15 January 2024
Escape Newcastle is Newcastle upon Tyne’s premier escape rooms company, locked in a mysterious room with 60 minutes to get out, do you have what it takes to escape? With 9 themes and escape challenges to choose from across a city centre and The Gate location, there is plenty of excitement, puzzles and stories to complete. As they are part of a wider group, Escape have over 50 escape rooms operating their brand in the UK, with many others under different banners and franchisees. Since opening in May 2014, they have taken the escape industry by storm and become the largest operator of escape rooms in the country!
Also you can find the Game of Throwing at Escape Newcastle which is an exciting new experience in the axe throwing world. Starting with 4 locations in 2021, they now have 9 locations in the UK with more expected in the near future including in Scotland, Ireland and across the world. Created by the same masterminds of Escape, you can now take on affordable axe throwing, even some include augmented reality, for a new family entertainment option to spruce up your spare time in a thrilling way.
In our review, you can find more on The Arcade, a back to the 80’s retro escape room and how we got on escaping. Plus, we trial out the Game of Throwing augmented reality lanes and see how this compares to other axe throwing.
Escape Newcastle – The Arcade
Starting with Escape Newcastle, we experienced The Arcade which takes the story of playing the arcade game “Time Jump”, which suddenly has a power surge sending you back to 1987 and leaving you an hour to find your way back to the future before you are trapped in the past. It has a 53% pass rate and ideal for 2-6 players. As one of the multiple rooms they have on offer, this room took our interest as a unique theme and story compared to your typical themes like prisons, bank robberies and magic based rooms.
To play The Arcade or any of the Escape Newcastle rooms, it starts from £25 per player for 2 people through to £18 per player if 6 people are playing, so the more players, the cheaper it is per person. We believe a team of 4 is ideal in most escape rooms and The Arcade follows the same suit, with enough puzzles and gameplay for everybody across the 60 minutes you have to escape. With a 53% successful escape room, the room has its challenges but has plenty of fun and simple puzzles too.
We managed to play with two of us taking on the challenge and with our previous escape room experience, we managed to complete this room in just over 49 minutes!
The Arcade – Rating & Favourite Moments
Theming & Storyline – 8/10 – We loved The Arcade theme and how they have linked the retro 80s style with a colourful theme of the room, with quirky neon lights and fun symbols of well known games throughout the room. It was simple enough to enjoy and not get too lost in the story, with our favourite pieces of theming being the arcade machines throughout the escape.
Puzzles & Flow – 7/10 – The puzzles were a nice mixture of electronic and new style but with a few keys and padlock styled challenges thrown in for good measure. This kept it with the electronic vibe they are trying to portray but not gone too futuristic for an 80’s based room. We flowed really well in the first part of the experience and with only a few hold up moments, got a great completion time!
Uniqueness – 8/10 – The Arcade is a theme we have rarely seen in the UK and we love taking on rooms that are not your average. They have provided an experience which follows suit from puzzles and story and if you’re a fan of video games, the 80s, stranger things and so on, then you would equally love The Arcade.
Game Of Throwing
Game of Throwing is located on the ground floor at the Escape Newcastle venue and is ran by the same team & company. At the city centre location, you can find an interactive axe throwing experiencing where as at The Gate venue provides a more traditional experience. With the more classic experience, you usually throw a real axe onto a wooden dart board with the closest to the centre scoring the most points. With the newer interactive style, you get to play a range of fun minigames while still throwing an axe.
For those who don’t know how to axe throw, don’t worry as they have a team on hand to teach you and once you get a hang of it, you have a lane to practice with a range of games to keep you occupied. Whilst we practised on the traditional board, we were soon killing zombies and playing noughts & crosses, which is much harder when having to throw an axe!
We thought we would only have a quick taster session playing but once you start, it is hard to stop with all the different games. We ended up playing for almost an hour and lost track of time! We found it much more fun than normal axe throwing and with your own private lane, it is perfect for friends & family who are after a fun activity to do. We would highly recommend with it costing £25 per adult and £20 per child for an hour session!
Our time at Escape Newcastle was very memorable and we enjoyed the hospitality, our escape experience and of course the axe throwing. You can easily spend multiple hours at this venue on a couple night out, with friends or even as a family day out. Escape Newcastle provide a high-quality escape experience which provided a solid challenge for us, which gives us confidence that all the other rooms would be up to a great standard. With the Game of Throwing, we love the interactive concept and honestly can’t wait to play this again.
From our visit, Dean mentioned “Loved the retro feel of the arcade escape room and the interactive puzzles within!”. Whilst Austyn mentioned “Game of Throwing is one of my new favourite activities, it was affordable, fun and interactive, being interesting to play for the full hour!”.
With tickets costing as little as £18 per person for the escape rooms and £25 per person for the axe throwing, it is perfectly affordable compared to other venues in large towns and cities. They do have offers and discounts which you can find every now and again, so do keep your eyes out!
A huge thank you to the team at Escape Newcastle for looking after us for our experiences. They did provide these complimentary during our visit to provide some cool images, great videos and our review to highlight our experience. We are huge fans of the team, and we would recommend if you are local and are visiting Newcastle in 2024, that you find time to check them out as they are easy to find from the city centre for sure!
What is your favourite escape room from the Escape brand? Let us know over on our socials!
@thrillnation Game of Throwing have taken the activity to an exciting new level! 🎯🪓 #escapenewcastle #gameofthrowing #axethrowing #interactive #augmentedreality #newcastle ♬ Blinding Lights - Instrumental - The Weeknd
@thrillnation is this the coolest escape room theme ever? 🕹️👾 #arcade #retro #dancemat #escaperoom #newcastle ♬ Pacman - Stepz & Fizzler
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