Escape room enthusiasts Alex and Jennifer Scott have tried more than 200 across the country, but thought they could do better.
Whilst on holiday in Portugal watching the sun go down on their hotel balcony in June 2018, they made the spur-of-the-moment decision to open their own.
Now three years later, they’re the proud owners of Compendium Escape Rooms - four immersive rooms of different themes, which have seen thousands of gamers flock through the doors.
The Bury attraction has been voted the best in the north and third-best in the UK, by enthusiasts at the Escape The Review directory and rating site. It also ranks top for fun and game in the borough on Tripadvisor.
So we went down to try the UI-55 game to try it out for ourselves - but did we escape?
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So how did we get on? We try UI-55
The story is that a German U-Boat named UI-55 has been found in the River Thames. Teams have to sneak aboard and retrieve all of Britain’s wealth, with the aim of collecting as much loot as possible, as well as making it out alive.
It’s not like the standard escape room where one puzzle unlocks another though.
“You collect as many puzzles as you can within the hour,” Alex explains.
“It’s a bit of a trendsetter for this gameplay as other places have started doing it this way, where you can come back and try it again."
“It’s crystal maze on steroids," he adds.
To take on the challenge, I appointed three others. And chose them wisely, as my track record shows I’m notoriously bad at escape rooms.
Entering the space was quite overwhelming, as the submarine spans across most of the building’s first floor - making it the biggest escape room I’ve ever seen.
It was an overload for the senses too - in a good way - with so much detailed set design to take in, a musky scent, and sonar beeps and water sounds giving an atmospheric touch.
It was dark, with only the glow of brightly coloured lights.
Alex gave us a quick tour, outlined the health and safety procedures, and warned us that the loo is part of the set and not to be used, which a few customers have done in the past.
He left the room and shut the door behind him, starting the countdown.
I actually felt quite nervous at this point, as we were submerged into what felt like the unknown.
The huge space is split into different areas filled top to bottom with puzzles - 30 to be exact - so it was hard to know where to start. We split up to see what we could find, and set to work.
There were tinned rations dotted about, a camp bed, helmets and gas masks, and numerous lockers - with so many items it made you question the purpose of every single one.
Unlike standard escape rooms, what was helpful was that if you were stuck on something, you could quickly move on and find something else to tackle.
But this made it feel like absolute mayhem at times, as we individually frantically moved about the submarine looking for opportunities to crack codes.
Some puzzles were simple, involving a box of dominoes left by sailors, to the more complex, involving morse code.
They were all in keeping with the theme, and some clever electronic switchboard designs also featured.
Each one provided a four-digit code, which then you had to input into a keypad on one of the walls, releasing a token if correct.
The next step was to use these tokens to retrieve sets of keys hidden inside plastic balls from an arcade claw machine, which was an added bit of fun, but could mean further frustration for some.
Once the ball rolled out of the machine, you then had to run to the other side of the submarine to open the numbered locker matching the key, where the loot was stored, before placing it securely in the duffel bag.
If we were stuck, Alex, Jen, and staff member Luke, who were watching us on camera, were on hand to give us pointers on the screen.
This also let us know how long we had left - with the oxygen level lowering from 99.9 per cent as the time went on.
Thanks to our expert in claw machines, we managed to collect as much loot as possible - 52 bags - which meant although we still had puzzles left to find, we didn’t need to keep going as there were no more keys to obtain.
Alex then revealed the code to the second to last step, the crystal maze room. I had to crawl into a glass box where silver tickets were blown into the air, clawing the grates beneath me to gather and stuff as many of the tiny pieces of paper I could through two holes.
This then released the final puzzle for us to gain the exit door code - where we escaped with just 40 seconds on the clock remaining.
Seeing a smiling Alex on the other side gave us all a huge sense of relief and had us cheering with joy that we'd made it.
We left the escape room with the highest possible score of 52 bags of loot, making us one of only 29 groups to make it out at this level - which I can definitely put down to the puzzle-solving brains of my teammates.
The pressure throughout was intense as it was easy to get wrapped up in the world Alex and Jen had created, with so much to uncover. We all really enjoyed ourselves and the enthusiasm and passion given off by the friendly owners made the experience even better.
They really do know their stuff.
“It was a hobby and now it’s my full-time job,” Alex, 36, says.
“We were on holiday in Portugal sat on the balcony chatting, and thought let’s just do it.”
The three-storey building on Crompton Street is a maze in itself, and Alex believes it was once a register office for marriage certificates owned by Bury Council.
“Which is ironic with the number of domestics we see in our escape rooms,” he laughs.
The couple spend months building the escape rooms from scratch, and are currently in the process of creating a new room - Back to the '80s - set to open in May.
They take influence from their favourite films, with the first to open in October 2018 - Wrong Turn - inspired by Texas Chainsaw Massacre.
Laboratory was introduced in January 2019 as a family-friendly offering, where groups need to find a secret remedy to cure a deadly disease, and Bedlam followed in August of the same year, which sees players act as journalists tasked with uncovering the secrets behind Cell P23 of Bentham Asylum.
In lockdown 2021, they spent six months building the make-shift submarine for the top-rated UI-55, whilst Alex also delivered for Tesco and Amazon so they could keep paying their rent.
The UI-55 is ideal for larger groups, and can be played with up to 12 people. The more people in a group the cheaper the escape room is, with prices starting at £39 for a team of two.
For more information, head to https://www.compendiumbury.co.uk/
For more information on Escape The Review's leaderboard, head to their website here https://escapethereview.co.uk/map/
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