Stuff just got real: this escape room sees a gun-wielding attacker holding people hostage in a London shopping centre! Will solving some puzzles somehow rescue them?
- Location: Battersea (nearest train station Battersea Park)
- Players: 2-5
- We played: May 2019 as a team of 4
Great things about Hostage Hideout
- We loved how Hostage Hideout took a mundane location and used the everyday objects associated with it in crafty and surprising ways. Nothing really seemed incongruous, and we had fun figuring out how we needed to use what was in front of us.
- Do Stuff are particularly good at including signposting, sometimes explicit and sometimes very subtle, that enables observant players to get on with the room without much outside help.
- Although there’s scope for players to split off and work on separate tasks, not many of the puzzles here can comfortably be solved by one person working alone. This room encouraged us to cooperate from start to finish.
- While we escaped with plenty of time to spare, we felt like we’d been kept busy and active by Hostage Hideout – there wasn’t a moment of boredom.
On the other hand…
- An escape room doesn’t need to be story-driven to be entertaining, but here we were slightly baffled as to how the puzzles in the room connected to the background story we’d been given. There was no apparent reason why completing the room would save any hostages, but we were happy to do it anyway!
- This isn’t the room for you if you want to avoid combination locks, keys and keypads. It’s very much a traditional escape room in that respect.
Who should try this room?
Try Hostage Hideout if you want to play a fun, competently-designed traditional escape room. We’d particularly recommend this room to escape room novices, but it has something to offer experienced players too.
Our rating – 8/10
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