Another escape room trip to Melbourne

Hi all

Some of you might know that my team and I went down to Melbourne about 2 years ago to do a long weekend of escape rooms.  We managed to get through 10 rooms in 2.5 days, which was both tiring and awesome.  I set up a separate blog for the Melbourne rooms here.

We're heading back down to Melbourne in January - I've booked the flights and now I have to sort out which escape rooms we are going to do.  This time we will have 4 days worth of escape rooms to do ;-)

I'd be grateful for any room recommendations from any of you who have checked out the rooms on offer in Melbourne.  I've already tried all of the ERM rooms, all of the Rush Escape Rooms and the first 2 EscapeXperience rooms.  

My team is obviously pretty experienced, so I'm not looking for beginner level rooms.  I'm after clever or creative rooms - that are a bit different to the norm, rooms that are really challenging but utterly immersive, or rooms that have a great back story and were truly fun and enjoyable. 

If you can recommend any rooms that fit that bill, I'd be very grateful.  

I haven't posted a room review for a while because we have pretty much tried all of the rooms on offer in Sydney.  We're hoping to get down to Canberra and up to Newcastle to try a few more rooms soon.  That being said, one of my team members spent over a year designing a special one time only escape room that the rest of our team tried a few weeks back.  I'm working on a review and summary of that too, which I'll post here shortly.  

Thanks all
Scott

AR Escapes - Ripper

Hi all

I recently learned about an interactive escape experience that is coming to Sydney (and to Melbourne and Adelaide) . The outfit is AR Escapes.  The Sydney experience runs on 11 November - it's a one day event.

The theme of the experience is Jack the Ripper.  Here's the summary from their website:

The world's first city-wide augmented reality escape experiences.  This is a fully interactive experience across multiple city blocks, that also includes the added element of a real "killer" walking through the streets with their own beacon that knocks you out of the experience if they get within 10 meters of you.

The whole experience goes for between 1.5 hours and 2 hours.  One hour into the game, they let the killer loose and from that point on, if the killer gets within 10 meters of you, you're out.  I understand that they use your mobile phone to track your location during the experience.  The idea of the game is to work through crime scenes and presumably figure out who the Ripper is before he (or she) finds you.

I bought my tickets on the day that they were released (I was a tad excited).  It sounds awesome to me, so my fingers are crossed that the experience will live up to my pretty high expectations.

They currently have a 50% discount on tickets for early bird purchases.  I'm not sure when the early bird discount runs out, but at $50 per person (rather than $100), you should get in quick.

You can check out their website here.

I'll be there in the final session of the day in Sydney, so I might see you there!

Thanks
Scott

Aus Escape Week 2017

Hi all

Marise from The Cipher Room recently informed me about Aus Escape Week.  

Various escape room owners across Australia have banded together to have a special escape room week, which will take place between 11 and 17 September.  Participating escape room owners will donate 20% of the profits that they make during that week to the Black Dog Institute, a charity that is dedicated to understanding, preventing and treating mental illness.  


I understand that Jesse and Chris from the Riddle Room in Canberra are the leading force behind Aus Escape Week.  You can read more about Aus Escape Week here - the website also contains a list of those escape room companies that are taking part. 

It is awesome when "competitors" in a small business community come together for a great cause.  It also doesn't hurt that each of the NSW escape rooms that are taking part all have amazing rooms!
 
Thanks
Scott