Is anything just a bar these days? The Grid is an escape room in dystopian London, where an evil AI startup threatens to wipe out humanity. Your goal is to beat the system. While drinking cocktails. You go in thinking that you’re a volunteer for a company called Neosight, sent to interact with a new AI robot to teach it about human intelligence. But then there’s a twist that’s (almost) Brooker-worthy.
But surely cocktails and complex puzzles don’t mix? Oh, you’d be surprised. The experience includes two drinks – one you have at the beginning, and the other at the end. The game’s creators cleverly weave both into the narrative, and neither are so strong that you’d struggle with logic and maths (well, no more than usual). And the cocktails are good – if you like your drinks teeth-grittingly sweet. There’s a fun, DIY element to them, too, and you can choose between gin, vodka or non-alcoholic. Really, they’re more a fun add-on than the main event. Turns out there’s not much time for boozing on the brink of an AI apocalypse.