Gold! We’ve struck gold in the Old West! But… Uh oh, a gang of thieves is on the way to claim the gold and finish us off. Someone better call the sheriff!
- Location: Edinburgh
- Players: 2 – 6
- We played: May 2019 as a team of 2
Great things about Escape the Wild West
- We enjoyed the unusual way this game is structured, with success measured in two ways. While the main goal is to get onto a train and escape, this game has a secondary goal: to take as much gold with you as possible. Most of the puzzles, when solved, don’t take you closer to the end goal but provide you with either gold bars or lumps of coal (the more gold you’re carrying, the more coal will be needed to power the train, naturally). This means that the game offers varying levels of challenge, depending on whether you want to aim to find all the gold or just escape in time.
- The puzzles in Escape the Wild West were plentiful and nicely varied, including dexterity puzzles, some searching and also some challenges involving large-scale props that were pretty fun to play with. Playing as a pair we found ourselves very busy, and in a larger team or family group everyone would find something to contribute.
- We were impressed by the theming: the whole space looks beautiful and almost every detail fits the frontier theme, and sound is used to add to the atmosphere.
- Our host was attentive, enthusiastic and upbeat – in fact, the whole team at Escape Hunt were welcoming and seemed to be enjoying their work.
On the other hand…
- A couple of times we needed a hint to push us in the right direction with a task – not a bad thing in itself, of course, but in these cases we felt that what we needed to do was fairly opaque, but if there had been more signposting in the room we could have worked it out without the host’s help.
- This room has a lot of padlocks – although, thankfully, the code for each padlock can usually be obtained from the puzzle closest to it, so there’s no need to try every code in every lock. There are also some padlocks that, we soon realised, are to be used not by players but by staff as part of the room reset process. It was a little confusing to have these visible and not clearly marked as not being part of the game.
Who should try this room?
This room is challenging but achievable for a pair, but its quantity and variety of puzzles make it great for bigger groups. We’d happily recommend it to enthusiasts and beginners alike, including children aged 10+.
Rating – 8/10
Unlock & Roll 