A Cumbrian escape room centre is in the running to be named the best in the world.
Lakes Escapes in Workington is up for the enthusiasts’ choice Top Room Award in the Top Escape Room’s Project.
The project sees seasoned enthusiasts who have played a minimum of 200 rooms together to vote for and nominate the very best rooms the world has to offer.
The enthusiasts’ choice awards are the pinnacle for the escape room industry, and thousands of nominations are made each year, with only around 900 rooms worldwide being shortlisted.
The Workington business, which has a total of six escape rooms has been nominated for its Diamond Mine room, which features a unique twist on the traditional escape room.
Owner Carol Watson said: “It recognises that we are building and creating something that does stand out. The Diamond Mine is a bit of a different experience to the standard room we have. It’s a step out of the norm and was a bit of a risk, but we normally get great reviews, so to be nominated for an award despite that difference is fantastic.”
Carol said that while a normal room gives players 60 minutes to complete the challenge, the Diamond Mine puts players through a series of mini themed challenges before they descend into the mine itself.
When players enter the mine, the traditional escape room experience begins, and they must follow the story and retrieve 20 diamonds, and a mega diamond, before their oxygen runs out.
The winners of the world’s top escape rooms will be revealed on December 17 and only the enthusiasts can vote in the awards.
Carol added: “We do get a few enthusiasts who come up to Cumbria specifically to play our games and will play all of them across a couple of days.
“We’ve had people who’ve played hundreds of escape rooms. It’s really great to be recognised for something like this in Cumbria, to be nominated out of all the escape rooms worldwide is just fantastic.”
Following the announcement of the Autumn Budget on Thursday, Carol said: “I watched the budget but it has given us no real answers. We’re still in limbo and still have no idea. I’ve never switched so many sockets or lights off as I do now, we switch off as much as we can. There’s not a lot we can do now really, we just have to wait and see.”
The team at Lakes Escapes is also getting ready to open a new room, which they are hoping will debut at the start of next year.
The Lost Dragon will be a magic themed room, which Carol said was entirely different from what they’ve done before.
To find out more about how to book an escape room, visit www.lakesescapes.co.uk
