Have you ever wondered what it would be like to step into the 41st millenium and try to escape what can only be described as your certain doom should you not be able to cooperate properly? Well now you can stop thinking things like; ‘What would it be like?’ and ‘Just how dirty and grim is the far future?’ and truly experience the wonderfully gripping story that is: Immaterium.
Housed at the Nottingham based escape room experts at Escapologic, Immaterium sees you take the role of passengers aboard a trader ship, Evadere The Tempestas which is on course to holy Terra. Nearly a year ago now, we sent Ben and Ceri to go and check out the escape room and see if they could survive whatever is aboard the ship…
Before we start with the review of the room there are a few things to note: Both Ben and Ceri are relatively experienced with escape rooms and their puzzles. Ben having played 20 rooms and Ceri on a tally of 12 both with 100% escape success rate before adding one more notch to their belt with this room. They are also both veteran Warhammer hobbyists who live and breathe the hobby. Finally, to respect the skill, time and effort it takes to create an escape room we are going to make general comments on the experience here, nothing specific so you can truly experience the room as it was intended.
Now. Onto the real meat of the review.
How we review an escape room
For this review we are going to give you a score out of 10 for each of the following four categories:
Difficulty
This is an assessment of how complex we felt the room was, 10 being almost impossible to finish and 1 being like a 4-piece jigsaw puzzle.
Puzzles
The ‘puzzles’ category is our opinion at the quality of puzzles across the entire of the room. Things that effect this are: quantity vs complexity of puzzles (If there are 2 puzzles, were they long enough to fill the time with enough steps), the general build quality of the puzzles (were there any breakages not caused by us and did they work as expected) and were the puzzles enjoyable or just frustrating?
Theming
Lastly we have theming. Each and every escape room we look at going forward will have an assessment on how well the theming of the room matches what we expected. The quality of the furniture and story assets etc.
Use of Space
Companies that host escape rooms are always having to get the most out of their space so they can have the most rooms possible in their available floor space. This rating will be based on how well we feel the use of space was, no wide open spaces for no reason, not overly cramped and squished without reason.
Scores on the doors!
Difficulty
We gave the difficulty of the room a 5. This will be challenging to the newer escapees but not to the more experienced veterans. Where the real difficulty came from for us, was not getting distracted by the stunning surroundings, but more on that in the theming section.
The individual puzzles, like in most of the Escapologic games are wonderfully linear in their nature so you get a real sense of achievement after you finish each puzzle and unlock the next. Immaterium holds nothing back when it comes to this. Inherently though when you think about the task at hand it’s relatively easy to find the solution.
Puzzles
The puzzles you can find aboard Evadere The Tempestas are made exceptionally, the build quality is phenominal as always and there was never a point where we felt like we could or had broken something or that something wasn’t going to function as intended.
The variation of physical puzzles that require you to move objects into place and not just enter digits on a keypad are awesome. There are some puzzles where you can do them on your own which means people could be left looking for things to do in a larger group, but in 2-3 people groups you’ll be absolutely fine. An element of communication across levels might also be required so make sure you bring a good set of lungs!
Theming
If you love Warhammer you’ll love this room. You will notice things you may have in your collection at home and, if you are like Ben and Ceri, you’ll be planning ways to possibly recreate a miniature version of the escape room at home! The atmospheric audio effects that Escapologic put into every single one of their rooms is always immersive and this is no different, there was a true sense of threat when there needed to be and a sense of satisfaction as and where it was needed.
We will give you one sneak peak here, at some point along your journey you’ll be presently met by the friendly neighbourhood servitor who will help guide you and give you hints if you need them. Making this be the way the players get their hints and help just further bolster the theming present in the room.
Use of Space
Stunning. The amount of space that this room is built in is used stunningly. Even with bulky bits of set dressing, they are used to help you experience places in the room you may not have expected. With different levels and rooms to explore this room feels a lot larger than it actually is.
Final Thoughts
If you love Escape Rooms and Warhammer, get yourself down to Escapologic and go and play this room. In fact, if you just like Warhammer OR Escape Rooms get on down. The staff, as always, were welcoming, friendly and kind which is key to making sure you have the best experience possible from start to finish.
