November 2022
Houdini's Escape Rooms Southampton
Poppa Plock's Wonky Workshop
Overview
This was third visit to Houdini’s in Southampton after visiting Onslow Road to complete Titanic and the previous day taking on Extinct at the Tenpin location. Due to the escape rooms being located at a huge bowling alley, there is plenty of parking on site. There is a big waiting area with plenty of seating before being taken into the start of the main brief. There is a refreshment area and a sideboard selling a lot of home escape games. We were taken to an old cinema style room with popcorn machine and cinema screen ready to show us our brief. The host was brilliant in going straight into character and taking us to our room to start.
The room was decorated brilliantly, completely emerging yourself into an old toy workshop with dusty old games, cabinets and dim lighting. It was hard to tell if some of the props were old and tattered and needed replacing or whether it was part of the immersive experience. Our game master set up the scene well, explaining what our mission was. We haven’t done a game based on an old toy workshop and we all enjoyed exploring the different areas of the workshop and being immersed into the theme of it all with toy music being played in the background.
There was nothing groundbreaking in the puzzles of this room, padlocks mixed in with some coded games and some old fashioned arcade games for fun. You can easily see your progress in the room with the big lights being lit when you completed a puzzle. One thing we did enjoy was the game master coming in and out of the room completely in character. Normally you would think this would ruin the immersive experience but it actually added a nice element to the game and something we have not experienced before. Some negative points, one of the games broke when we were attempting it and it took the game master to come in and fix it half way through and one puzzle in particular was really tricky for us to solve due to poor lighting and positioning of some of the elements of the puzzle. This put quite a big dampener on the room for us as we spent a lot of time on this puzzle and made us being very close the finish line in terms of time. The finish however was really good and again, something we have not done before.
We had to ask for some help on the one puzzle mentioned above due to us simply not being able to work it out and the game master came into the room in character to assist us. She also came in to the room on another occasion to point us in the right direction when we deviated but for the most of the game, she left us to it.
Round Up
After completing Extinct and Titanic over the course of the weekend, we did have high hoped for this room and if we being honest, we felt it lacked a little something compared to the others. The a puzzle breaking and one of them appearing to be very difficult to solve for a combination of reasons, it just put a dampener on the game. During a few moments of the game where the puzzles were linear, a few of the areas were quite tight and some of us were stood around watching whilst others were completing tasks. For bigger teams, this might be much more of an issue. None the less, the experience of the room and the theme were good and it is worth trying when visiting Southampton.
Team: 4 Players
Time Escaped: 57:00
Success/Failed: Success
Company Details:
November 2022
Houdini's Escape Rooms Southampton
RMS Titanic
Overview
This was Second visit to Houdini’s in Southampton after visiting the their Tenpin location earlier in the day taking on Extinct. We had booked in at their Onslow Road location for what is arguably the best rated escape room in the country, Titanic. This was our first 90 minute room. There is a car park nearby where you then have a 2 minute walk to the location so not too bad at all. The reception area is decorated as you would expect for an old immersive experience but it is not as grand as the Tenpin location. You are given an iPad to complete your information details and sign waivers. We were taken to an old cinema style room with popcorn machine and cinema screen ready to show us our brief.
The room is up to 7 people, however, we would not recommend going with a group of that size. Some of the areas in the game are quite tight and as a team of 4 we did struggle a little bit in some parts. The set of the game is as you would expect, fully immersive and completely in keeping with what task we were taking on. We would say that some of the props and games in the room were starting to look a little tired and were not as impressive as Extinct that we had done earlier in the day. In saying that, they had done a brilliant job in creating an immersive experience that we did all enjoy.
At the beginning of the game we found it quite easy to split up and tackle a few games on our own but as the experience went on, the games did become linear. As previously mentioned, some spaces were quite tight and this left some of our team stood watching whilst others were attempting the solve some puzzles. This put a little dampener on the experience for us and with much bigger teams, we can imagine this being quite a big issue. There were a lot of hide and seek games during the experience and at the beginning a few padlocks were to be found but on the whole, the puzzles were varied and fun throughout. It did take us a while to work out that when we did get a puzzle right, a ship’s bell would ring. We’ve not experienced this before and it was a nice touch to add to the immersive experience.
We can’t remember asking for any help during Titanic. Our games master did keep a watchful eye on us and if we steered slightly off track then a foghorn would sound which let us know we needed to have a little re-think. We were told that if we needed a clue all we had to do was ask and she would have came over on the speaker system.
Round Up
We had high expectations of this room and to the large part it did not disappoint. A lot of effort has gone into making one of biggest tragedies in human history a tasteful experience. You could see that game was starting to look a little tired on some of the puzzles that will probably need addressing at some point but it kind of added to the history of it all. This game is a must when visiting Houdini’s Southampton.
Team: 4 Players
Time Escaped: 51:00
Success/Failed: Success
Company Details:
November 2022
Houdini's Escape Rooms Southampton
Extinct
Overview
This was first visit to Houdini’s in Southampton after months of planning and prep and we couldn’t wait. Their reputation did mean that we were all really looking forward to trying their rooms out and it was just a shame that we could only manage 3 rooms on our visit. You are given an iPad to complete your information details and sign waivers. There is a big waiting area with plenty of seating before being taken into the start of the main brief. There is a refreshment area and a sideboard selling a lot of home escape games. We were taken to an old cinema style room with popcorn machine and cinema screen ready to show us our brief. The host was brilliant in going straight into character and because of how well she did, it was difficult to know when our brief ended and the game began, which was great.
The second you walk into the room, you know that Extinct is no ordinary room. The set was incredible. It actually feels like you are in Jurassic Park and it blew us away. With some rooms it can take some time to immerse yourself into the theme but this was certainly not the case. Throughout the game, there were twists and turns that had obviously been well thought through and we couldn’t fault the design of this game at all. The lighting is dark enough for you to need torches in parts but the majority of the room is bright enough for the rest of the game. As mentioned, there are plenty of twists and turns, having to climb and crawl in some parts, making this room easily one of the best we have taken on.
As you can imagine, with so much being put into this room, there was a large variety of puzzles. There was plenty to do and for a team of 4 there was always something for us to do which was nice not having to stand around and wait for some puzzles to be done, which you can sometimes get in some rooms. The puzzles linked in really well with the set of the game and sometimes it felt as if you were simply exploring the environment rather than completing an escape room. There were also nice elements of the game where our brains kicked into gear remembering something that had happened at the beginning of the game. To summarise, the games were truly immersive and quite incredible. There was one slight sour note where one piece of vital equipment failed us towards the end of the game and this almost cost us escaping. This led us to having to use the walkie talkie and break of the immersion of the game to co firm if we were doing it right.
At the start of the experience you have to nominate someone to be the comms operator, being given a walkie talkie to carry with you. Normally when given a walkie talkie it tends not to go with the room you are completing, however, it felt only right that when trying to escape the dinosaur jungle, we had a walkie talkie. We didn’t need many hints at all but when one came through there was a chime on the tv to get our attention.
Round Up
With this being our first experience with Houdini’s, we have probably set ourselves up to be disappointed with future rooms. If that is the case then it was completely worth it! Extinct was incredible and easily one of the best rooms we have done. It felt more like a movie set than an escape room. This is simply a must do room if you are visiting Southampton.
Team: 4 Players
Time Escaped: 59:00
Success/Failed: Success
Company Details:
© Copyright. All rights reserved.
We need your consent to load the translations
We use a third-party service to translate the website content that may collect data about your activity. Please review the details in the privacy policy and accept the service to view the translations.