The Crystal Maze Live Experience

Not exactly an escape room, but it was a great experience. Put with another team (my 2 with their 4) but the staff leader handled this extremely well. A bunch of different activities, matched the original game really well, and each game was a lot of fun to play or watch

Note that this is not an escape room. It’s a recreation of the UK TV show The Crystal Maze, which is escape room-adjacent. Basically, it’s a collection of individual challenges, many of which are similar to things you might do in an escape room. Pros: •Fun, and does a great job of capturing the TV experience. •Some of the games are fun and elaborate. • Great maze master who was funny and positive and (I’m pretty sure) subtly gave the kids in our party extra time on their games to stop them from being discouraged. • Many games gave all team members the chance to participate by shouting suggestions, even if they weren’t the official player. Cons: • Very expensive— twice the price of a standard London escape room. I get why: real estate in Picadilly Circus must be insanely expensive, plus they have to pay for the licensing fees. But from a consumer point of view, it was twice the price I’ve paid for equivalent entertainment. • Some of the games are simplistic — think traveling carnival level. • They are really insistent that you bring a full team of 8; if you don’t, there’s a very good chance your team will get broken up and you won’t get to play together. With a total of 16 games, that means each person only gets to be the star of 2 games. • Difficulty of games is extremely unpredictable and you don’t get to see the game before assigning the player, so you can’t really assign people to their strong suits. This is entirely authentic to the TV show but it can make for a frustrating experience. OVERALL: If you’re a fan of the TV show and you feel the price is a fair one for a chance to live out the experience, go for it. But if you’ve got a fixed entertainment budget and you just want the greatest bang for your immersive entertainment buck, you’re probably better off with a trip to one of London’s many high quality escape rooms (eg Cluequest, Escape Plan, or the Game Is Now, to name a few.)

This is not an escape room, rather an experience with multiple different types of challenges. Go with a group of people you love and have the best time!