RATING: 2 Keys          RESULT:  Loss          REMAINING: X:XX

Ditch your bags at the hostel and head out for the night? Not when you are cuffed and trapped in a hostage situation you won’t.

After a long road trip you and your friends are desperate to find somewhere to stay. You come across an old, creepy looking hostel and decide to enter but you are taken hostage. What a mistake that was! You now find yourself locked up. You have 60 minutes to escape.

The thrill of a trip can lead to limitless possibilities of fun and adventure. What better than a band of buddies on the open road who are able to twist and turn and modify their schedule to whatever comes their way. Heard about a beach party? Let’s go. Chance of an epic hike to a stunning location? Just need to pack a bag.

A traveler’s life often involves a daily hunt for a place to lay your head for the night, though. What a drag. More time stressing over accommodation means less time for fun. Sometimes it’s best to take the first place that comes along and be done with it…..and sometimes that is a major mistake. And so it is that a merry group arrive at the Hostage Hostel – a place that nobody would want to stick around (and surely one with a name that would mean nobody would want to book!)

City Mazes’ website advises that this adventure will take place in a warehouse and to dress appropriately – including sturdy footwear.  Upon arrival it becomes clear that the venue is more portakabin than warehouse. The run down nature of the place is entirely in-keeping with a hostage hostel theme, at least.

The hostel itself is certainly dilapidated and has uneven floors. Wind can blow in from under one wall and there are dirty mattresses and ripped sofas in rooms lined with corrugated metal. The effect of presenting a squalid environment has been achieved with seemingly very little effort given the starting material. This is a dirty unpleasant environment – for real.

Another quirk here is the fact that upon arrival at the hostel, guests are handcuffed together in pairs. Captors must reasonably believe that this will lessen chances of escape from their lair. What is gained in immersion here, however, is perhaps lost through the fact that people in other rooms can be heard throughout the experience.

This is where things fall down. There are logical leaps aplenty in the puzzles at work in Hostage Hostel and it is not that easy to get assistance.

Upon entry, guests are told that they are on their own for the first 15 minutes and that after that they will be able to engage the help of a gamemaster via a walkie talkie – quite why the hostages have a walkie talkie to the outside world is never really addressed.  Just the same, should anybody be stuck on the first puzzle for a quarter of an hour, then stuck they will be.

Once past the first puzzle, adventurers find themselves faced with what are, to be fair, quite varied puzzles. The trouble is that many of them involve logical leaps that most visitors will not be able to make without a little help. Once help becomes available, any requests for assistance can expect to be greeted with an inquiry as to what stage has been reached. It is quite clear that nobody is watching or checking on progress attained.There isn’t anybody there to rescue teams from situations than can often turn escape game experiences sour.

The concept is good here, but the execution is poor. City Mazes Bristol might have been able to get away with using a rundown venue for a game set in a squalid location if that was the only issue. The problem is that it is not. When you combine uber-difficult puzzles with a gamemaster system that ensures that participants are not being monitored at all times, trouble is being asked for. Anybody new to escape games that stumbles across this path may be put off the phenomenon with no return. Teams of experienced hard core puzzlers may fare better, but will inevitably still find some degree of frustration.

An example of this could be the handcuffs. It’s something a bit different, sure; there is an element of thrill to the additional complication. However, some hostel guests will face the challenge of going through the whole encounter cuffed to their partner and needing to overcome all of the inherent complications of required cooperation and communication that this will entail. When they emerge into the lobby at the end, they will then find that this had been wholly unnecessary had they realized one small detail some many minutes before. Couldn’t the gamemaster have provided a subtle but crucial hint?

This game has potential. However, one gamemaster covering three rooms is going to be tough on all involved – especially when there are a handful of puzzles which will usually require assistance. With a better gamemaster system of one person overseeing each room, there would be much less potential for negative experiences in the Hostage Hostel. Add in a few puzzle tweaks and this experience could be much improved.

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Venue: City Mazes

Location: Bristol, UK

Number of Games: 5

GAME SPECIFIC INFORMATION:

Duration: 60 minutes

Capacity: 10 people

Group Type: Private  / You will not be paired with strangers.

Cost: Prices vary by group size starting from £25 per person.