Code-breakers and puzzle solvers have got a new game to play.

Live Escape, the company that brought its Prison Breakout game to Huddersfield, has expanded to acquire additional premises to offer a new challenge to eager adventurers.

The company, headed by 27-year-old Austen Barrowclough, is launching its new game, called Underground, at newly-acquired premises in Thistle Street, off Leeds Road, as a follow-up to its highly popular Prison Break game based at premises in Fitzwilliam Street.

With Live Escape, teams have just one hour in which to solve a series of puzzles and trigger their escape.

The Live Escape - General view of the new gaming centre that opens on Thistle Street in Huddersfield. pic by Dave Howarth

Underground provides a few extra twists to the escape game by creating a Second World War scenario in which players are members of an underground network in the Yugoslav capital Belgrade manufacturing guns to resist the occupying German forces. The players have to find three weapons in order to escape.

Austen said: “We are keeping the original Live Escape, which has done really well for us, but it got to a position where we had no choice but to expand. Once you have done the prison break-out game, you can’t play it again – but the venue wasn’t big enough to accommodate a new game, so we have expanded into new premises.”

The premises at Thistle Street comprise five two-storey terraced houses which had been knocked through by the landlord to create one building. Austen said the new venue, previously occupied by businesses including an IT firm, provided enough space to run four or five different games. There is also a car park to the rear with space for about 20 vehicles.

The Live Escape - Detail from the new gaming centre. pic by Dave Howarth

“We got the premises in September,” said Austen. “We had been looking for somewhere suitable for a while. The building needed to be the right size and close to the town centre. It is also close to the HD One development when that starts.”

The new venue “goes live” on Saturday (Dec 16) following final testing of Underground this week.

“There has been a lot of interest in Underground on social media,” said Austen. “We have had 12,000 people through the doors for Prison Break over the past three years and there is a lot of excitement about the fact that we now have something new. Underground is fully booked for this weekend.”

Said Austen: “Our goal is to be the number one attraction in Huddersfield. We get quite a lot of tourists coming. We have had people of every age group, families with children as young as four. There are a lot of horror-based escape games about, but the way I design our games is to make them suitable for as many people as possible to take part.”

And there’s more good news for gamers. “I have four major projects planned for next year,” said Austen.