Company:
Escapologic

Location:
21-23 Castle Gate, Nottingham NG1 7AQ

Synopsis:
A tragic loss. A happy family destroyed. A desperate man, irresistibly drawn to dark forces. As the door slams shut behind you, you’re trapped in the world of Eli Howitz, an enigmatic figure whose gut-wrenching story pervades every millimetre of the room. Just what happened in Eli’s toy shop? You’ve heard the rumours. You know the horror stories off by heart. But how much truth is there in the police report? Dare you uncover it? Enter Eli’s world, and discover the man behind the myth. But don’t tarry too long, or you could become just another plaything for the black magic that holds this room in its grip…

Date we visited:
15 October 2017

Price at time of visit:
£23pp

Goats attended:
Daiman, Jenny, Bharath

Did we escape?
No

Value for money

6/10For the price that you pay, you get a realistic set to play in and a nice & creepy story to accompany it. Just be warned that there’s a skill game in here that totally defeated us.

 Daiman

5/10This room has a low success rate and some may feel, like us, it’s not worth the money when you get stuck on a puzzle for over 30 mins without a way of solving it. I also found this room very dirty, not as part of the effect but like the room has never been cleaned.

Jenny

5/10The theme/story line I have not really done/seen before and is a bit different from normal escape rooms. Be ready for a scare/jump factor.

 Bharath

Theming

7/10Howitz very much feels like stepping into a long, long ago abandoned toy shop. It’s the right kinda of dirty and creepy.

 Daiman

6/10The synopsis of being trapped in a toy shop was the theme, it kept to this with the way the toys were scattered around and how some were used to solve the puzzles and give hints. Some cool ideas but as most of the game was in the dark it was hard to tell if the theming was consistent throughout.

Jenny

7/10I think the hosts did well on the theming on this one, you definitely got a feel that you were in a toy shop. It was a bit dirty but I guess that added to the theming.

 Bharath

Uniqueness

8/10A haunted toy shop is a pretty fresh theme and some of the things that happened throughout the game were ‘firsts’ for us. It’s also pretty unique in that it doesn’t really feel like you’re playing a game here, more that you are genuinely trying to get out of this dilapidated nightmare.

 Daiman

7/10The game had a few unique moments where we were split up, and they used the toys and games for the hints. There was an epic moment during the game which is why I scored this high but I don’t want to give away a spoiler. The other unique feature was the one puzzle which we found unsolvable.

Jenny

7/10There were a few unique elements in the room, especially one part where we got split up. I won’t say too much on that, apart from it involves a toilet (the games master does mention it to you before the game). What I liked was the jump scares throughout the experience.

 Bharath

Puzzles

3/10And this is where it all came crumbling down for us with two polarising skill games – one of which we were stuck on for at least fifteen minutes and never actually solved, our game ended on it. This particular game we felt was, as well as being difficult, too long and any sense of progress we made was deflated when we evaluated how much further we still needed to go. Elsewhere, some of the puzzles were also a bit obscure for our liking.

 Daiman

4/10The puzzles in this game were more on the skill side than the logic. Due to this we found it hard to solve them and in one particular game we knew we would be stuck here and not complete the room.

Jenny

4/10The first part involved a lot of searching which I’m not a big fan of. Darkness was used a lot in this room to make things harder. There was one skill game which we couldn’t get past, which I felt was a design fault.

 Bharath

The good

The room itself and some of the things that happened in it were brilliant. If you’re scared of creepy dolls and the like, this game will end you!

 Daiman

I liked the added horror moments to the room and the one epic moment.

Jenny

I enjoyed the theming and scare factor.

 Bharath

The bad

That one particular skill game was just too long and unwieldy for us. Not escaping didn’t put a downer on things so much as failing on this particular thing did.

 Daiman

I found this room really dirty which made it hard for me to look for things. I disliked all the dark parts of the game too. However the skill puzzle just ruined it for me as we knew even with 30 mins left that we would not be getting out.

Jenny

There were 2 things that I did not like, the amount of searching and a particular skill game where we spent at least a third of our time on.

 Bharath

Overall scores