Hi everyone!
A few weeks back, my team and I tried out Next Level Escape’s Blitz
Room. In fact, we tried 2 of their rooms
back to back – both Blitz Room and Ex Libris.
Keep an eye out here for my separate review of Ex Libris which I hope to
post shortly.
We had the “lite” version of our usual team this time, in that we were a
team of 3 instead of our usual 4. I
think this was the first time that I have ever tried a room with a team of
3. This was our 32nd room in
Sydney and our 44th room in Australia.
Blitz Room is very novel to the Australian market in that it is only a 15
minute room (rather than the more usual 60 minutes). But rather than being a warm up room, it is a
really cool room in its own right. It’s
a really innovative concept to cram a heap of puzzles into just 15
minutes. It’s also a good option for
escape room players who might not have a full 60-90 minutes free that it would
take to try a longer, more typical room.
As always, I’ll start off with what I liked about the room:
- the location is really
convenient – they are on the corner of Hunter Street and Bligh Street in a
low rise commercial office tower. The owners greeted us at the door on the
ground level, but you might need to call them when you arrive if it is
after hours (as I suspect the front door might be locked of an evening). The absolute best aspect of the location
is that it is only a few doors down from the best laksa in Sydney at Malay
- (try their king prawn laksa or their
skinless chicken laksa). Frankie’s Pizza, which is next door to Malay is also a good option;
- I
think the current theme choice is very clever and very well-timed, given
the incredible popularity of Game of Thrones. I understand from the owners that they
are planning on changing the theme of Blitz Room relatively regularly
(every few months), which is cool;
- the
theming of this room is really well done – I won’t go into much detail on
this other than to say that any GOT fan will really enjoy the level of
detail and the way that they have weaved so many elements from the series
into the various puzzles;
- there
is a nice mix of high tech puzzles and low tech puzzles in this room. Come to think of it, there is a really
nice variety of puzzles in this room (in fact, more variety than many 60
minute rooms). I think they also
have just the right level of ‘hide and seek’ fun for the 15 minute
duration of the room;
- all
of the puzzles worked perfectly for us the first time. There were a few novel props that we had
never seen before, which is always nice;
- there
are 11 puzzles in total to solve in just 15 minutes. You score a different number of points
for each puzzle, depending on its difficulty. I think they have put in just the right
number of puzzles for this room – it is possible to solve all 11 puzzles
if you are quick enough, but I think the average team probably gets
through about half of the puzzles in the allowed time;
- my
team found this room really challenging and a whole lot of fun. I wasn’t sure that a 15 minute room
would work in the real world, but it truly does. Think of this room as kind of like the
last 15 minutes of a typical 60 minute room with the odds stacked up
against you - the adrenalin really flows from the second you enter the
room; and
- the
game masters are watching and listening to your every move (via cameras
and microphones), which is the way all escape rooms should be run.
I really don’t have anything to report on the
negative side. The owners are very
passionate about their business and they have managed to create a truly
immersive and very challenging experience in just 15 minutes, each of which is something
that many Sydney rooms fail to achieve with 60 minute rooms.
As always, the main test of a great room for me is
the fun factor and this room was off the charts fun.
Location: Lower Ground, 23 O'Connell Street, Sydney
Duration:
15 minutes
Themes:
2 so far (but 1 other planned)
Cost:
$60 for 4 adults (but we played at the kind invitation of the owners)
Overall Summary: A lot of fun that
really gets the adrenalin pumping!
