Cryptology — The Tormented Soul, Swindon

Abigail is knocking, and she wants you to answer her desperate pleas for help from beyond the four ashen walls of an old Swindon home. It’s here, while taking on the role of a local paranormal investigator, that you will commence your expedition into the depths of an ominous tale—a grizzly afair that’s equally rife with layers of mystery, betrayal, and deep ties to questionable motives and, in some ways, the philosopher stone.

The Tormented Soul (formerly Incarcerated) is a sixty-minute escape room based in Swindon. The experience, which consists of two small rooms and a series of original puzzles (no number padlocks here — hallelujah!), sees you taking to the pad and paper as a fledgling detective—a fanatic of the otherworldly nature of the ghoulish realms—to solve a case surrounding Abigail, a young girl who was once the unfortunate victim of a terrible, arson-related crime. In these rooms, which can be completed either alone or with a small group of like-minded individuals, you are tasked with sifting through a series of puzzles, with some involving a stern eye for detail and consistent patterns, and others requiring you to think more outside the box and collaborate in order to unlock key items to further progress the narrative.

While The Tormented Soul isn’t awfully scary by design, it does feature some interesting elements of horror and atmospheric storytelling. The clues, which frequently come in the form of a ghostly voice of a young girl, often require you to listen in and almost “play along” to the childish demands of a fairly grouchy adolescent. Aside from these short bouts, though, there isn’t much else to fear, minus, perhaps, a single jump scare somewhere around the midway point. There’s also a lot of story to onboard too, with several timelines to follow and overlapping scenarios to fit in alongside the other parts of the game. Granted, it isn’t perplexing, but threading the plot together is, in all honesty, a secondary puzzle in itself — which isn’t always great.

Perhaps we caught Cryptology on a bad day. While the GM (Games Master) was incredibly friendly (the name was never mentioned, unfortunately), they never took the time to lay the groundwork for the setting or establish an image for the opening portion of the plot. On the contrary, it was more “this is one room, and you need to try and get into the other.” And that’s a shame, as a bit more insight into the Victorian era and its spiritual connection with Abigail would’ve made our purpose more obvious, and of course, elevated the immersion.

There are some great set pieces here, and not to mention some fantastic and, above all, original puzzles to follow. Sadly, however, with a mismatched plot and a lack of depth in the horror department, I just can’t recommend it as the “bone-chilling” terror attraction that it strives to bring to the forefront of the escape room sphere.

SKULL SCORE:

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