Deadlocked – The Phoenix Research – 7.5/10
Reading, Berkshire.
Professor Bradley Samwell, the quirky head of research at the Wexell Corporation, has gone missing. His bizarre disappearance coincides with the completion of some rather questionable, but valuable research on a project called ‘Phoenix’. The Wexell Corporation has asked your team, with your very specific set of skills, to investigate the missing employee and retrieve the research before the lawyers and police get involved. But what if there is more to this research, and this company than lies on the surface? Will you complete your task for Wexell or uncover a deeper conspiracy?
Played – May 2018
D & A and outsider Z stopped here on the way home from a wedding. It was a weekday morning so we called and think we got them out of bed but the lovely Robin came and opened up for us and we gave their Phoenix Research room a go
This room is kind of intriguing. The overall theme, a missing professor, is not particularly unseen in escape rooms and most of the puzzles are variations on things you may have seen before, although they still require you to search and work things out of course. The decor too is not exactly the most exciting. Not bad, just not wow. But then there’s the odd thing that you come across with this room that really is very cool. There are 2 things in particular that we have never seen before which made it really stand out.
The ending to this room can change depending on some decisions made and we were lucky enough to get to test out a new ending while we were there.
Our third player, Z, was brand new to escape rooms and strangely scared of playing in case it made her feel stupid but she got stuck in and really enjoyed it by the end.
One of the real tests of an escape room is how they deal with things that go wrong. On several occasions we’ve been in rooms where a puzzle has broken (through no fault of ours!) and unfortunately one of the puzzles here was not working, however Robin managed to get us through it but still make it thematic so as not to take away from the experience. Well done Robin!
Overall a good game for newbies and seasoned escapists alike. We think 3 was a good number of players for this room.
Theme/Immersion – 7
Puzzles/Variety – 8
Fun Factor – 7
Difficulty – 7
https://deadlockedrooms.com/reading/index.html
Reviewed by A