Hounds – Southern Dis-Comfort – 8.5/10
Crawley, West Sussex
1992, Location: West Virginia
A conflict between two rival redneck clans dominates the Southern states. Dwayne’s redneck crew is known for 2 things: bikes and booze. They say that Dwayne’s moonshine is the best in the South. Your gang however… ain’t got that much going for it to be honest. If only there was a way of getting your hands on some of that fabled hooch for yourself. You thinking what I’m thinking? It’s time for a good old fashioned break in! Lets just hope it doesn’t turn into a break out…
Played May 2023
Oh my garsh* this room was a lot of fun and as our first immersive escape game room of the day I wasn’t sure what to expect! We’ve had ‘immersive’ experiences before that weren’t very puzzley but this is indeed an escape room where they’ve gone above and beyond to make it feel very immersive from meeting your hosts in the bar through to the debrief back there at the end. Toots collected us from the bar after checking on our criminal credentials and then ensued a hilarious, derogatory (in the best way) and sweary briefing from himself and Trixie.
Initially you are split up slightly which always makes us a bit nervous as we work well as a team with our different strengths and weaknesses. We always make it work in the end though! The decor was enveloping and well done throughout with the final room having a real jewel in the crown for me. Nice mix of puzzles with some physical, deduction, hunting etc. We did discover afterwards that we’d accidentally missed some puzzles out as one of the hosts was in training BUT this did not detract from the fun we had and we’d worked out most of what we’d missed so it wouldn’t have added too much time on – we did think our time was pretty quick!
Felt like we were all doing something most of the time so I think 2 people would be working hard to get out and 7 would be a bit crowded – sweet spot of 4-5 I reckon.
Hounds has an awesome bar attached with a great selection of cocktails – sadly I was driving so had to stick to coffee though! For food there are plenty of local options as this is right in the town centre.
*my attempt at a Southern accent – please humour me.
Theme/Immersion – 9.5
Puzzles – 7
Fun Factor – 9.5
Difficulty – 7
https://www.houndsescape.co.uk/escapegames
Reviewed by K