The Bishop's Stortford Escape Rooms provide an eerie gaming experience

The Bishop's Stortford Escape Rooms, set in the Woodside Industrial Estate, is the town's newest immersive gaming experience. A team from the Stortford Independent went along to have a go. Cat Barkley reports.

On their Facebook page, the Bishop’s Stortford Escape Rooms team boast that they have poured an enormous amount of effort into their game design and builds, and this is immediately obvious the moment you set foot in the door of the ‘Fabulous Eerie Motel’ escape room.

There are USA flags littered around the counter and an array of memorabilia hammered to the walls. Stained wood is everywhere - from the floor to the ceiling - exactly as you would expect to see in a film set. The team have gone to every effort to allow their gamers to fully suspend their disbelief.

At the beginning, games master, Sammy Howard, plays a video for us on a retro television to give us the back story. We are told that while two criminals, Miles and Judith Russell, were on the run from the Mafia, the couple concealed a stolen diamond somewhere in the ‘Fabulous Eerie Motel’. We have broken into the lobby to try to find it. We have one hour.

Before the video had ended, we were itching to solve the mystery and explore the intricately designed escape room.

I won’t say a lot more, because I don’t want to give the game away, but I can safely say that the entire Indie gang – media campaign managers Hayley Isaac and Dawn Robinson, social media manager, Ellie Banahan, commercial manager, Matt Drummond, and myself – had a brilliant time.

Between the five of us, we had plenty of puzzles to solve and there was never a dull moment. Sammy and Tom Hazton, the site manager, could hear plenty of squeals coming from the rooms throughout the game.

It was a fantastic team building experience. Throughout the 51 minutes and 83 seconds (we found the diamond with eight minutes and 17 seconds to spare) we had a lot of laughs while overcoming problems as a group.

Equally, I can see why this game would make a great family day out – I fully intend to bring my nine-year-old nephew along next time. The best part is, there are two other games to choose from - a 1945 murder mystery and, from November 24, a Christmas-themed mission.

To find out more about the Bishop’s Stortford Escape Rooms, visit www.bishopsstortfordescaperooms.co.uk/