Portsmouth Escape Room - "Westower's Study"

Updated: Apr 12

LOCATION:  Portsmouth, New Hampshire, USA

Photo above is property of Portsmouth Escape Room

Photos above are property of ESCAPETHEROOMers

📝 ETR DECODER

🔑 GAME: Westtower's Study
📅 DATE PLAYED: July 19, 2023
🎬 GENRE: Mystery
🧠 DIFFICULTY (Based on 2 PPL): 6/10
👥 TOTAL # OF PLAYERS: 2-10 ppl
🕒 LENGTH OF TIME: 60 Mins
💰 PRICE: $30/PP (4+PPL), Various prices for weekday/weekend
☎️ BOOKINGTYPE: Private
🔓 ESCAPED/ COMPLETED?: Yes (43:36)

📖 THE STORY

After esteemed world traveler and collector of antiquities Ian Westower is kidnapped and held for ransom, the Westower family is in a tizzy trying to find a jeweled necklace to trade for Ian’s safety. Fortunately for them, there’s a group of detectives on the case ready to scour Ian’s office and find the priceless relic before the kidnappers get tired of waiting. With just one hour left until Ian will be killed, it’s up to you to find the necklace and save his life.

🎯 HIT THE BULLSEYE

The decor in this room sells the look of an eccentric collector’s office rather well. The puzzles incorporate the “antique” props in interesting ways.
The first room is rather spacious and uses nonlinear puzzle design to create an experience that would be ideal for large groups, though small groups shouldn’t have much extra difficulty tackling this one either!

🧩 MISSED THE MARK

So many books and drawers to search! While the game master was nice enough to inform us ahead of time that we did not need to actually read any of the books on the shelves, we did still have to page through them to find multiple paper clues inside, which got tedious given how many books there were. The drawers had a similar problem.
Most puzzles are wholly analog, with clues giving directions for how to open padlocks on closed boxes. This meant some redundancy in puzzle design and a huge pile of empty boxes by the time we were done.

🏹 TAKE A SHOT?

"Westower’s Study" stands apart from its peers at Portsmouth Escape Room as an almost entirely analog experience, but even without some of the electronic bells and whistles of rooms like "The Dojo", it still manages to carve out its own satisfying niche. Like many escape rooms themed around a mysterious office or study, this room isn’t particularly jaw dropping to look at, but its decor nonetheless does a good job of setting the game’s tone. This is a room about world travel and all the fun things a collector can get their hands on, and in that respect it is successful.

Puzzles are generally fun to solve as your team connects the dots between written clues and the various decorations in the room, and there’s a few fun secrets tucked away in unexpected places that add some intrigue to the whole setup.

While the analog approach is probably the best way to design a room such as this, there are some ways in which "Westower’s Study" gets a little bit repetitive. The biggest hangup for me was just how much careful searching had to be done to find some of the clues. There are loads of books in this room, and more than one of them had clues tucked away between the pages, which of course necessitated a search of every one of the books in turn. Similarly, the furniture here features a large number of drawers, and it gets a little tedious to open every one of them to make sure you haven’t missed anything. Finally, most of the clues opened locked boxes or suitcases, which meant that we had a whole corner of the room stacked up with the empties by the time we were done.

Though the extensive searching made this room a bit of a chore for two, it probably wouldn’t

wear out its welcome quite so much for a larger group. Indeed, the first area in particular is rather spacious, making it ideal for spread-out-and-look-for-clues moments. Since many of the puzzles can be completed in any order, it’s also possible to have a big group split into teams to tackle different tasks at once, which isn’t always the case in some other rooms.

All around, this is a good room for those who like classic analog puzzle solving. We recommend you only approach this one with a small team if you already have some experience with escape rooms and don’t expect to have much “down time” figuring out what to do next, while a team of 4 or more could probably get away with a more beginner crowd.

ℹ️ ADDITIONAL INFO

Plenty of parking is available outside the building.
The building and its individual rooms are largely handicap accessible.
The lobby features merchandise for purchase, as well as some small puzzles to pass the time if your room is not yet ready when you arrive.

Photos above are property of ESCAPETHEROOMers

BOOK NOW

(If you do decide to try this game, give us a shoutout or tag us on social media so we know you heard it from "ESCAPETHEROOMers"!)

Disclosure: We thank Portsmouth Escape Room for offering us a media discount for our tickets to this game. Although a media discount was generously provided, it does not impact our opinion on the review whatsoever.