Key Info
- Crawley, West Sussex, England
- 60 Minute Game
- 2 - 7 Players
- Escape Rate not Stated
- £31 Per Player
- Nearby Pay & Display
- 8/10 Difficulty
We Escaped In
41 minutes 59 Seconds
- Pete, Nate, Meg, Smithy
- March 2022
Room Brief
How will you behave under observation?
Civilians are going missing. Rumour has it that they are being experimented on at an abandoned soviet facility. Anyone who points the blame on the higher ups vanishes the next day, now you’re next up to disappear from society. Lucky for you though, your captor has other plans. Go along with it, and help them expose the authorities before you become just another disappearance.
Immersion
Pete
Nate
Meg
Smithy
The South East of England has become something of a haven for well executed and innovative escape rooms. When there are so many critically acclaimed experiences in your local vicinity, its a bold move to open your own experience within a short drive from so many well established and loved games. Yet, holding its own in the middle of Crawley is Hounds Escape experiences, which currently offers up two escape games and is in development of two more. This is a small family run operation, however you’d be forgiven for thinking these guys are part of something much larger with the quality of what they have achieved.
Whilst waiting in the bar/reception area, our eyes were drawn to the back left area of the room which houses the entrance to the game we were about to play, Questionable Ethics. Whereas most of this holding area feels very classy and modern, the walls around this particular part of the room are clinical and covered in graffiti. After a few moments waiting, Nikolai (AKA Arnold), our inside man, walks through one of the doors and summons us to the entrance in his best Russian Accent. He outlines the role we play in his master plan to expose the authorities and leads us to our experiment room.
The game room itself continues the dystopian theme that is hinted in the waiting area. Every wall is finished with clinical white tiles and the room is intentionally sparse. In some rooms this can feel like an oversight but with the theme in this game it works perfectly. We could see so many indicators that we were being watched which sounds a bit strange as an escape room enthusiast as we know this is always the case. However small black hidden cameras in this room are replaced by in your face CCTV and surprisingly we were a bit unnerved! Our confidence was occasionally shattered by the feedback of the rooms AI, which made for a few laughs! All the while atmospheric sounds are playing through the speaker system to really build a sense of immersion.
As our escape from the facility progressed we were greeted with areas that felt very different to the start point which increasingly nodded to the 60’s soviet era laboratory vibe. Even the opening room held a few surprises for us as we neared escape. The decor through the rest of the game was high tech but absolutely in keeping with what we would have expected to see at the time, think basic computing and retro control panels! This incredible quality of set build was maintained throughout the game and leads to an absolutely amazing finale which generated panic and urgency in our group. Outstanding!
Puzzles & Challenges
Pete
Nate
Meg
Smithy
Questionable Ethics is very much a game of two parts when it comes to the scenario and how this translates into gameplay. It’s worth noting though that the first phase is much shorter than the more intense break out objective.
Our first mission was to “play along” with the rooms experiments and prove ourselves by passing the tests inside the lab. The challenges in this section of the game have a very “Crystal Maze” feel to them. Whilst we have come across these sorts of logical, spatial and dexterity puzzles before, they have tended to be in isolation. We’ve come across similar puzzles before, usually in isolation, as puzzles designed to eat into time. By their nature they aren’t particularly difficult to solve but usually trigger a ridiculous amount of overthinking. On their own in other rooms these puzzles can be something of an annoyance but in this space and within this scenario they work well to set the scene.
After successfully completing our testing the game switches to escape mode and now all our attention is directed to figuring a way out. As a result of this change in objective the puzzles started to step up a notch and required a bit more brain power. We were also presented with a lot more to look at as the environment changed from test room to full on soviet facility. Naturally this means a lot more distractions but not too many red herrings. There was a decent variety of puzzles which involved further use of logic, observation, reasoning and even a touch of role play. All the while totally maintaining the very strong theme. Every puzzle felt considered.
The final few moments of this game are brilliant. It’s a game where the urgency to escape builds and builds to the point where escaping genuinely brought a sense of relief.
Games Master & Clues
Pete
Nate
Meg
Smithy
Were it not for the small report card we received at the end of our game, we would not have known that our Russian co-saboteur Nikolai was in fact Arnold. He was so committed to the role we still don’t know if that accent was genuine! Greeting us as comrades he did a fantastic job to set the scene and remind us of the mission we were about to embark on. He even went through the obligatory “have you seen a directional padlock before” in full character! It’s great when a GM manages to have a bit of fun with teams before they get into the room.
Inside Questionable Ethics the clue system becomes a little hybrid with a mix of our GM providing feedback when needed and the AI system sharing thoughts every now and then on what we were doing. If you imagine your Amazon Alexa growing a bit sassy you’ll not be too far off. Thankfully we didn’t require too much assistance from either in the game. When we did come across something that required a little bit of assistance, it was Nikolai and not Arnold that pointed us in the right direction in a way that sustained our immersion in the scenario. We hate having to ask for help and we also hate receiving help we don’t want so it was appreciated that we had a games master who kept a close eye on us and gave us just what we needed to progress right when we needed it.
Value for Money
Pete
Nate
Meg
Smithy
The price of an hour long experience in Questionable Ethics for a team of 2 is £31 per person. Discount is applied for every additional player and as a team of 4 we paid £27 per person. Compared to other rooms we have played this is a little bit pricier than average, though it is worth noting that prices in the South East, particularly south of the M25 do seem to command a bit of a premium. We didn’t mind paying a bit extra though as the quality of what is on offer within this game is well worth every penny. The production value is exceptional, and as we mentioned previously, we actually thought these guys were part of a much bigger operation. If the rates they charge mean we can expect more of this in the future, we’re happy to keep funding it!
Additional costs to factor in are parking if you are driving. We managed to find two reasonably priced pay and display car parks within a short walking distance to the venue which worked out at around a fiver for 2 hours.
Enjoyment
Pete
Nate
Meg
Smithy
Questionable Ethics was a fantastic Escape Room experience from start to finish. The four of us absolutely loved the immersive set and narrative that the team have created and sustained through scenario, puzzles and props. The game kept us excited right from our GM’s introduction and managed to keep building and building on its narrative to an exciting end point, managing to throw in surprises and unexpected areas again and again.
This room goes down as one of our all time favourites, not just in the UK but keeping up with some of the best games we have seen around the world.
