Two new-look escape rooms set to open next month in Northampton

The county's biggest escape room firm has taken time during lockdown to rebrand its two Crystal Maze-style rooms in The Mounts.

The Molten Creek Mine and Monosphere are undergoing a total refurbishment and will soon become The Lost Temple of Yumiko and End of The Line.

David Laing, who is from Northamptonshire, has opened 15 escape rooms across five branches in the county in Corby, Kettering, Billing Aquadrome, Wellingborough and Northampton and has been busy remodelling rooms in Northampton and Corby while they were out of action.

Speaking about the Northampton rooms, he said: "The rooms are about 80 per cent complete we just have to finalise the visual appearance of the rooms. Realistically, the rooms in Northampton will be open in September.

"It's taken three months to get these two ready and we used lockdown to do it as it's difficult when we are live because we lose a lot of our revenue to do so."

The one-hour timed game, Trapp'd, is designed to shut in a small group of people inside a themed room where participants are encouraged to use teamwork skills, intuition and intelligence to crack challenging codes, which will lead to their escape.

The Lost Temple of Yumiko is based round an ancient temple featuring an empress of mysterious powers. Escapees are asked to follow the tale of urban myths, which whisper of a powerful relic who was buried alongside her well-preserved corpse that grants eternal life to all those who behold this ancient secret. The challenge is to unlock the enigma of the tomb.

The End of The Line is based on the largest robbery of all time and it is onboard a 120 mile per hour moving steam train. Players are challenged to hijack the train and bring to a halt.

The rooms are set to open in September and will be available to play in 'bubbles' of six people and facemasks or visors are essential.

If you feel uncomfortable leaving the house, the firm has launched their ‘remote rooms’ where players take part in their escape rooms from home.

David added: "This has really taken off and we’ve had groups from all over the world playing these.

"It is all done via the Zoom video app and we have a real life host in the room with a video camera attached to them, with the players guiding them around the room from their phone or laptop."

The rooms follow on from a novel 30-minute wrecking room experience at Billing Aquadrome which was launched in February, called Destroy'd. This time props in the room are not just for show - they can be smashed to smithereens.