Trapp’d: The Monosphere review

Published by Escape Goats on

You and your friends decide to play the new escape room ‘The Monosphere’ which has great reviews and promises to be a crazy, mind-bending psychoactive experience. What you don’t realise, however, is that the government are actually using this room to test a new form of mind-modification to try and create the ‘perfect utopia’ within society – a sort of brain-washing totalitarian epidemic, if you will. Anyone who attempts this ‘escape room’ unconsciously falls into a passive stupor of compliance and conformity… Do not let this be you! Figure out a way to escape without alerting anyone to your recognition of the untold activities being performed within this room.
60 minutes
2-6 players
4.5/5 difficulty – escape rate 45%
£13.17-£24.50 per person depending on team size and day
Northampton, UK
trappd.com
Played by Jenny, Paul and Bharath
February 2019
Escaped with 27 minutes remaining

Theming

7/10This room may not be for epileptic players as there’s a lot of strobe lighting which really mess with your mind and eyes. Whilst the room is simplistic, the design is great. I find empty rooms with crazy paint designs fun. The only thing lacking for me is there is no story to the room other than a crazy imagination. That being said, everything linked to a bizarre mind so in essence it still worked!

Jenny

7/10There’s an initial wow factor to this room which is amplified by the fact you’re blindfolded upon entry so you get the full force of the optical illusion within the room design. With the additional aid of strobe lighting, the illusion is very effective in messing with your head and threw me off for a minute or two. However once you’ve got your brain round the mind trickery and the full lights are on, you’re left with quite a minimalist room with not much else going on. Also there wasn’t any real story with this, we were just sent into a room to solve random puzzles.

Paul

Puzzles

7/10Having played a few rooms before, we were able to cope with some of their challenges quite easy. But to a beginner, some elements may be tricky to you. I liked how the game had very few padlocks and that the puzzles were a little off the scale compared to other rooms. There are some innovative ideas on the tasks at hand which made this game fun. We did have a couple of issues with the wear and tear of the equipment, but this didn’t spoil the game as much as with problems we’ve encountered in other rooms.

Jenny

7/10There’s a decent mix of puzzles with little searching needed due to the minimalist nature of the room. The logic made sense throughout, although the games didn’t feel quite as tough as their 4.5/5 level made out. Plus as we’d seen all but one of the puzzle ideas before, we were able to whizz through in just 33 minutes. But for less experienced people who won’t be used to the unusual items you’ll face, I’d expect this to be a challenge. A safe didn’t work but our host quickly realised and rectified it so it didn’t interfere too much. The wire puzzle didn’t seem very well built. Finally, a task was hard to complete because we were able to solve the following puzzle which turned the lights on.

Paul

Enjoyment

8/10I really enjoyed this game. I loved the strobe lighting and the simplistic but creative design to the room and that of the puzzles. Our host was super friendly which also added to my enjoyment. Some gamers may want more ‘wow’ factor, but this company proves that sometimes less is more!

Jenny

7/10I loved the incorporation of the optical illusion which made for an awesome start. The downside is you begin with the highlight and the experience peters out slightly as you progress. But overall this was a fun room that I enjoyed playing. Our host was capable and friendly. Trapp’d have a cool entrance and lobby where the black walls and ceilings are almost completely covered with previous players messages. They’re based in an unusual location with terraced housing directly opposite which felt a bit surreal considering their windows are plastered with scary imagery!

Paul

Value

9/10As we’re used to paying London prices, we found this room really cheap. You get a warm welcome from the hosts, the rooms are well designed and you can clearly tell the company are passionate for escape rooms. I think all people will like this game, however more advanced players may feel this room is too basic for them.

Jenny

8/10At only £19.67 each for a team of 3, this is good value for money. You get a room with a cool unique design and a decent selection of puzzles. Yes, we only spent half of our allotted 60 minutes in the room which doesn’t make it such good value for people like us who have played dozens and dozens of rooms, but I’d expect everyone else to need most of the hour available and so get their money’s worth.

Paul

Overall scores

  • Theming - 7/10
    7/10
  • Puzzles - 7/10
    7/10
  • Enjoyment - 7.5/10
    7.5/10
  • Value - 8.5/10
    8.5/10
7.5/10