Key Info
- Nottingham, Nottinghamshire, England
- 60 Minute Game
- 2 - 6 Players
- 90.3% Escape Rate
- £30 Per Player
- Nearby Pay & Displays
- 8/10 Difficulty
We Escaped In
56 Minutes 7 Seconds with 16 Dream Keys
- Pete, Nate, Meg, Smithy
- December 2023
Room Brief
Dr. Lucy needs your help, Lost in her own dreamscape you and your team are the only ones who can save her. Step into her remarkable mind and explore the realm of imagination to complete the challenges in time. Will you be able to guide her back to reality?
There are multiple dreams to get through and you must collect as many DreamKeys as you can to save Dr. Lucy from the void.
Entering her mind all will become random and uncontrollable, will you rescue Dr. Lucy from her thoughts so she can finish her milestone research?
It’s time for a nap of epic proportions.
Arrival
We visited Nottingham back in December to take on 2 escape games at Cryptology, having been thoroughly impressed on our previous visit when we played both Rameseize and Daylight Robbery. We took on Cypherdyne earlier the same day before heading over to play a few rounds of mini golf, grabbing some food in a somewhat questionable kebab shop and then returning to take on the seemingly quite surreal Dreamscape.
We knew Dreamscape was going to be a bit different to the other games that we’d played at Cryptology. For one the online description mentioned Dream Keys and Crystal Maze style challenges so we didn’t really know what lied in store. Our host spent a good 5 minutes explaining the various rules and when instructions take this long without any mention of a directional padlock, you know things are getting serious!
Immersion
Pete
Nate
Arriving at the entrance to Dreamscape we were unsure exactly what lie in store. How do you convince people they have entered the crazy world of someone’s subconscious? Its certainly not an easy task and I’m not sure its one any room could pull off 100%. Cryptology haven’t nailed this theme either, but there are some elements in the theming of the room that make it more convincing than other similar themed rooms we have played. Â
Normally, we’d be talking about how a room has a consistent theme that flows through each game space and heaping praise on that. With dreamscape, its the total randomness of each individual dream that really contributes towards the experience. Dreams are random, you never know what to expect and that’s definitely a feeling that you’ll get playing this game. Each of the individual dreams is more like its own unique mini escape room and the rapid transition from one to the other with seemingly no common ground is what makes this scenario more believable. It does feel a bit more Crystal Maze than Scientists Dream though, not that there is anything wrong with that!
Compared to the other games on site at Cryptology, Dreamscape is the least visually impressive too. It’s by no means a badly decorated room but it lacks the high level of finesse that its neighbouring games have. This is consistent across the main dream hub and the individual dreams which must be played through.
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Puzzles & Challenges
Pete
Nate
Dreamscape is about as far from a linear escape room as you can get in that the game actively informs players that they will not solve everything. The ultimate aim in this game is to wake up Dr Lucy from the dream she is trapped in. To do this players must collect dream keys from a series of different dreams. There are 20 of these in total split across the various different dreams housed inside dreamscape. After successfully navigating the dreams players must use these dream keys to solve the puzzles in the final dream and wake up the doctor. The more keys you find along the way the easier the final challenge will be. We managed to find 16/20 keys. The catch is that each dream is only able to be played for a limited period of time.Â
We found that Dreamscape almost feels like a video game being played in real life. Multiple levels, multiple themes and numerous challenges culminating in defeating a final boss (in this case the dream itself). It’s been executed brilliantly and is totally unique to Dreamscape (in our experience so far). Â
Each of the individual dreams has its own theme and therefore its own puzzle style. Every door opened really did feel like its own unique escape room. Traversing through the dreams we encountered logical puzzles, physical puzzles, technically solved puzzles, traditional coded puzzles as well as some memory based games. There are some that require a lot of thinking and then there are others which are just a bit of fun. And these are just the ones that we managed to find and solve. It ties in well to the randomness of the theme Cryptology have built as there really is no guessing what lies instore at any point in the game.Â
For anyone who has played the Room on their mobile or tablet, there is one part of Dreamscape that conjured up memories for us! One of the later dream spaces is largely occupied by one item – explore it all.Â
Games Master & Clues
Pete
Nate
Our Games master on our visit to Cryptology was Cerys who had also overseen our play of Cypherdyne earlier the same day. Taking on the role of one of the Doctor’s lab assistants she introduced us to the premise of Dreamscape and outlined some of the usual roles. This game is a bit more complicated than most other rooms and there are some bits that you really need to pay attention to in the game briefing so we appreciated Cerys explaining everything clearly.Â
GM Involvement in Dreamscape is largely centred around moving us on from one dream to the next by calling time on the individual rooms. Due to the fact that there are so many puzzles dotted around the game and there is an expectation not to solve everything clues were not handed out as willingly as in other games. With the time pressures we faced, our approach was if we couldn’t solve one puzzle move on to the next. If we had enough time after getting other dream keys we would re-visit. As a result we didn’t request any clues and received minimal prompting. There was one element where we had caused a part of the game to malfunction through incorrect use of a tool within one of the dreams. Cerys was quick to resolve this without interrupting the flow of our game play.Â
Value for Money
Pete
Nate
In our experiences so far, £30 at Cryptology for an hour of escaping offers amazing value. The games here are so well thought through and designed. Dreamscape in particular though feels more like a multi room experience than a single escape room and so you’re getting a lot more room for your money.
Enjoyment
Pete
Nate
So Dreamscape isn’t the most polished room at Cryptology, nor is it’s theme the most convincing in it’s theme. It is however, a fantastic multi room experience that houses a little bit of everything that made us fall in love with escape rooms in the first place.Â
Enthusiasts and casual players alike will have a brilliant time playing through this game.Â
