Company:
The Panic Room

Location:
23a St Georges Centre, Princes Street, Gravesend, DA11 0TB

Synopsis:
Are you ready to enter the unknown? Be the first to test a pioneering new technology, in an experiment that will change the course of human history. Welcome to Frontier Engineering – a private research and development company working on nuclear transmutation, quantum tunnels and the applications of dark energy. We are seeking teams of 2-6 to undertake a one hour trial at our new workshop facility. Teams must be capable of lateral thinking, problem-solving, and enduring the most difficult scientific paradoxes. You will be faced with concepts that push beyond the limits of human understanding… so bring your thinking cap.

Date we visited:
17 March 2018

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

Goats attended:
Daiman, Jenny, Paul, Bharath

Did we escape?
Yes, with over 8 minutes to spare (and the time paradox averted with over 10 minutes to spare)

Value for money

8/10Yeah, for £17.50, I can’t say much bad about this. It was a fun, creative game and had some neat moments that were definitely worth the asking price.

 Daiman

8/10At £17.50, I felt the quality and design of the room was very high, the foyer was well designed, we were given complimentary water as a nice additional perk.

Jenny

8/10At £17.50 each, this is very reasonably priced. You get a fun game with a great premise that has lots of interesting puzzles and a bit of theatre as well.

Paul

7/10For the price you pay, it’s on the lower end of the price scale, so there is value for money there. There isn’t a “wow” factor in this room, but there are a couple of fun elements to the room as a whole.

 Bharath

Theming

6/10I wouldn’t say that there was anything wrong with the theming per se but it’s a lab setting so pretty predictable. That said, the interactions that you have with the set are on-theme, with most of the activities feeling like things you’d actually have to do in that situation.

 Daiman

6/10Whilst the idea of the lab was present in the theming, I wasn’t wowed by the set as I was expecting it to be more advanced. The middle section was the best bit in the theming for me.

Jenny

7/10The rooms were made to look like a lab. They were kitted out fine, but there was nothing too exciting about them. The mid-game theatrics were fun though. They had a relatively famous sci-fi actor do the voice-over work which was cool (I was the only one in our team to recognise him though)!

Paul

7/10I have seen other rooms with similar theming to this room. However, there are a few heavy-duty props that add to the theming. Part of this room is just there for the storyline/experience, but it was fun to do.

 Bharath

Uniqueness

7/10Loop boasts a feature that we’ve never seen before in the form of an interesting twist that occurs at the mid-point of the game. That said, I have a few doubts about how this practically plays out. I can’t deny that it isn’t unique but it feels like a gimmick thrown into a standard game to elevate it and not sure how much of an impact it has on the actual game.

 Daiman

8/10This was the first time we’ve played a game with this idea, which sadly would be a spoiler so I will not mention it. This was a fun experience to try and I really enjoyed the technology side to the room.

Jenny

9/10The premise, which I won’t mention as I don’t want to spoil it, is really clever (albeit off-putting!) and I’ve not seen it done before. All I will say is it’s the reason why the game is called ‘The Loop’. There’s a couple of cool game ideas that I’ve not encountered before either, along with a lot of bespoke tech.

Paul

7/10There is a little twist which you will find out if you do the room. I don’t want to give too much away.

 Bharath

Puzzles

7/10I liked that there was a lot of interaction with the environment, flicking switches, pressing buttons and the like – it sounds silly but helped sell the notion that we were actually in a lab. There were some nice logical moments although it didn’t feel as there much to do, this was evident in the relatively small footprint that the game took up.

 Daiman

7/10The puzzles were great, however, I felt there were times where some of the team were stood around due to the solo play type games. That being said the games were hi-tech, well thought out and logical.

Jenny

7/10There’s a varied selection of interesting puzzles which aren’t linear. There were normally two puzzles that can be done at any one time. This means everyone in the team has something to do, but you may miss out on some puzzles which others have solved. I didn’t feel cheated by any of the puzzles, but one of them failed to work as intended.

Paul

7/10The puzzles were fun to solve and were logical. No skill games though. They were in tune with the theming of the room. There was one puzzle design which seemed intriguing/different.

 Bharath

The good

I appreciated the mostly ‘real world’ puzzles and, though I’m not fully convinced, the twist is a nice idea.

 Daiman

I really enjoyed the secret factor of the game, the special features of the loop and the hi-tech puzzles.

Jenny

I loved the premise of the game which led to mild panic towards the end. Their foyer is really impressive, dominated by a massive dinosaur! The staff are very friendly. You are given free bottles of water upon arrival. We got a cool detailed printout of our results afterwards.

Paul

You were given a sheet at the end that recorded how quickly you did certain parts of the room, which was fun to read. Also the twist added to the tense ending.

 Bharath

The bad

There wasn’t actually a great deal to do in the game and we bottlenecked twice as a result.

 Daiman

I was disappointed with the lack of team play puzzles.

Jenny

As I mentioned earlier, one of the puzzles failed to reveal the next clue when we solved it so they had to tell us the answer. They kept giving us clues to puzzles that we had already worked out ourselves which got annoying. Plus their clues, which are displayed on a handheld device, had a ridiculous amount of typos.

Paul

There were times when you were given hints when we didn’t even ask for them. Given a little more time, we would have solved ourselves. More skill games were required.

 Bharath

Overall scores