Earlier this year, we visited The MacGuffin Project over in Bouremouth. The MacGuffin Project is an escape room which opened early summer in 2017. On the website, it says you will "Interact with machines, communicate with lost souls and piece together the past as you race against time to complete your missions."
The story is about a long, lost and dark forgotten carnival and offers a vareity of escape rooms based around this theme. The three rooms they have to offer our The MacGuffin, the original room they opened the attraction with, which you learn about the demise of The MacGuffin carnival and the rise of the The MacGuffin machine. The Fortune Teller, which continues the story on from The MacGuffin machine and tries to stop the threat of The Fortune Teller. Finally, being the newest experience to open, The Magician, which thought The MacGuffin Machine was a friend, helping him create the ultimate grand illusion... He was wrong!
As this was our first visit, we thought it was best to experience the original room they opened with. When arriving into Bouremouth, the attraction was easy to find being a short walk from the beach and town centre. The building from the outside is easy to spot from the carnival themed building, with cogs and retro themed artwork being seen from the windows.
Entering into the building, we were welcomed by the receptionist which got us set up. We had to fill in some waivers and were given some quick rules about escape rooms, what to do, what not to do etc. They provide free to use lockers to put loose belongings in such as phones, jackets and purses, so you don't have to worry about them when enjoying the experience.
We were then told to knock on the door and proceed through...
We then met a carnival host / butler called Reginald who ushered us into the room and placed a movie on, to give us a backstory about The MacGuffin Project and more about what was going on. This really set the scene, being very retro and creepy from the get go. After the movie finished, we were then taken to the room to start our escape.
As with any escape room, we don't want to give away any of the puzzles or clues from the experience. However, the experience was one our of favourites for many reasons. This particular escape room does not use any padlocks that need keys to unlock. Everything is done in other forms of puzzles. This is something that we have not experienced before as most escape rooms use keys and padlocks for most of the puzzles. They also used actors to lead the experience from the start, and even though they don't stay around for long, there are little extras which really make it unique. They used strong themeing in the room in every corner, continuing on from all we've seen from entering the building. Finally, they used audio cues for characters and the storyline in the room along with some of the puzzles to let you know if you are doing it right or wrong, with lighting on the puzzles you have to do next and to set the storyline at certain points.
Overall, we did not find a bad point in our experience with The MacGuffin Project and can't wait to experience the other escape rooms in more visits. If you wish to experience this room or one of the others for yourself, you can book here -
