Escape Live – Jack the Ripper

Location: Escape Live – Jack the Ripper
Game Date:  05/05/2022
Team: Amy & Ian
Duration: 60 Minutes

Theme:
“You’ve received a tip from the London underworld that there is an informant who claims to know the identity of Jack of Ripper. Imagine being the person who can stop The Ripper – you’d be famous, and not to mention the reward you would receive too!The informant is currently in hiding, after The Ripper found out he was about to give information away….Information he would only tell if he was safe.Can you survive on The Ripper‘s hunting ground and find the informant before he does?”

A nicely decorated room, finished to a good standard, with some good props and fun jump-scares. There wasn’t LOADS to look at, and what was there was mainly used in-game, save for a couple of props later in the game. Immersion was passable, but I can’t help feeling that a fully realised soundscape would have added so much more depth to the room. It felt a little lacking in that department.
The room is adequately sized, but be warned, there are some tight spaces and crawling required.
This room was DARK. So dark in fact that we were told to take our phones in by our host. This…I didn’t do (primarily because my battery is knackered, secondary that I would think if a room is dark the company should provide adequate lighting ) but to rely on the in-game lighting was a mistake. I struggled A LOT seeing in this room, even when the lights were eventually brought up a little. There are moments of complete darkness too in places.
All in all, a good set, but I was wholly aware I was playing a game the entire time (it didn’t help that I could hear mutterings from the corridors outside too)

I have to give a mention to the clean and spacious foyer area, and the excellent central Liverpool location. Very easy to get to from either the train station or the L1 Q-Park!

Game Play:
A strictly linear game that was, interesting in its gameplay. A fair mix of puzzles with word, observation, searching and codebreaking.
A lot of this game is reading based, in fact… I would say almost all of it is, this is not a bad thing, I don’t mind story and text in a game, as long as it is done solidly. Unfortunately, Jack The Ripper fell down with some incredibly obvious spelling mistakes on several of the sheets of paper, and in the puzzles themselves. This presented itself to be incredibly misleading and almost like red herrings.
The puzzles themselves were sound, had there been more care taken with the presentation… the game would have flowed a lot better.
There were a lot of folded laminates and general wear and tear which made some puzzles unintentionally harder. There is a lot to be said about the presentation of puzzles leading to how well the game plays! IT all factors in, combine this with the dull lighting and it’s a recipe for disaster.
The flow of the game was stilted at best, and whilst I feel a lot of the puzzles were GH triggered luckily it was not this that impacted the flow of the game, it was just a game that in its entirely linear nature tended to move slowly and carefully through its puzzles.
Signposting was almost non-existent within the room itself, choosing to put everything the game needed onto the pieces of laminate we were given after each puzzle solve, leading the game to become almost directional in places (which was made harder by the copious spelling errors)
I think with a few tweaks this game could be good, it has the basis of a fun game with an enchanting theme, it needs refining, especially with the price point being so high!

Clue System:
Clues were delivered via voice-over, there was no timer in the room.

Game Host:
Laurence was our host and he was fine, professional and to the point, delivering a good brief and host as you’d expect from a franchise.
Covid19 Safety: 

Did we escape?
Yes, with 3 minutes left on the clock

Website: https://www.escapelive.co.uk/locations/liverpool/
Price:
2 Players £55
3 Players £70
4 Players £88
5 Players £100
6 Players £115