Company:
The Panic Room – Harlow

Location:
Inside Quasar Harlow, Broadwalk, 1-5 Harvey Centre Approach, Harlow, CM20 1HF

Synopsis:
The Witch House is a tense supernatural thriller filled with intriguing puzzles, surprises and a compelling narrative. Our next mystery begins with a student who rents a room inside an old house with a long and dark history. His dreams are haunted by those of a witch from the town’s legend. During the witch trials of 1692 she disappeared never to be seen again. It’s 11pm and your team has been sent to help the poor student uncover the mystery that lies within the room. What happened to the witch? Can you break the curse before the clock strikes midnight?

Date we visited:
14 April 2018

Price at time of visit:
£17.50 per person for a group of 4

Goats attended:
Daiman, Jenny, Paul, Bharath

Did we escape?
Not officially – they told us the answer to the last puzzle which allowed us to get out nearly 2 minutes over the time limit

Value for money

7/10Whilst I can’t deny that the room was extremely basic, £17.50 is a reasonable price for what you get. It’s a reasonable though unimpressive experience, the kind of game that I definitely don’t regret playing but also didn’t leave feeling buzzed about it.

 Daiman

6/10At £17.50, this room is on the cheaper side. The room is fun and enjoyable but as this room is quite old it seems to be behind the times compared to other games I’ve played.

Jenny

6/10£17.50 per person is a very reasonable price. The room itself is very average though which lowers my score here.

Paul

5/10The price is at the lower end of the scale for escape rooms. It is a “middle of the road” room. I wouldn’t rush out to try this room.

 Bharath

Theming

5/10This to me was a big let down with The Witch House, the set design was perfectly adequate and the space absolutely felt of the period but it had zero atmosphere. There was a soundtrack playing throughout our time in there but it didn’t imbue the game with any sense of dread. This is where it completely failed for me, it just didn’t feel anywhere near as creepy as it should’ve.

 Daiman

5/10The theming of the room was hinted here and there to be linked to the witch, however, the room was basically another bedroom with the odd ‘demonic’ type ornament.

Jenny

5/10The theming of the room was OK, but it was helped by the low lighting. However it was meant to be an unsettling environment but unlike other rooms we’ve played with a similar theme, it didn’t feel disconcerting at all.

Paul

5/10To me, this room felt more on the basic side with no ‘wow’ factor. I was hoping for more of a scare factor, but it didn’t deliver on that front. They tried to make it creepy with music and lights, but it just hampered vision more than anything else.

 Bharath

Uniqueness

5/10The game itself was pretty stock. What I did appreciate about The Witch House was that it seemed to really push its story. The puzzles were there to set up this tale of a man slowly losing his connection with reality having spent too long in the titular house.

 Daiman

4/10As the room was just another bedroom there was nothing unique to me about this game. The set design and story were similar to other games I’ve played. I did, however, like how we asked for clues.

Jenny

4/10There isn’t anything too unique here. It’s a pretty bog standard type of room.

Paul

5/10There was nothing special or unique about this room, that experienced escape room goers haven’t really seen before.

 Bharath

Puzzles

5/10For me, the puzzles themselves were fine but the flow was massively flawed. There were a number of times where the next step wasn’t immediately obvious, the most egregious of which was a puzzle that seemed needlessly convoluted in its design which obscured what we were supposed to do with it. It came across as being constructed in a way that artificially increased its difficulty.

 Daiman

5/10Whilst the puzzles were the average padlock, some of them linked to the theme well. There were a lot to be opened so we were kept occupied for the majority of the time. However, I felt some of the games required outside knowledge and would not be possible without the aid of a clue.

Jenny

5/10Some were pretty decent but there were a couple that I don’t feel quite worked. One in particular wasn’t clear what you needed to do with it. The host told us the answer when we only had 1 minute left to help us escape. When given the answer the clues made sense but I don’t think we would have ever worked it out ourselves. There were also a few too many keys and padlocks.

Paul

5/10I would consider this a padlock heavy room with a lot of searching. The puzzles were in line with the theming and were reasonably logical, however, there was one puzzle that felt out of place and in my opinion required outside knowledge.

 Bharath

The good

I liked what The Panic Room were going for with this one, they just needed to have the courage of their convictions and better matched the game to the mood of the story.

 Daiman

Whilst this game is coming to its end it was still fun to play. The host Mitch was friendly.

Jenny

The host was passionate and friendly. There were no real highlights of this room though so I can’t add much else here. It wasn’t bad, just mediocre.

Paul

There’s enough to do in this room to keep a team occupied.

 Bharath

The bad

Needed more witches!

 Daiman

The amount of padlocks were too high for me.

Jenny

The iffy puzzles that I mentioned earlier. Plus the host lied and said we got out with exactly 1 second to spare when I could see on his screen that this wasn’t the case. I know they want you to leave feeling like winners but I’d rather they be honest so that when I do escape a room, I know I did it because of my skill and not because they bent the rules.

Paul

The games master did our briefing inside the room, I think it should have been done outside, otherwise, you lose focus on the story.

 Bharath

Overall scores