Excalibur
12 April 2025
Escape Hunt Leeds
4.0 out of 5.0 stars
During my short trip to Leeds, I had to try one of Escape Hunt’s rooms. We chose the Excalibur theme, and what a fun room this one was! There won’t be any spoilers in this review, but definitely a few mentions of game mechanics, sequence of events, and nods towards particular puzzles, so proceed with caution.
The journey starts in a small-ish castle hallway. We played as a team of two, so had plenty of room to move around. For larger teams, this might be a bit difficult to navigate at first. There are six puzzles to solve here in the first room, all revolving around the knights of the round table. There is a large round shield on the door with the coat of arms of King’s entourage. Six of these crests are missing and need to be won through puzzles and sorted according to a poem that is given in clues throughout the room.
Each individual puzzle is themed perfectly to represent the myths and legends around these people, fully immersing players in the storyline. Some of the poems around the room are a little hard to read due to low lighting and a font that isn’t very dyslexia friendly, but we managed well and swiftly proceeded to the second room, Merlin’s magical quarters, arranged around a locked cage that holds Excalibur in solid stone. To open the cage, a series of magic themed puzzles need to be solved.
All the props and the theming on the room are designed extremely well, tying perfectly into the legends and the aesthetic one would expect for a King Arthur themed room.
There’s a great variety of puzzles to be tackled, and they can be solved in any order. Merlin’s magic tome keeps track of which puzzles have been solved and gives rough hints of what needs doing through a magical poem.
Finally, once the cage is opened and players are facing the ultimate task of pulling the legendary sword from the stone, there is one more task to tackle before the team can emerge victorious.
We managed to complete the room in 40 minutes and 35 seconds, hitting second place of April’s high scoring teams just a minute behind first place. We really enjoyed the room and the wide variety of puzzles that appeal to many different skills. Overall, a really fun medium difficulty room with beautiful props and a whole lot to explore!
