Following an abortive attempt at Spellcraft and success in Dodge City, we still had one room left to play at Tulleys Farm – their hardest room, Nethercott Manor!
Ahead of our booking, the team suggested that we book the 90 minute experience for Nethercott, rather than the normal 60 minutes. We decided to take them up on the offer – after all, we’re here to complete the room, not set records!
Nethercott Manor
The old manor house is entwined with local legend, the living don’t remember the Nethercott’s, the family’s hay day was long ago. Local folk talked, whispers were heard, rumours began, lights were seen within.
The Nethercotts are long gone but something remains, an essence, a smell, a feeling, it’s in the fabric, in the walls, under the floor boards … it ticks, it creeks … take a trip into the past, uncover the family’s many secrets and glimpse their fleeting souls?
~ Nethercott Manor, Tulleys Farm
Theming
This is probably the largest escape room I’ve ever done. The set was enormous, and every time you thought you had run out of places to explore, another door opened. It’s truly a manor house hidden inside an escape room centre!
I believe Nethercott Manor is one of Tulleys older rooms, and in some places the wearing is starting to show. The Manor is supposed to be dilapidated, but not all of the decay seems to be intentional.
Although not explicitly a horror room, there are definitely some uneasy elements within the room, including the odd mild jump scare.
One of the full things about this room is that everything – from the welcome briefing to the in-game finale – was done within the room and as part of the experience.
Puzzles
Puzzles abound, and we were incredibly grateful for the extra time on the clock. As I mentioned, the set was extensive, and each room was full of its own mysteries. Like all Tulley rooms, this is a very branching experience, and there were literally separate rooms where another person on the team would go away, solve a bunch of puzzles and return with a knickknack to add to our central collection.
Unfortunately there were one or two moments where the resolution to a puzzle, such as a drawer being unlocked, wasn’t immediately obvious upon completion. Generally there were sound cues to clue you in, but in some places these were missing or not as obvious as they should have been.
The grand finale puzzle involved some guesswork on our parts. Based on the explanation from the room’s GM, it sounds like it is intended to be solved without guessing, but the logic he explained wasn’t clear to us, and it also required you to remember where within the game you found certain components, which is harder in the heat of the moment than you might think.
Overall, there were tons of fascinating, intellectually stimulating puzzles to solve.
I will take a moment to mention that Tulleys seems to pride itself on having rooms which only a small percentage escape on the first attempt, which is counter to my own view that the best designed escape rooms have 90% of teams escaping within the last 10 minutes. While it is exciting to have so much packed in, it would be very upsetting to have booked for the 60 minute experience and only have seen 80% of the room. I think they should make this room 90-minutes as standard.
Summary
An excellent room that only fades a little compared to how outstanding Dodge City was. However, please book the 90 minute experience and do not attempt if you’re inexperienced at escape rooms, as you will likely fail to escape.
Theming: 5/5 | Puzzles: 4.5/5 | Difficulty: 5/5
Clue system: in-character voice over
Success?: yes, less than 20 minutes to go (extended 90 minutes room)
