Mr Copplestone's Curiosity Shoppe

Today we are using the magic of Escape Rooms to travel to Chapel Street, 1873.

"Mr Copplestone aka “The Professor” is an inventor. His greatest invention is the world’s first time machine, built so he could travel through space and time to find interesting objects and life saving potions to sell in his curiosity shoppe.
The time machine is powered by Time Echo Crystals, these crystals are rare and only a small quantity exist in the world. Without them the time machine won't work.
Such a precious commodity must be stored & guarded carefully to ensure the future of time travel can continue. There's just one problem with that - Mr Copplestone!
He may be a genius, but he's the most forgetful man you could ever meet. This morning when he opened his box of Time Echo Crystals he found only one left inside, where could he have put them?
Mr Copplestone and his wife Margaret live on Chapel Street in the year 1873. We can't rely on Mr Copplestone finding the missing crystals alone so if you're brave enough to jump into his time machine and use the last remaining crystal we have to head to 1873 you could save the future of time travel.
However the time entry vortex is weak and can only stay open for one hour, get back inside before it closes and bring any crystals you find with you so we can keep them safe back in the future ready for our next time travelling adventure."

Who was the Game Master?

We were greeted by our host, Elaine, who led us into the time machine, gave us our safety briefing and a small rundown of our mission. Elaine then passed us over to Mr Copplestone himself, who introduced us to the time machine and then sent us back through time!

What was the story?

We were sent back to 1873 and only had 60 minutes before the time machine zoomed back to present day. Our mission was to collect at least 8 Time Echo Crystals that Mr Copplestone left behind on his last trip to 1873 .If we had time, we needed to continue looking for more crystals to ensure that the time machine could continue to work for future time travel missions!

How were clues and remaining time communicated?

The ever so helpful I.R.I.S was there to assist us if we needed any clues, with a simple "IRIS, help please?" she would kick into action, compute our request then provide us with vital information to assist with our mission.

The time machine displayed a clock that counted down from 60 minutes- this was good as we had sight of the time when we wanted to check on progress, but it wasn't in our faces at all times , which can sometimes be an overwhelming distraction.

What was the room like?

As we entered, we were in awe of what we could see. We really had been transported back in time, to an incredible set which quite literally looked like a street in 1873. The room was so immersive and detailed, we looked down the street and didn't know where to start (due to our sheer excitement).

We took a stroll down Chapel Street and tried to find a starting place. There were a couple of boxes with padlocks on the floor in the street so we made a start of these, one looked self explanatory, the other took longer than it should have to work out. These had provided us with some crystals and other necessary items.

Once we had reinstated the Quantum Key Replicator, we were provided with a key to Mr Copplestone's Curiosity Shoppe! So we ran down the beautiful street, to the shop and unlocked the door.

As we walked in we were confronted with a whole other host of puzzles to work out, again the room was filled with so much detail and it felt like you were truly in a ye olde shoppe. We came across a set of shelves that were filled with boxes that needed opening, so we got to work on each of these.

This room took up the majority of our time running back and forth from the shop to other areas where there were clues. We also spent a fair amount of time running back to the time machine to horde our crystals together! We were so immersed in the game that we forgot that we had to return to the time machine by the end of our 60 minutes. Thankfully, IRIS gave us a helpful reminder of the time that was left, so we scurried back to the time machine- just in time so as not to be stuck in 1873 forever....or at least until 1st January 1874. The door of the time machine slowly closed, like something out of Indiana Jones, and we placed our crystals in the box and took a deep breath.

This escape room experience was amazing, the design of the entire area was faultless, the puzzles were all challenging but flowed really well, there were no time thief puzzles and we were able to either work together or split up to do the puzzles (which we did countless times). There were a large variety of puzzles with all different padlocks to open including directional, letter, number and colour coding.

How did we do?

We collected what we needed to plus more, we collected 15 Time Echo Crystals and got back to the time machine with 10 seconds to spare. This was great, but we wanted more, so much so that we booked a return visit when we got back to the car for the following Saturday- look out for the blog of our return visit soon!

Date Played: 02/01/2023

Ratings

Difficulty: 4/5
Atmosphere: 5/5
Puzzles: 5/5

Overall Rating: 4.5/5

The was an unforgettable escape experience, the primary objective is more than obtainable, even for newbies. It is worth a visit as you get the full hour even if you have completed it!

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