Size3 - 4

Review

This was my first escape room, following a recommendation from my wife who did an escape room on a work team away day. I didn’t know what to expect, but the idea sounded really fun. Little did I know that I’d grow to love escape rooms so much that one day I’d be writing a blog on them. So I find myself sat writing this review over a year after visiting the room. I’ve completed all rooms at Escapologic, but I’m going to try and write this from my perspective at the time.

Escapologic is set in the basement of a building on a quiet street behind one of the main shopping streets in Nottingham. There’s quite a creepy and exciting atmosphere as you come down the stairs into the waiting area. Looking through to the entrances of the rooms, you can see the walls scrolled in felt tip graffiti from previous guests expressing sorrow/elation depending on how their experience went!

The host took us to the entrance of the room, building the tension and excitement as they introduced us to the room and the storyline. You can tell that the staff at Escapologic really love their job and have genuine enthusiasm.

When we entered the room, with two of us being new to escape rooms and one of us only done one before, we had a bit of a slow start. We spent a great deal of time searching for some objects it was clear we needed to find. When you find all the required objects, it sets in motion a chain of puzzles/reveals that carry on at an extremely fast pace from the beginning until the end of the room.

In the centre of the room, there was one particularly large and interesting puzzle that fit extremely well with the laboratory/cogs/wheels theme of the room. We didn’t immediately know what to do with this, but it became apparent as we progressed through the game.

We progressed through the room, quickly solving many puzzles, however there was one puzzle towards the end of the game that particularly stumped me. It was a puzzle with a number of elements that you had to get exactly right. As I stared at it blankly, my two team mates clearly had a few more ideas and took over to my relief. It was this puzzle that caused us to get our first clue.

The clue system is woven really cleverly into the theme of the room. There’s no direct interaction with the host, the clues are made to feel a part of the room. I won’t spoil it.

We escaped the room in just over 58 minutes, so we really did cut it fine. We loved the room and headed home replaying the fast paced flow of puzzles, vowing to return again soon and (hopefully) complete more rooms.

The team were Daniel, Becky and Bethany.


Ratings

Overall My first escape room – a well themed room with lots of flowing puzzles.
Difficulty A very logical flow of puzzles, however, due to the linear nature of the room if you get stuck on one, it could stop you from finishing.
Fun We really enjoyed it. There’s ls of variety to keep you entertained for the full hour.
Puzzles The puzzles flow well with a combination of finding things, unlocking things and matching patterns.
Immersion You really do feel like you’re in a strange laboratory. The clue system is woven into the room in a very clever way.
Surprises There’s a good surprise at the end of the game that confused and amused us.