My husband was terrified to do the Psychopath's Den Escape Room. This fear arose not of the room itself but of my reaction to it. "You don't cope well in these scenarios,' he soothed, referring to a time I nearly punched a witch who leapt out at me at a Halloween house of horrors. I screamed, the witch screamed, everyone around started screaming - it is not a proud memory.

'Why don't we do this one?' he urged, pointing me to another AIM escape room that appeared to be for primary-aged children. 'It's about spies! You like spies!'. It's true, I do. However, determined to prove I could attend live-action horror without assaulting someone, we found ourselves at the much anticipated Psychopath's Den. 

As with many of these escape rooms, the venue seemed to be squirreled away in an unassuming block of offices. There's presumably some sort of sound-proofing in place. Though, to be honest, hearing screams of pain and terror isn't that far remote from my experience of Canary Wharf.

After depositing your phone in the lockers provided, the experience starts with a brief backstory: you are walking to catch a bus after a night out and hear footsteps behind you getting increasingly closer. Suddenly, bam, you're knocked unconscious and wake up in a maniac's lair. As a woman, that scenario cuts a little too close to home, but the point is made. You're locked inside and have one hour to escape or face your captor.

Plunged into a dark room, the first challenge is largely centred around finding a torch. This is not a room to do if you suffer from any sort of night blindness or phobia. There are cabinets to discover, drawers to pull and mysterious symbols on the wall to decode. Even with the torch, you're laregly doing this under the veil of darkness. Upon entry, the host very carefully told us to only pick up or pull that which moves organically, with an anxiety suggesting they'd been traumatised by over-zealous players before. If you're having to wrench the wires out of the wall or smash down a door, chances are, this is not part of the game. 

Unlike the experiences where players must escape a sole room, the psychopath leads you through a series of the increasingly gruesome chambers that form his den. Spoiler alert: he likes organs. There's a good balance between physical and mental challenges and, if in any doubt, the psychopath is on hand to provide as many clues and hints as you need. He does not, however, respond to sarcasm. There's a neat riddle to solve and one of those infuriating buzzer games that drove me so insane, I began to empathise with my captor. 

Anyone who's done one of these before will know how quickly an hour can pass and the tension involved. Some of the puzzles are technically smoother than others and we became stuck on our very last one, managing to complete it more by chance and desperate clawing at levers rather than any sort of skill. While we didn't finish in the allotted 60 minutes, there's a neat twist at the end of the game which allows you to  uncover a different kind of fate... This did elicit a scream from me as a combination of adrenaline and tiredness had rendered me unable to work out what was real anymore. 

We'd recommend the experience - particularly for the Halloween season - but suggest going with a larger group so you can divide and conquer and maybe, just maybe, you'll make it out alive. 

To learn more about AIM's Escape Rooms, head here.