When we were invited to Cave Escape Nottingham to try our luck and brains at their newest addition ‘The Iceman Project’, there was no question of turning such an offer down. The Nottingham independent based on Mansfield Road is already known for its Dracula themed ‘Carfax’ escape room, and ‘Monuments’, which centres around a mission to protect creative masterpieces during the Second World War, and welcomed its newest edition only five weeks ago.
Owners Nick Scott and Jennifer Gilbert Scott began the business in 2018 after being involved in building theatre and photography sets. “The building is owned by the gentleman next door and I built a photography set for his nephew once. He introduced me to this space and the caves,” Nick explains. “Earlier, we were thinking of a bar or something but then, we thought about escape rooms and we went ahead with that. It became the perfect amalgamation of everything we like - puzzles, immersive sets and exciting storylines. After all, who doesn’t love an escape room!”
The plot of The Iceman Project takes a more futuristic direction than Cave Escape’s other rooms. It’s 2052 and unsurprisingly, the world is in peril. The world government has managed to create an utopian society with no weapons of war and an aim to lower fossil fuel emissions. ‘Megameat’ is now the world’s largest corporation (I wonder what happened to Apple) and has bio-engineered a woolly mammoth back to life with some DNA changes. However that is where the danger begins, the mammoths are now out of control and the scientist researching a cure has gone missing. Appointed as the security team to figure out the cure, we were led down the steep steps into the cave.
“The narration of our stories are fundamentally about things we love. Carfax, our first game, is based on Jenny’s favourite movie and book. We wanted to tell the story of the Monuments Men, because it's a story that’s not a very well known part of the world war. The narrative for us, defines the games.”
Locked in the detention centre, we were a ragtag team of 5 slightly confused, somewhat excited colleagues who were about to be fundamentally tested on our ability to work as a team. My heart began to race in excitement just as the 55 minute countdown started. A video message ordering us to fulfil the mission welcomed us and we got to the first round of puzzles. After the initial mistakes, all of us got into a groove of finding answers. Nothing was a mistake or fluff, everything meant something. Two of us started finding clues, while the others focused on what we already knew. Luckily for us, the escape room wasn’t designed to be linear, that meant some clues helped us towards the end rather than when we found it. Some clues we solved right away, some of them took embarrassingly too long. But, proudly, the team of Leftlion managed to solve it all and make it out alive.
Some people aren’t always so lucky, but the Cave Escape team always get an interesting view on human relationships and teamwork.
“I remember a couple on their first date when we had opened. While the guy popped the loo, the girl told me that the entire game was a test and if they didn’t win, she wouldn't go out with him again. They didn’t make it out of Carfax in time and the girl bolted when the guy was in the loo,” shares Nick.
‘The Iceman Project’ was the first escape room experience for most of the team and suffice to say, all of us had a very distinct experience. Personally, I felt my inner Sherlock come out during the game - minus the high-functioning sociopathic tendencies. It’s not surprising that with so many independent escape rooms in Nottingham, the city is a well known hub for escape rooms and, according to Nick, has the highest concentration of escape rooms after London.
“I think people prefer independent escape rooms over the mass produced franchise ones that have the same puzzles or storylines,” Nick says. “We get international travellers often, people who come for the weekend and spend the entire weekend in escape rooms alone, playing almost eight games a day.”
‘The Iceman Project’ may be the latest addition but the owners have already started working on a new set of games at the ‘Judge’s Escape Emporium’, located just down the road. The building, bought by the Judges family in 1882, was known as the restaurant ‘Encounters’. The family opened several bakeries around the city and had one in the building too.
“We still have a Victorian bakery in our basement that we plan to refurbish and include in the game. Our landlady, Mrs Judge, is in her 80’s and we have had sessions with her and her family, trying to get down their family history and stories to include in the game. It brings more character to the games if they’re about real things.”
Nick hopes to open the gates of the new game around early New Year.
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