‘ESCAPE rooms’ test two things - teamwork and patience.

They are skills that usually come naturally to us as a team of reporters.

But throw in an evil serpent a free reign of a Norman keep, and chaos descends.

The Serpent’s Curse escape experience at Colchester Castle, the first event of its kind at the historic venue, opened officially to the public on Halloween.

But Team Gazette was lucky enough to be able to sample the brain-teasing challenge exclusively before the launch.

Having access to the castle at night was a thrill in itself and our seven-strong team was eager to get stuck in.

On arrival we were told there had been some mysterious goings on whereby several members of staff had gone missing.

Our challenge was to solve puzzles and crack the clues to break the serpent’s curse placed on museum staff.

The adventure began in a room full of obscure clues and random objects - and we only had half an hour to make sense of them.

Realising time was of the essence we frantically started reading out clues.

Unlike most escape experiences we were not confined to one space.

Having free reign of the castle both enhanced the difficulty level and provided a sense of excitement.

Rightly so, the museum’s latest Adorn exhibition features prominently in the game.

It was a great opportunity for us to peruse the stunning jewellery, albeit very quickly as time was running out fast.

The game has various elements and, realising we needed to tackle multiple tasks at once, we started to split off into smaller groups.

Our footsteps could be heard echoing around the castle as we ran between exhibitions, squealing with delight or breathing a sigh of relief whenever we cracked a clue.

But just as we started to find our feet, we realised time was not on our side.

With two clues left to unravel, we only had five minutes left before we would too, like museum staff, ‘disappear’.

Thankfully we had two very helpful guides providing handy tips along the way.

One may consider it cheating, as compared to other escape experiences teams are left to their own devices with only a few tips being given.

It was guidance enough for us to stay on the right track, but nothing was given away.

Hearts were racing as we fumbled around with the final answers to the clues, connecting them in the right order to complete the challenge.

Surprisingly we succeeded - with two minutes left to spare.

Museum staff Ben Paites and Pippa Pickles, who kindly ran the session for us, explained afterwards how they had called in an escape room professional especially to design the challenge.

The museum staff were given a say on the content.

Making the most of the museum’s artefacts, in particular the Adorn exhibition, was a brilliant idea.

The challenge was a unique way of getting people to see one of Essex’s greatest assets.

The Serpent’s Curse escape experience runs until November 3.

To book, call 01206 28294.