The Executioner

• What People Say

What people say... Leave your rating

Sort by: Most recent Top score Most helpful Worst score

Be the first to leave a review.

Verified

{{{ review.rating_title }}}

{{{review.rating_comment | nl2br}}}

Show more

{{ pageNumber+1 }}

Leave your rating

The Executioner is one of the escape rooms offered by House of Tales. For the preroom experience at House of Tales please refer to the review of One Night in Hong Kong.

The Executioner takes the players back into the Dark Ages. They have to escape their imprisonment before the evil executioner returns or face their grim future as the newest victims to his axe. The executioner has taken the lives of many coming before the escapees and the corridors and rooms are filled with the voices of ghosts haunting the dungeon. Whispering their stories in hush voices they try to hint the prisoners with valuable clues. Starting from their small prison cells in a sequence of rooms the players are faced with a number of challenges on their desperate way to find a way out of their prison.

This escape room is designed with an experienced eye to detail and the quality of the components help to transport the story of imprisonment to the players in a great way. Clearly a huge amount of effort has been put into getting the interior and the decoration right. However, we want to emphasize that in parts the rooms are rather small and dark. This creates a great atmosphere but should be taken into account when deciding on this room. Furthermore, in parts the challenges require a basic level of fitness and this room might not be suited for people who do not feel comfortable to undertake very basic climbing exercises. For everyone else these elements help to foster the atmosphere, immersion, and getting into the spirit of escapees working hard to save their lives. One minor remark concerns the volume of the speakers which are used to create the ghostly voices of predecessors of the escapees as well as to tune in different sound effects and music. Sometimes the volume was simply not high enough to optimally transport the desired effects. Possibly this was done to allow a better communication between the players though. In addition, at least in our play through the initial sequence of imprisoning the players took quite long due to technical difficulties with the locking mechanisms. This is a minor point but annoying for the players locked in first, who might have to wait a relatively extended time period until the game starts. In summary, leaving aside those minor issues, the overall room quality is well above average and this is clearly a room that is maintained and designed well.

The puzzles that the imprisoned players have to solve are well-balanced, of varying difficulty, and fit well into the story that is being told. The mechanical and electrical elements worked without a flaw and helped to guide the players through their journey out of the dungeon of the executioner. We played with four escapees which worked well, although there is a minor linearity to the puzzles which tend a bit to be solved sequentially. We also believe that for two players this room might not be ideally suited due to the number of riddles to be solved. Overall, we enjoyed the puzzle design of this escape room a lot.

Regarding the story telling and the immersion we appreciated the well-created idea of the executioner returning and therefore setting a natural framework for the time pressure under which the escapees operate. The game master taking the role of a ghost haunting the dungeon and whispering clues into the ears of the players was well done and gave a natural setting to the clue-giving paradigm. However, we would have liked to see even more of those elements beyond the general high quality of the room components and the helpful ghosts. The story is an ideal setup to include scary elements or background music to further the already pretty high immersion of the players.

Overall, we enjoyed this room a lot. The puzzles are fun and diverse in their structure as well as in nature and the story is well told. We believe this room is best suited for 4-5 players given the number of puzzles to be solved. Therefore, we recommend that you check it out and escape your fate of execution.