Now open in London: Escape Land

Escape Land graphicHere’s a first, and a welcome one! This site previewed Escape Land a year and three quarters ago, then sadly bade it farewell last September, in one of the more surprising closures. It was a very pleasant surprise, and about as unexpected as they get, to see a reopening announcement posted to Facebook last week. According to that announcement, and to the site’s booking page, Escape Land opened for business once again today! By analogy, this would be like learning that Andy Kaufman had faked his death decades ago after all.

Sites have relocated in the past, but this feels different because this site had stuck a fork into Escape Land and considered it done. Indeed, it was tempting to wonder whether this might be a completely unconnected game that happened to use the same name… but there’s enough evidence to suggest that it really is a revival. The new location is probably the best address for an exit game yet: 37-39 Oxford Street, London, very near the Tottenham Court Road station on the forthcoming Elizabeth line. (Indeed, within the length of a Class 345 train of the station.) Sure, there are other businesses on the same premises, but that’s still a heck of a prestigious place to be.

Within two and a half weeks of reopening, the site will have two games. You can already play the Professor Oxford’s Experiments game: “Why is Professor Oxford doing secret experiments on his own home? What is he up to? And why is he inviting test subjects to analyse a medicine that is not strictly speaking legal? Based on Escape Land’s original game: Escape from the Age of Steampunk. There are a lot of similarities between these two games, please only book if none of the players in the team has played that room in the past“. That clearly establishes the lineage between the two games – and the game from which it is a development was popular with The Logic Escapes Me, with What’s On UK and with Thinking Bob, so this is very welcome.

Soon to arrive is the Da Vinci’s Exploration room, which is “Based on Da Vinci’s life. This escape game requires players to work as a team to solve hidden puzzles, look for clues and to try to escape in an hour. The room gives to the players the opportunity to use their knowledge, teamwork skills to accomplish a unique escape game“. Both games have 60-minute time limits and are recommended for teams of 3-5, though teams of 2 and 6 may be possible by prior arrangement. The Oxford Street price is £78 for a team of three, £96 for a team of four or £110 for a team of five, which is broadly in line with central London rates.

A game so well-loved that nobody could keep it down makes a welcome return! If you go to try it, then be aware that by cute coincidence, another business with the same address is the Escape to London recruitment company; don’t get the two businesses confused!

4 thoughts on “Now open in London: Escape Land”

  1. As a sidenote, yesterday evening I had reason to be in the area. The door to 37-39 Oxford Street was open, so I went in and had a look around. There was no indication of Escape Land’s presence in the building; even climbing up to the sixth floor revealed nothing. Now that doesn’t necessarily mean anything’s awry (notably, I think there’s a basement, which I didn’t visit) but if I were to go there in, say, a week’s time and there were still no evidence then I’d be getting a little more worried.

  2. We have been trying the room today:

    * The room is in the basement of the building (looks like you missed it, Chris ;)). For new visitors, it is the door of to 37-39 Oxford Street (in front of Primark, and about 2 minutes far from the Tube station. There is a sign inside the building that tells you to look for the stairs behind the elevator.

    * It is doable by 3 people – if you split properly during the search. Puzzle difficulty is adequate, and it has its fair share of red herrings, padlocks to open. We managed to escape with barely two minutes left.

  3. Hey Chris, thanks for the post about us! We were still working on creating the room this Friday (and Saturday morning as well). If you are in the area, you are welcome to come down to us and to take a look, have a chat maybe.
    There is one “big” addition to the puzzles and the arrangement of the rooms and games is different (without giving too much away), which made the new version of the game considerably harder than the previous instalment. My “challenging but doable” philosophy is still present in the escape room 🙂

Leave a Reply

Your email address will not be published. Required fields are marked *