Following a brief hiatus from blogging, I’m back with some more blogs! Have you missed me?
Following our epic triple victory in Birmingham, Escape in Triplicate was looking for their next adventure. And where else could we consider, but the rooms considered by many to be the best in the country?
Tulleys Farm
Tulleys Escape Rooms are based just outside Crawley in Sussex, on a rural activity complex called Tulleys Farm. Beside the exceptional escape experiences, they also have pick-your-own sunflowers and pumpkins, and immersive Shocktober and Christmas activities, plus a quaint tea room.
To those of a certain hobby background, however, it’s all about the escape rooms. They regularly make top escape room lists and are spoken of with a sort of reverence in escape room online communities. They are also known as incredibly difficult rooms with a lot going on – something to challenge even escape room veterans!
I’ve done two of Tulleys’ rooms before, albeit at their other location in Hatton. The Outfitters was a truly fantastic room and Mutiny (which I didn’t blog about) was even better. As a comparison, Mutiny was ranked a 3/6 difficulty and Outfitters a 4/6. The three we had planned for this trip were a 4/6, 5/5 and a 6/6!
A note on Spellcraft
We had booked to do three rooms at Tulleys Farm, but the M25 had other plans. Due to traffic burning into our hour of contingency time, we started our first room of the visit, Spellcraft, with just 40 minutes left on the clock. We were grateful that the team let us play the room despite our tardiness and we hugely enjoyed what we did manage to see of it – around 60% of the room. But since we weren’t able to try out the entire experience, I don’t think it would be fair to write a blog post about it.
However, I would be very keen to try to finish the room off! If anyone can give me an excuse to head back towards Sussex…
This wasn’t the only aspect of the day that we didn’t leave enough contingency time for, unfortunately. We only had 30 minutes between rooms, the staff started their briefing 10 minutes ahead of the room start, and the tea room had a queue. Lunch was quite a rushed experience… if you plan to go to Tulleys to do multiple rooms, I’d suggest leaving a gap so you can refuel.
However, we did have two more rooms planned, so let’s talk about the first one of those!
Dodge City
Dodge City in 2127 remains a stronghold of the wild west. The constant tussle between the Sheriff and local gunslingers means there’s opportunity abound for some creative bank robbery for those with wits and courage.
As a member of the Notorious ‘Barn Door’ Gang you’ve been caught by the local sheriff breaking into the bank. Locked away with little hope, hired by an unnamed outlaw and facing the ruthless justice of the old west you’re left with only one option.
As the sun sets the race is on to break out, reclaim your supplies, pull off the bank job of the century and get out of Dodge City.
~ Dodge City, Tulleys Farm
Theming
I don’t think it’s an overstatement to say that theming at Tulleys is impeccable. From the overall impression to the small details, as soon as you step through the door you are 100% in Dodge City, desperate to break out of jail, grab some cash and leave town.
One of the best things about Tulleys is how expansive their sets are, and Dodge City is no different, with extra spaces popping up when you least expect them to. With just three of us in the room, there was more than enough to captivate each of us. It was especially cool when you needed to come back together as a group and you got to educate the rest of the team on the cool features of the room you’d found.
Early on in the game you are given access to one particular prop that is essential for the true Wild West experience – but it’s not just a prop!
Puzzles
This room was rated a 5/6 difficulty, and I would agree that it is one of the trickiest rooms I’ve ever done. You start the game divided into two groups, which is even more of a challenge for groups of two or three as one person is left on their own to figure things out. Certain elements of symmetry helped here, however, and we were soon reunited and able to explore the space together.
Like most Tulleys rooms, there is a mixture of inputs, including mechanical triggers, magnetic locks and all nature of padlocks. The room is incredibly branching, and during the post-game walkthrough all three of us had moments where we found out how someone else solved a puzzle we didn’t even know existed. To succeed at a Tulleys room, independent puzzle solving is a must. If you need the entire team’s brain on every puzzle, you’ll end up locked in.
Another great element of this room is the set-find elements. There were multiple parts of the room where the set design made it clear that you were looking for multiple of a certain object – bars of gold, for example. I really enjoy this sort of escalation in a room – it keeps you motivated as you see yourself get closer and closer to the end.
Summary
Spoiler for my next blog post about Nethercott Manor, but this was my favourite room of the day. The variety and scale of the puzzles, the structure of the set-up, the incredible set, not to mention the sheer satisfaction of BLANKING a BLANK… it is escape room perfection.
Theming: 5/5 | Puzzles: 5/5 | Difficulty: 5/5
Clue system: in-character voice over
Success?: yes, less than five minutes remaining
