LR

While this was marked as not so much of an escape room, it still had some good, solid puzzles. Mostly padlock based rather than some of the whizzier things you see in escape rooms now but I still enjoyed them. We are not huge fans of horror  type games but this was on the ok side of the line for me. Quite a few jump scares but nothing too awful and you got a sense of when they were coming as you moved through the various zones so it wasn't too bad.

The great host really elevated the game. Fun mix of logical, visual and technical puzzles aligned to the theme. Needed a couple of hints to keep us on track but things flowed nicely

The room had some good puzzles and funny moments but seemed a bit more linear than the other rooms at Hounds and not really enough to do for an experienced team of four. Hosting was good as it was with all the rooms we did.

Really enjoyed both the overall theme and story and the flow of the puzzles. Hosting was wonderful as well

Great game with a clever set and a nice premise. Fun elements of interaction with the games master. The game was definitely playable in English but not as well converted for multi languages as the other games we played in Barcelona. Certain elements were only in Spanish but then explained/voiced over by the Games Master which broke the immersion a little.

Loved this game. Really fun with a couple of good wow moments. Good amount to do so everyone could get involved. Puzzles flowed well and were all quite straightforward 

Great set, really beautiful with a strong clear hi tech theme. Some really fun elements in the game and unique interactions with the Games Master

Really unique premise for the game and some bits were really cool but we just struggled get on with it and got frustrated. We couldn't work out the flow of the puzzles and wasted loads of time trying to solve puzzles that weren't required until much later. Tech also kept asking for passwords that we thought we needed to solve but I think were actually caused by the device disconnecting. 

A bit different from other rooms we have played with more focus on the story and the experience than a traditional escape room. There were still some great puzzles though. The set was huge, intricate and beautiful. Lots of climbing and crawling involved which I always find exciting. 

Best game I have ever played so far. Loved every single minute of it. So many amazing puzzles and loads of unique stuff never seen in other games. Just fantastic in every way.

An amazing experience. A lot to do but a clear consistent story throughout with some great stand out moments and a huge range of puzzles. Only downside was we are wimps and selected no jump scares but there was no interaction with  the games master prior to starting the room so we weren't sure if they had acknowledged the request and spent the first thirty minutes peeing our paants

A nice slice of the taskmaster experience with a good range of different games. Quite expensive for what it was but as a one off gimmick it was fun.

Another great game from 11th Hour. A solid set of pirate themed puzzles with an extra festive sprinkle. Good design, fun puzzles and wonderful hosting.

Despite claiming only a 35% success rate, this room was straightforward and very linear. There wasn't really enough to do for three. We ended up needing two clues but both were frustrating. The first we solved immediately but the lock was stiff and didn't open. We spent about another fifteen minutes trying to solve, including saying over and over what we thought the answer should be and how it did not work. There was no input from the games master until we asked for a clue which revealed the first solution we tried had been right all along. The second involved something that had missing/ broken parts so we assumed it couldn't be used but we were supposed to use it anyway. Not sure if the games master was running multiple games or didn't have the technology to see/hear what was going on but it felt like a nudge from a more proactive games master would have massively improved the experience.

Good wholesome Christmas fun. Would be great for kids.

The room was ok and the wand mechanism was a good idea and an interesting new mechanism to interact with the room. Downside was a number of puzzles just seemed to be trial and error rather than any kind of actual solve. At least one puzzle was faulty where pressing one button didn't always register. This wasted a lot of time as we had to attempt it over and over again. A second puzzle required us to trigger something repeatedly to watch and solve. Despite doing the same thing each time it seemed to only actually trigger the puzzle at random. Again not sure if something was faulty or if we never actually quite worked out how to make it work at all and were just triggering it by accident. Different areas of the game require ducking through a small opening repeatedly. There was no protective foam of any kind and my spatial awareness isn't good which resulted in me hitting my head over and over again to the point that I nearly gave up. I did love the idea of matching up escape rooms with a bar setting and it was nice to have a drink and discuss the game afterwards.

Worst escape room experience by far. Every element of this was lacking. The host was non existent, he let us in apologising in advance that the room wasn't that good and that various parts of the game and clue system were broken or not very good. Then disappeared for the rest of the game. There was an iPad system to get clues that, as promised by our host, appeared to be broken and we couldn't get it to give us a single hint. The room was a cheap, bordering on probably legally actionable knock off of Stranger things and a number of the clues required seemingly unfathomable random leaps of logic (or whatever is the opposite of logic) that made the whole room a frustrating bore.

This game wasn't particularly challenging but it was cute and wholesome fun. The host was great and in character right from the start. Only thing to watch out for is that even beginning the game is in character but the instructions of what to say to kick off the game were written in French in the email even though everything else had been translated into English so we struggled right at the first hurdle until the French speaker in our group read the email and saved the day.

Some parts of this room are a little less interesting requiring just looking around for things that were hard to spot because it was quite dark, as opposed to being difficult because the puzzles themselves were difficult. However overall the room was fun to play and the ending was an extra fun little puzzle.

A few standout moments in this room that really tie into the theme. Really enjoyed all of the puzzles and the distinct nature of the different sections of the game.

After smashing through the Metro we were offered a discount if we wanted to try another game and I am so glad we gave the Ghost Castle a go. The room had very cleverly been turned into a courtyard and then a building spanning multiple floors. There was lots of running back and forth and linking this across multiple rooms which was fun. It was doable for two but it kept us very busy. The puzzles were fun and fit really nicely with the theme. Only downside was a couple of the areas required ducking under plywood and the need to move back and forth through the various rooms at speed lead to a few banged heads

Game was very cool visually, set in a mock of a metro station complete with a metro car. The puzzles were quite simple but it was fun to do.

We had scheduled this room last on our way back to the airport after an exhausting few days in Budapest and perhaps that wasn't the best idea, especially as there were only two of us to work through the whole room. It had warned it wasn't the standard escape room experience and it definitely relied more on mathematics than some of the snazzier high tech puzzles you can find in some of the other Budapest rooms. By the end of it we found ourselves tired and frustrated. A number of puzzles required outside knowledge such as the value of different Roman numerals or mathematical concepts that were not provided inside the room so if you didn't just know them you wouldn't have been able to solve the puzzles. The mechanism to open a box to get out a key was also broken so even though we had solved the puzzle the key wasn't released. The games master clearly had not been playing attention and didn't realise what had happened so kept referring us back to things we had already completed to try and help us solve the puzzle which made us more and more confused before eventually coming into the room and realising we had already found the solution but the mechanism was broken. The delay cost us about ten minutes and meant we didn't complete the room in time so that was also disappointing, though they did let us play on for an extra few minutes so we could finish. Considering the concept of the room was that everything is bright white, it was all a bit dirty and grubby. Overall the room seems quite tired and run down.

An absolutely unique, beautiful room. Not in Budapest central but accessible enough via metro and a short walk. The game itself takes some physical extension, climbing etc. but the puzzles were clever and fun. One of the best games we played in Budapest.

Fit nicely into the pirate themed of The Brig. Was great to combine doing an escape room with a more social experience as we worked our way through the various chests included in this game while having a drink at the in house bar. The puzzles were still strong, beautifully made and fun to complete

The hosting of the game was great, strong theatrics and I can never say no to a good costume. I loved the split start of the game where everyone had their own space and own puzzles to solve but it still required strong collaboration with our team mates. 

I liked the immediate immersion in the story that was worked even in into the briefing mechanism. 

Not sure why but this game just wasn't for me. Nothing memorable stands out as particularly good or bad but I just didn't really enjoy it.

The setting of this escape room was very different, being based on an old bus. It was a strong concept, wonderfully decorated and the hosting was good. However the puzzles were limited and quite simple. There were multiple moments where we all waiting  on someone to complete a single puzzle and no one could move on to anything else until it was done which somewhat impacted the flow and experience.

We had already played Victoria's Last Challenge so the layout of the room and some of the key mechanisms were already known. Despite that the room managed to use an entirely different set of puzzles and was just as fun to play. It was lovely and festive and we loved all the small changes to make the room more Christmassy as well as the Christmas-based puzzles

The room was nicely themed and the puzzles were good. The very last puzzle almost got the best of us and things got a bit hysterical as we desperately attempted various more and more ludicrous things before we finally solved it. The game master was fantastic and we had a great time 

I loved the unusual theme of this room. It was entirely different from anything else we have played in both theme and some of the puzzles. We bought a very musical person with us which may have helped with some of the harder elements. The hosting is also always superb and we enjoyed the extra touches for our time and take away trinkets.

We played a lot of at home escape games during the pandemic and this series was by far our favourite. We loved the QR code mechanism to the game and the mix of interactive paper and online clues.