Escape Rooms in Bristol – The Best Bristol Escape Rooms
Gone are the days of stag dos, hen dos, corporate team-building days and big birthdays being celebrated with just a slap-up meal and a few drinks: now the focus is firmly on adventure and experience, making memories to last for many years to come.
Emerging trends amongst those looking to do something a little different and have a bonding experience for one of these occasions or a similar one is escape rooms – and those looking for an escape room in Bristol, the choices couldn’t be more plentiful!
What is West Country Games?
West Country Games embraces all the stereotypes of the West Country in one great day out, comprising of 9 totally hilarious games suitable for all sorts of groups.
If you have an upcoming, Stag do, Hen Weekend, Birthday Party or Team Building Day, then why not give us a try?
Choosing your Bristol Escape Room...
Escape rooms first gained popularity in the early 00s across Asia and Europe but quickly hit commercial success across the world and spread to North America and the Middle East too. Designed originally as family-friendly activities focused on problem-solving, they usually come in the format of a themed room or rooms that require a group of people to work together to ‘escape’.
Through the solving of a series of puzzles, the team can work through the stages of the activity and finally gain a code or method with which they can leave. This is usually done against the clock (often in sessions of an hour or 90 mins) and those who are able to leave the room in the set time are declared winners; with their time of escape displayed in a league table compared to other parties who have attended.
In reality, escape rooms aren’t actually locked and there is usually a games-keeper on-site at all times. If participants become ‘stuck’ on a puzzle, there’s often a method with which to feed them hints to keep the game going, and of course, if the group are unable to complete the puzzles in the time frame, the games-keeper releases them from site.
Top Bristol Escape Rooms
Escape rooms are actually based on the gaming genre of ‘escape the room’ which were initially Flash-based games for PC web browsers before the advent of smartphone and apps upon them. In these games, players must locate clues and objects within a single room or building and solve puzzles based on them. Similar formats that struck mainstream attention appear in various TV gameshows including The Crystal Maze, The Adventure Game, Knightmare and Fort Bovard.
Today, there’s a variety of different types of escape room; for differing audiences and different types of gameplay. These include gameplay featuring word puzzles, substitution cyphers, riddles, Sudoku, mathematical problems, jigsaw puzzles, matchstick puzzles, chess, or searching or assembling a physical product. Escape rooms, dependent on their theme, can also be known as riddle rooms, puzzle rooms, escape game or exit room.
For those in or visiting the West Country, there’s lots of choice for escape rooms in Bristol. Alongside a city bustling with great places to visit, eat and drink, it’s easy to make a great day, weekend or even week away full of memorable activities and mischief for all ages and appetites of your group!
Locked In A Room
Locked In A Room is a chain escape room in Bristol that also has locations in Exeter, London, Milton Keynes and Southampton. This venue has four different rooms, each with varying themes. The first is Infinity, where players must scramble to avoid a Professor’s laboratory from melting down and destroying all life on Earth.
As interns of the Professor’s greatest enemy, you may feel conflicted in your loyalties: but mankind must prevail! Parallax sees participants strive to rescue a time-travelling super genius through his last known location, the Parallax Military Bunker. But of course, security is at an all-time high so they must bypass protocol and be fast about it.
Jungle encourages players to retrieve the landscape’s most dangerous treasure as they discover it has been failed by a secret agent, and A Grand Way Out is the first ever Wallace & Gromit themed escape room! Wallace has forgotten the code to his workshop but with the help of the Memory-O-Matic helmet, participants will help him remember.
Infinity and Parallax available as a multi-player experience across all four rooms for larger groups looking to compete at the same puzzles. Locked In A Room allows players of all ages (including babies!) but anyone under 14 must be accompanied by a responsible adult.
Bristol Escape Rooms (Currently Closed)
Bristol Escape Rooms is a centrally located escape room in Brisol themed on ‘Operation Omega’. Participants form a counter-espionage team to disarm a nuclear device armed by ex-KGB agents; with just 60 minutes to stop the destruction.
Using real counter-espionage techniques and unique puzzles, this delivers a really intense Bristol escape room experience – but does have a games master on hand at all times to help as required. There are two difficulty levels available, so even if you’ve played Operation Omega before, you can go back and try again!
Bristol Escape Rooms caters for a maximum of six players at a time, but they can be of any age providing an appropriate adult is on site at all times. They do note that several of their most successful teams are a mix of children and adults, so you may wish to vary the ages of those involved.
Escape Hut
Escape Hut is a chain Bristol escape room, with sites in 19 locations across the UK. With four escape rooms run by expert games-masters, you’ll find something for everyone at this venue. Whovians will love the Doctor Who Bristol escape room ‘When World’s Collide’, which sees participants enter the offices of ChronosCorp HQ, where they must repair a tear in the fabric of space and time to avoid the Cybermen coming through and attacking Earth to invade.
History buffs will enjoy ‘Our Finest Hour’, which transforms players to MI6 agents in wartime year 1943, ready to locate and destroy Nazi superweapons in order to protect the continent. In ‘The Fourth Samurai’, players are based in ancient Japan and are primed to defeat the evil warlord Tanaka Masamune who is protected by an powerful curse held in the magic stone of his sword.
Finally, ‘Blackbeard’s Sword’ sees pirates serving Captain Blackbeard defect and help themselves to his treasures before jumping ship – but the cabin door has jammed shut and sharks are circling hungrily!
Escape Hut permits players aged 8+ but everyone under 18 must be accompanied by a parent or guardian. Games last 60 mins as standard and all rooms are wheelchair accessible but due to space constraints it’s generally recommended that there are no more than two wheelchair users per group. All rooms are suitable for between 2-6 players.
Riddlr Bristol
Riddlr Bristol escape rooms is the city’s #1 ranked escape game activity on TripAdvisor and Google at time of writing! Riddlr boasts four escape rooms in Bristol city centre and one play-at-home game.
The horror-themed room Séance sees players investigate the disappearance of paranormal investigator Clarissa Stubbs. Retracing her steps and performing a séance is critical to awaken the same phantoms she did the night she vanished; but is by no means easy.
The Wizard’s Apprentice is a favourite amongst Harry Potter fans and finds participants to track down Professor Harry Halfsickle who has been kidnapped by dark witch Dharma Deceptrix! Wizarding students must locate him and bring him back without getting trapped into another portal themselves, too.
Nautilus finds players locked in the brig of a submarine with a missing captain, stalled engines and rapidly-running-out oxygen supplies, and Decade Runner immerses participants in the 1980s to face a Zoltar machine, direct Pac Man and answer Zork troll’s riddles. Riddlr’s play-at-home game can be downloaded and printed to play anywhere and includes similar puzzles and engaging narratives for those looking to join in without leaving the comfort of their sofa!
Riddlr warn that their Bristol escape rooms do include flashing lights. Rooms are suitable for players aged 13+ but a responsible adult will need to be on the premises for anyone younger than 18.
Puzzlair (Currently Closed)
Puzzlair escape rooms in Bristol present five narratives for players: The Room of Al Capone, The Fortress, The Secret Agent Room, The Poltergeist and The Prison Van. Whether you’re battling ghosts, cracking codes, investigating investigators or negotiating with gangsters, you can be sure of a great day out when you work as a team. All rooms take 60 minutes and are mentally challenging rather than physically.
Puzzlair warn that all of their Bristol escape rooms bar The Prison Van are family friendly, although minors will need to accompanied by a parent or guardian. Puzzlair can amend some of their games to accommodate those who don’t speak fluent English, and are happy to work with surprise visits to scenario-set for those who don’t know where or what they’re doing!
Clue HQ
Clue HQ's Bristol escape rooms have three activities for players; each suitable for up to six players and lasting 60 mins. In Bunker 38, players are granted one hour to find their way out of the underground bunker they’ve been living in for years due to a radiation leak. Now the air outside is believed to be clean, it’s time to resurface: but the lock isn’t working and oxygen levels are running low.
In The Betrayal of Cluetankhamun, a long lost tomb has been uncovered but the party sent to unearth the Cluetan Crystal from it have disappeared. It’s now time to send a new expedition in to retrieve the jewel. In A-I-9, a world with robots integrated into society exists – but it seems that the AI peacekeeping program has failed and as a result, the 9bots are set to destroy humankind. Can they be saved?!
Clue HQ advise that one player from each team must be able to safely crawl for both Bunker 38 and The Betrayal of Cluetankhamun in order to complete the game. Anyone over 7 is welcome to play but games are ideally only suited for those aged 10+. Players aged 16 or under must be accompanied by a paying adult.
Escape Rooms Bristol
Escape Rooms Bristol offer three toe-curlingly terrifying horror-themed rooms that are sure to spook. The most popular, Hell In A Cellar, follows a serial killer known as Pig Face who is on the run as the police discover his lair. Now forced to the confines of a cellar below a disused theatre, he strives to possess his latest victim’s skin… and you must escape.
The Execution follows Pig Face as he discovers a portal to another dimension in the same cellar, which leads straight to an execution chamber in a dystopian society; and The Ward eerily finds players waking up in a hospital ward remembering nothing and faced with a Doctor who kidnaps new subjects for experiments.
Escape Rooms Bristol are horror-themed and purport to be some of the scariest escape room experiences in the country. As a result, their games are recommended for those aged 18+ but those aged 12+ may be accommodated with prior consultation. A maximum of 10 in a group are suited best to these rooms but players should note that none of the facilities are wheelchair accessible.
