Are you thinking about booking the Clued Upp games Murder By Magic experience? This is my full review along with answers to some of the most common questions you may have.
Clued Upp games seem to continually pop up on my Facebook feed and at first glance, what they are advertising sounds pretty good.
A ‘fully immersive’ event in your local town or city, for one day only. Perfect for exploring, getting out and about with friends and family all whilst doing puzzles to solve a mystery.
In fact, it sounded so good, me and my friends (and my brother and godson) decided to give it a try. We chose what looked like a Harry Potter themed event entitled ‘Witchcraft and Wizardry: Murder By Magic’.
How Does Clued Upp Murder By Magic Work?
One way to describe Clued Upp events is as a cross between a real-life cluedo game and Pokemon Go.
If you’re a fan of Pokemon Go (or, like me, were a fan of the now defunct Harry Potter: Wizards Unite) you’ll already have an idea of how Clued Upp works – although unlike the aforementioned apps, it isn’t free.
Once you’ve booked and paid for your event, you’ll receive an email with details on how to download the app and where and when to get started on the day.
While everyone on your team can download and use the Clued Upp app, one person needs to be the designated team leader and only they can answer the riddles and puzzles and try to get answers from the witnesses to help you solve the murder.
It’s worth noting that the entire event is app-based, so make sure your phone is well-charged and you may want to take a power bank as a backup.
If the team leader becomes low on battery or signal, they can transfer this role to another teammate.
You are then in a race against time (and all the other teams) to figure out ‘who dunnit’ by using the app to guide you to witnesses and other things you need to solve the murder mystery.
If you get fed up or don’t want to walk to the next location, you can forfeit and incur a time penalty.
Eventually, you’ll have enough info to figure out who the murderer is and can input this final bit of info into the app to find out if you are right!
The fastest overall team on the day wins a prize – credit to spend with Clued Upp games!
Everything for the event is done via an app on your phone and there is no one from Clued Upp present in your town or city on the day to help. This applies to all Clued Upp events including Alice In Wonderland and Beauty and The Beast, as well as Murder By Magic.
My Review: Clued Upp Games Murder By Magic
For me, this event just didn’t live up to expectations.
As a big Harry Potter fan, avid quizzer (I’ve been going to the same monthly quiz for almost eight years now!) and Escape Room enthusiast, I thought Murder by Magic would be right up my street.
However, overall the whole thing just fell a bit flat. Here’s why:
- There was lots of waiting around for other teams to finish so we could get to the *exact* spot to trigger the geolocation in the app.
- Lots of backtracking through areas we had already been. We also spent a long time trying to get a particular clue to appear that just wouldn’t work.
- The app could be quite glitchy and slow.
- The puzzles were mostly well-known riddles and only one question actually related to the location we were in.
- As there is no official finish line there isn’t anywhere to chat with other participants which means this event really lacks a sense of community.
- The event is not ‘immersive’ as described by Clued Upp events on social media.
We gave up in the end and just happened to get a lucky guess on the identity of the murderer. By this point, loitering around a random back alley, we didn’t even care who it was anymore.
There is no denying it’s a great way to get together with friends and family and get out and about. It’s just a shame you have to stare at your phone the entire time.
My advice is to do a lot of research before you book a Clued Upp games event and make sure you know exactly how limited the ‘event’ is before buying tickets.
Is Clued Upp Games Worth It?
While I did sort of enjoy small bits of the Clued Upp ‘Witchcraft and Wizardry: Murder by Magic’ event (I’m competitive and bossy so quite enjoyed being team leader before things got tedious) it’s not something I’d want to do again with one of the other themes, although there was one person in our group who said she would give another one a try.
Part of the problem lies in that no one from Clued Upp has actually been to the majority of locations the events take place.
The games for each town or city are clearly created using Google Maps and some clever tech, rather than by actual humans that know and love the local area.
This can mean inadvertently walking around some of the more unsavoury areas of your locale that you may not be comfortable with, especially when playing Clued Upp games with young children.
In addition to this, the GPS can be off and you might find yourself trying to get a witness to show up in the middle of the road. That is if you have a good signal and can get the GPS working at all. The app also seems to be prone to crashing.
If there are a lot of participants on the day there can be queues at some locations to get to the exact spot needed, which means lots of waiting around doing nothing. For us, this was right next to a very busy road and we were continually in the way of other pedestrians.
The Clued Upp games app also doesn’t account for things like building works or road closures so you may spend time walking towards a witness only to find you can’t actually get to the spot you need to activate their clue or puzzle in the app.
While teams are encouraged to dress up, we didn’t and only saw three or four other groups that were.
For me, there are just too many issues that hamper gameplay to make it a really fun day out.
Is Clued Upp Ganes Worth The Money?
I think this depends on a few factors, including how much you paid as there are often half-price offers running.
You might also feel it’s better value if you split the cost with a group of friends as opposed to booking it as a parent for the whole family and paying for the whole thing yourself.
Clued Upp events are advertised as ‘Kids Go Free’ but unless they have a mobile, there isn’t really much for children to do, other than a lot of walking around, which they may find boring after an hour or two.
However, dogs are welcome as the entire event is based outdoors and I know this element will appeal to some people. They can even dress up!
Is Clued Upp A Scam?
While Clued Upp is a genuine company, I personally think their marketing, especially their Facebook ads are highly misleading.
Describing their events as being ‘fully immersive’ and using videos that imply there will be representatives from the company present and that areas will be decorated in line with the theme when in fact, nothing of the sort is true.
The only thing that makes a Clued Upp event remotely immersive is the other teams dressed up in the relevant fancy dress.
While Clued Upp does have a good score on Trustpilot, the majority of the good reviews seem to be about the customer service received from people who could no longer attend and wanted to move their tickets to a different date, rather than people who enjoyed the actual experience.
It’s also worth noting that Clued Upp doesn’t have the right to use anything Harry Potter related, so while their marketing implies events are Harry Potter themed (with some very clever imagery), it’s actually just a wizard and magic theme which feels a bit ‘meh’ if I’m honest.
Alice in Wonderland and Beauty and the Beast are a bit different as these stories are already in the public domain and not owned by Disney – just don’t expect to see the classic Disney iterations of the characters within the Clued Upp events.
Finally, Clued Upp uses the ‘Only 10 tickets left!’ pressure-selling tactic in its marketing.
As it’s an app-based event that runs across a whole city for most of the day, in reality, it’s very unlikely tickets ever get that low.
Is Clued Upp Games Legit?
While Clued Upp Games is a legit company, and they do provide events in cities across the world, I am of the opinion that their advertising can be quite misleading and it’s worth taking the time to familiarise yourself with how the games work before parting with any of your hard-earned cash.
Murder by Magic – Final Thoughts
To conclude, while some people might well enjoy Clued Upp Games Witchcraft and Wizardry: Murder by Magic, sadly I was not one of them and the day ended in grumpy frustration for our team.
I would much rather spend money doing a traditional escape room, despite being more expensive and taking less time overall, I think these truly provide an immersive team experience.
For reference, my favourite is Locked In A Room, Bristol.
