Company:
Breakin’ Escape Rooms

Location:
89 Holloway Road, London, N7 8LT

Synopsis:
This room is based on The Fast and The Furious movie franchise. You have 1 hour to fix your car and escape the garage

Date we visited:
6 June 2017

Price at time of visit:
From £16pp off-peak and £25pp peak

Goats attended:
Daiman, Jenny, Paul, Bharath

Did we escape?
Yes – with 3 minutes to spare and using 3 clues

Value for money

4/10 All I can say is, much akin to Butcher’s Lair, this is a very drab, single room game. There’s no real sense of discovery and, for that reason, it offers an extremely basic experience.

 Daiman

4/10 At £27 pp for this room you’d expect a great experience. The room was bog standard, however there was a fun element to the room but not enough to score higher.

Jenny

6/10 At £27 each, it’s a little on the high side for a London based escape room, but it has a couple of memorable games which raises my score slightly.

Paul

5/10 It’s an OK, straight forward room, nothing too complicated. Don’t expect anything too spectacular.

 Bharath

Theming

6/10 White walls are my enduring memory. Did it feel like a garage? In a way, yes, but very much like a set of a garage rather than a genuine, lived-in locale. The artifice was immediately distracting. However, the puzzles and your reason for being in the room were the most on-theme of Breakin’s games, with one exception. If you can ignore the rudimentary aesthetics, you can picture yourself in this story as you work through all the tasks.

 Daiman

5/10 The theming again was quite basic, as it felt like we were just in someone’s garage with tools and a few engine parts lying around. They did however add a few games which kept with the theming of the game which helped score the room higher.

Jenny

7/10 The room is loosely based on the Fast and the Furious movie franchise and looks like a mechanics garage. The tasks tie in with the theme well. The room is a little sparse though.

Paul

5/10 They had garage like elements to the room. But it did feel like a white room, with things placed around the room rather than the whole place looking like a garage.

 Bharath

Uniqueness

5/10 Given the story, the tasks that you have to carry out are fairly fresh and it’s an escape room plot that we haven’t seen before. That said, it very much plays like a Breakin’ room.

 Daiman

5/10 The room was a typical standard room. Although there was one element to the game which I’d not seen before.

Jenny

7/10 The use of remote control cars was novel and fun. Also, you have to build a ‘working’ life-size engine which was cool.

Paul

5/10 Nothing too unique, quite a linear game, with no real surprises.

 Bharath

Puzzles

5/10 The usual Breakin’ suspects (pattern recognition, showpiece physical task) so nothing too exciting although, as mentioned, they’re very on-theme and make logical sense within the game’s narrative.

 Daiman

6/10 I’ve scored the puzzles high as I really liked this one game where I felt everyone could take part as a team. This would not be the case if you had more than 4 players. This game kept to the theme and was pretty fun. There was still the standard hunting elements to the game but they did seem to add a more logical approach to certain puzzles.

Jenny

7/10 The games involving the remote control cars and life-size engine were standouts for me. The remaining puzzles were varied and on theme.

Paul

6/10 Some of the puzzles were fun as it required team work. Whether they fitted a garage was debatable.

 Bharath

The good

The marriage of puzzles to theme is something that is lacking from most Breakin’ games and it does elevate the game slightly from the others.

 Daiman

I liked how there seemed to be a bit more team play and I also thought the puzzles were a little trickier than other Breakin’ rooms. The logic seemed to make more sense to the puzzles too.

Jenny

This is one of Breakin’s better rooms for me. There’s a couple of good puzzles and I liked the hidden area behind the shutters which kept me on tenterhooks wanting to find out what was behind it.

Paul

Some puzzles and tasks could not be done on their own as they required collaboration, which in my opinion is what escape rooms are all about.

 Bharath

The bad

Their physical games can be very take it or leave it, I just found it to be a bit of a time waster, with the novelty wearing off very quickly. And I’d like to see Breakin’ put more effort into decorating their sets and providing an immersive environment for their games.

 Daiman

There was one part in this game which I felt went against escape room law – this was where a certain puzzle needed a bit of brute force. We lost a bit of time on this one and in turn wasted a clue as we couldn’t get to the next part of the game without it.

Jenny

The room isn’t very large so you spend the whole hour in the same spot. One of the remote control cars had a dodgy wheel which made it hard to control. Our first booking got cancelled last minute after we had already traveled to the area due to a power cut, which was annoying. I don’t know if this was their fault or not, but they let us play again another time for free, which was nice.

Paul

I think they could have done more with the theming. They tried to sell it on the story, but they needed more of a unique factor.

 Bharath

Overall scores