Nottingham is dense with gaming opportunities – from paintball to Virtual Realty. Take a tour of Impact’s favourite spots for you to get to know this year.
BOARD GAME CAFES
Board game cafes are pretty self-explanatory – the perfect place to relax with a group of friends, maybe between doing other things in the city. Top of the pile is Ludorati with a library of over 750 games and seating for 72, as well as a ‘GamesLab’ to teach you how to play the current 100 most popular games and a retail store, in case anything you play takes your fancy.
A nice, award-winning alternative is the Dice Cup – a smaller café with a dedicated community and passionate staff.
BELONG GAMING ARENA
Nottingham’s premiere gaming bar, with a combination of professional equipment and decent food. Their Nottingham branch boasts 9 couch co-op stations (it’s a lost art, we should treasure it), 20 high-end PCs and even a VR station if you fancy getting motion sick.
Dip your toe into the pro-gaming community
Plus, Belong is a national chain and each bar has a pro team. Nottingham’s is the Arrows (ha. Robin Hood reference). There are weekly events if you just want to dip your toe into the pro-gaming community.
SKIRMISH PAINTBALL
If you’re looking for something a little more expensive and a lot more violent, Nottingham’s Skirmish Paintballing offers you 8 arenas of varying size.
From a maze, to a full-scale tank convoy, to a mock-up castle, and even a
whole ‘Village of the Damned’ – there’s a surprising variety on offer. Time to vent your frustrations on that flatmate who never does the dishes.
It’s also cheaper than you’d expect, with a £10 minimum entry (provided you pay for your paintballs as you play) or you can pay an extra £10 for 250 paintballs.
ESCAPE ROOMS
Want an alternate day out that’ll force you to work as a group? Nottingham has a surprising variety of escape rooms for you to peruse.
More people quit than complete it
If you’re looking to torture your mates with something horror-themed you can’t go better than Escapelogic’s 13utcher, one of the few 18+ Escape Rooms in the country, complete with homicidal cleaver-wielding nutcase.
When I visited a member of staff told me more people quit than complete it, and several people have wet themselves, including a prison security guard. Take from this what truth you will – or choose one of Escapelogic’s multiple other horror-themed rooms.
Alternatively, Logiclock (try to keep all these names straight) offers three rooms with a fourth on the way. We’d personally recommend Pirates Adventure.
Compete with your friends for a high-score
Finally, Cryptologyrooms’ choices include an ancient Egyptian excavation, a brand-new Inception-style ‘journey through Dreams’ asking you to save a doctor from her own mind, and the upcoming ‘Ultimate Bank Heist’ where you’ll be able compete with your friends for a high-score.
Most of these rooms average at around £16 per head, and generally take about an hour per room.
ARCADES
Penny Lane’s friendly staff serve gluten-free and vegan options for all your dietary needs. The ‘arcade’ aspect of isn’t half bad either, with a nice range of games that befit a social experience with friends including skeeball, air hockey, an ice hickey machine, and foosball.
Alternatively, Funstation Arcades also have a location in Notts with a decent selection of machines similar to Penny Lane – mostly air hockey, claw machines and the like. As an added bonus, should you fancy it Volcano Falls adventure golf offers you two courses to try.
ZERO LATENCY VR
For up to 8 players, Latency’s warehouse-scale location near Victoria Centre allows you to roam free in virtual reality worlds. Get geared up with a headset, military-grade backpack and custom controller for five different experiences.
Sol Raiders has you fighting each other over an alien power source across 3 worlds. Outbreak Origins is a multilevel zombie shooter capped off by a final boss fight. Singularity has you fighting killer robots in an abandoned space station. Zombie Survival is pretty much what it says on the tin: Building defences to hold off waves of the undead. Finally, Engineerum is a more chilled team puzzler with flying whales and parrot-rays.
Ludorati Cafe – http://www.ludoraticafe.com/
The Dice Cup – https://www.facebook.com/thedicecup/
Belong Gaming Arena – https://www.belong.gg/arenas/nottingham/
Skirmish Paintball – http://www.skirmish-site.co.uk/
EscapeLogic – https://www.escapologic.com/
Logiclock – https://logiclock.co.uk/escape-games-nottingham
Cryptology Nottingham – https://cryptologyrooms.co.uk/nottingham/rooms
Penny Lane – http://pennylanebars.com/venue/
Funstation – https://www.funstationuk.com/find-us/nottingham-corner-house
Zero Latency VR – https://www.zlvr.co.uk/
Jack Richardson
Featured image and article images courtesy of Saar Leroy, Eleventh Earl, Ben Kimball, and Fan builder via Flickr. Image use licence here.
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