Houdini's Escape Room Experience - Review
Our curiosity was piqued when we heard that Houdini’s Escapes would be opening an 18+ escape room with a horror theme. Having visited many of their other rooms and coming out singing their praises, we were really excited to see how they’d approach the horror genre. After a little bit of research, it turned out that Poppa Plock’s Wonky Workshop wasn’t a new game as such, but a relocated one from the now defunct Handmade Mysteries.
Before entering the room, we were introduced to the wacky world of Poppa Plock’s with our room host Wynne. Given we were about to enter the workshop of a demented toymaker, our host wasn’t the usual sort. He was in fact a living wind up soldier toy, who provided us with many laughs as long as we kept winding him up. Having a theatrical element to the room with this character really helped immerse us into the experience. Not only did he keep us entertained, but his boisterous unannounced entrances to the room provided us with a couple of mild jump-scares throughout the experience. Wynne was a clear highlight of the escape room, helping to differentiate Poppa Plock’s from the many other horror escape rooms which we have experienced.
Whilst the majority of the scares came from Wynne, there was definitely a creepy atmosphere to the room. Our goal was to help him fix Roy, the latest creation of Poppa Plock and halt the murderous doll Oki Cokio. Initially, the room appeared to be an innocent toy workshop, aside from the eerie presence of Oki Cokio who consistently taunted us throughout the game. Unfortunately, he was a little quiet and sometimes it was hard to make out what he was saying. It would’ve been nice had his audio played out over the main speakers in the different rooms to ensure you didn’t miss out on the narrative he provided. However, from what we caught he was a ‘real character’ providing some good laughs with his playful yet maniacal nature.
As we delved deeper, we started uncovering the darker side of Poppa Plock’s toy making process. Whilst there were some grisly elements, we feel given the age rating they could’ve gone further. That’s not to say we weren’t on edge. The ever-present threat of Wynne certainly kept us nervous and a well-hidden jump scare had one of our group recoil in fear whilst the rest of us watched on laughing. It would’ve been nice to have some more practical prop based effects be used for scares in this room. However, we did enjoy the light scares from the actor.
Interestingly enough, the room heavily focussed on humour. Very adult and crude humour at that. This isn’t a room for those who are easily offended by anything crude, as there are plenty of innuendos and some puzzles even incorporate some very ‘choice’ words. We found this to be highly entertaining and chuckled at quite a lot of the vulgarity, however it’s definitely not going to be to everyone’s tastes.
The puzzles were the real star of the show with the escape room having a clear goal that we had to work towards and a vague guide of what we had to do to achieve that. The variety within this room was impressive, with there being a fair balance of hunting for items, logic solving, sequencing and even some physical tasks. Each puzzle incorporated toys in some way, shape or form, making it a real delight to progress through the room. However, we did have some gripes. This room is very linear, meaning if you get stuck on one puzzle you can’t move onto something else whilst considering the solution. You have a strict order to work in, which caused us to waste a lot of time feeling hopeless. We ended up needing a couple of clues to work things out, even though we understood the existing signposting in the room. Whilst this was frustrating at the time, once it was resolved we had a good laugh at the solution and moved onto the rest of the room, which flowed well and had some cracking puzzles. We simply have to note how ingenious the finale was, providing one last brain teaser with a unique solution that felt very satisfying to solve.
This room was a delight to play. It was a distinctive take on the evil toys theme, with a devilishly crude sense of humour to it. Whilst it wasn’t quite as scary as we had hoped, we did get some good jump scares. It speaks volumes that we all refused to go near the door which Wynne had a nasty habit of bursting through unexpectedly. Wynne really made the room for us. Having a host play a role in the narrative was something we’ve not seen done to this degree before. It had us feeling immersed and ready to confront the puzzles ahead of us.
Houdini’s have a great lineup in their Southampton branch and Poppa Plock’s feels like a great addition, with some brilliant puzzles that we really enjoyed solving. It blends humour and light horror elements to great effect and the sheer crudeness of some of the room is something we won’t be forgetting anytime soon.
Before entering the room, we were introduced to the wacky world of Poppa Plock’s with our room host Wynne. Given we were about to enter the workshop of a demented toymaker, our host wasn’t the usual sort. He was in fact a living wind up soldier toy, who provided us with many laughs as long as we kept winding him up. Having a theatrical element to the room with this character really helped immerse us into the experience. Not only did he keep us entertained, but his boisterous unannounced entrances to the room provided us with a couple of mild jump-scares throughout the experience. Wynne was a clear highlight of the escape room, helping to differentiate Poppa Plock’s from the many other horror escape rooms which we have experienced.
Whilst the majority of the scares came from Wynne, there was definitely a creepy atmosphere to the room. Our goal was to help him fix Roy, the latest creation of Poppa Plock and halt the murderous doll Oki Cokio. Initially, the room appeared to be an innocent toy workshop, aside from the eerie presence of Oki Cokio who consistently taunted us throughout the game. Unfortunately, he was a little quiet and sometimes it was hard to make out what he was saying. It would’ve been nice had his audio played out over the main speakers in the different rooms to ensure you didn’t miss out on the narrative he provided. However, from what we caught he was a ‘real character’ providing some good laughs with his playful yet maniacal nature.
As we delved deeper, we started uncovering the darker side of Poppa Plock’s toy making process. Whilst there were some grisly elements, we feel given the age rating they could’ve gone further. That’s not to say we weren’t on edge. The ever-present threat of Wynne certainly kept us nervous and a well-hidden jump scare had one of our group recoil in fear whilst the rest of us watched on laughing. It would’ve been nice to have some more practical prop based effects be used for scares in this room. However, we did enjoy the light scares from the actor.
Interestingly enough, the room heavily focussed on humour. Very adult and crude humour at that. This isn’t a room for those who are easily offended by anything crude, as there are plenty of innuendos and some puzzles even incorporate some very ‘choice’ words. We found this to be highly entertaining and chuckled at quite a lot of the vulgarity, however it’s definitely not going to be to everyone’s tastes.
The puzzles were the real star of the show with the escape room having a clear goal that we had to work towards and a vague guide of what we had to do to achieve that. The variety within this room was impressive, with there being a fair balance of hunting for items, logic solving, sequencing and even some physical tasks. Each puzzle incorporated toys in some way, shape or form, making it a real delight to progress through the room. However, we did have some gripes. This room is very linear, meaning if you get stuck on one puzzle you can’t move onto something else whilst considering the solution. You have a strict order to work in, which caused us to waste a lot of time feeling hopeless. We ended up needing a couple of clues to work things out, even though we understood the existing signposting in the room. Whilst this was frustrating at the time, once it was resolved we had a good laugh at the solution and moved onto the rest of the room, which flowed well and had some cracking puzzles. We simply have to note how ingenious the finale was, providing one last brain teaser with a unique solution that felt very satisfying to solve.
This room was a delight to play. It was a distinctive take on the evil toys theme, with a devilishly crude sense of humour to it. Whilst it wasn’t quite as scary as we had hoped, we did get some good jump scares. It speaks volumes that we all refused to go near the door which Wynne had a nasty habit of bursting through unexpectedly. Wynne really made the room for us. Having a host play a role in the narrative was something we’ve not seen done to this degree before. It had us feeling immersed and ready to confront the puzzles ahead of us.
Houdini’s have a great lineup in their Southampton branch and Poppa Plock’s feels like a great addition, with some brilliant puzzles that we really enjoyed solving. It blends humour and light horror elements to great effect and the sheer crudeness of some of the room is something we won’t be forgetting anytime soon.
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