Friday 3 March 2017

Our VERY first taster: Namco FUNscape Escape Room, London & Our London weekend.


Welcome to our first adventure:


We woke up at the crack of dawn, Glasses, Myself and our friend Tom were eager to begin our journey to London! 

We patiently waited for the 3 hours in a cramped bus (especially cramped since Glasses is 6ft 2") and guessed what the day was going to bring, with it being only a day trip, we wanted to make the most out of our day and try and fit in as much as possible.

Once we left the bus we began exploring what the city had to offer, we bought tickets for a West End Show: Book Of Mormon, listened to a little bit of West End Live, had a bite to eat and discovered the Namco FUNscape! The FUNscape is a 3 floor game paradise with bowling, arcade machines, dodgems, pool, ping pong and AN ESCAPE ROOM! 

Now, Glasses and I had ALWAYS wanted to try one and at this point none were open near us (that would soon change but we had no clue at this point) so we proposed the escape room to our friend who agreed that we should give it a go... for £25 pounds all in we thought that was really good money for 3 so we went and booked. We walked up to the escape room and waited while the guy checked it out to make sure it was ready and our excitement was bubbling. 

We walked into the room which was fairly small in size, saw white boards and safes about the place and a large TV screen on the wall. A mission brief was played for us to try and set the scene: There is a bomb hidden in the room and you have just 765 seconds to hunt for it before it explodes! Luckily for you the criminal left clues for you to find and puzzles to solve. 

And so the timer and mission began. We didn't have a clue where to start! we saw a box on the table and began exploring it, we opened padlocks, played with string, tried to line up numbers but unfortunately the time ran out and we were left deflated.... and still a little confused. 

We were really let down by the fact your 'room guide', the person who knows how the room works, was sitting just outside! You could see them the whole time through a clear wall of windows! For us, that COMPLETELY destroyed the scene and we didn't feel immersed at all! We simply felt like it was a game and as soon as we were fed up, he'd just let us out because he could see us... he wouldn't forget about us BECAUSE HE WAS RIGHT THERE! 

The room itself we found unbelievably difficult, the hints weren't hints for the next section really, and everything just felt a bit 'meh'... As if the owners KNEW this would be a big thing soon and they wanted to cash in as soon as possible and be one of the first. The theming INSIDE the room (aside from the guide watching your every move through the window) was actually quite good, although a bit mish-mash and thrown together, it made sense kind of. You kind of felt like you were specialists called to a crime scene. its was just such a HUGE shame about the window wall! 

Would we try it again?... I am very doubtful, although we completed hardly any of it, it still really lacked for us.

However, it's not all bad because this was the room that made us want to see what was better on the market, this room (along with our next, Escape Rooms-Cardiff) really made us realise that this is something we loved to do. Me and Glasses KNEW this would become a part of our lives pretty soon! 

To conclude our tester, it's an overall 3G out of 10G on the Ginger Glasses fun-o-meter purely because of the Window Wall and how un-organised the room was. It didn't live up to our expecatations, we personally beleive it was over advertised in the building which makes us think it was a new thing that they just wanted to 'Cash in.'  It seemed a phase that wasn't thought out fully. On saying that the Namco Funscape building was full of actiivites and we did enjoy ourselves there for a few hours. It does give you something to do that is a bit different, we would recommend visiting the building but not the room. Until next time keep adventuring. 





1 comment:

  1. It's a shame that your first escape room experience wasn't great, but I'm glad that it spurred you on to check out what else is available :) If you're back in London for an escape room, a place called Time Run comes highly recommended from escape fans down that way.

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