Escape Room Junkie - Corpse Inc Review (The Netherlands)

Hi everyone

The fifth room on our May/June 2024 child-free trip to Holland was Corpse Inc at Escape Room Junkie. It is located in Baarn, which is about 45-60 minute drive from Amsterdam.

We arrived a few minutes late (this wasn’t our fault – our previous room The Dome was running behind) but the owners of Corpse Inc were very kind and allowed us to start a few minutes late.

The story of Corpse Inc is that players are hired by an anonymous source for an extraordinary mission: to steal a body from a morgue. And in broad daylight no less.

Corpse Inc was my 295th escape room and here is what I thought: 

• If rooms were scored purely on ‘fun factor’, I think Corpse Inc was the most fun room of the trip. I remember laughing at several points and genuinely loving every minute.
• The quality of theming in Corpse Inc was strong. I also really liked that they utilised several parts of their property in a truly unique way.
• There was a really broad mix of puzzles – some were more traditional and others were more challenging. We really enjoyed all of the puzzles. There was one puzzle that we thought could have been clearer (which we apparently solved in a way that no other team had solved to date). The puzzles over all were very strong.
• The standout for me in Corpse Inc was the actor engagement. We each played different roles at one point in the escape, which involved interacting with an actor. This was so much fun. I was lucky enough to have to engage with the actor the most, including tip toeing around a sleeping security guard. The actor was very clever and wove into the story line the various stupid things that I was doing. Again, I laughed a lot in this room. The actor afterwards was very gracious after he learned that I had added a few random numbers to the sudoku he was attempting to solve (something I am VERY PROUD to confirm that no player had done before). To me, it was an obvious move…
• From a room flow perspective, Corpse Inc is really well designed. There are lovely laugh out loud moments, to more hard-core concentration moments and finally a really awesome finale. Corpse Inc also has a really cool ‘scoring’ system too that we all really enjoyed.
• As is common in The Netherlands, we enjoyed a Coke afterwards with the owners as we discussed both their room and all things escape rooms. They were lovely hosts.

I thought Corpse Inc was phenomenal. It was so much fun. The quality of the puzzles was great, the novelty of playing a character was awesome and the actor interaction made this such a memorable experience. This room deserves to be much higher on the TERPECA rankings in my opinion.

Where:                Oud-Eemnesserweg 5D, 3741 MP Baarn

Duration:            75 minutes

Themes:              1 theme

TERPECA:          #150 in 2024 (formerly #82)

Price:                    159-169€ (for a team of 3)

Overall Rating:    So. Much. Fun.

More details:        https://escaperoomjunkie.nl/en/  

Mama Bazooka - The Dome Review (The Netherlands)

Hi everyone

The fourth room on our May/June 2024 child-free trip to Holland was The Dome at Madam Bazooka. It is located in Utrecht, which is about 45-60 minute drive from Amsterdam.

I had VERY big expectations going into The Dome, given it debuted in 2020 as the number 1 escape room in the world on the TERPECA list. It has maintained an incredibly high standing since then, currently sitting at #7 in 2024. At the time that I played The Dome, it was #2.

The backstory to The Dome, which I do not think was its strongest point, is that players are participating in tests at The Dome Research Facilities, whilst a criminal cyborg Hector is undergoing ‘controlled molecular neuro transmission’ treatment. When a substance is released into the research facility, players are intoxicated and begin to hallucinate, not being able to tell reality from fantasy.

The Dome was my 294th escape room and here is what I thought:

• The quality of theming in The Dome was very strong. At times we felt like we were on a movie set. There was some really cool misdirection at the beginning of the experience that was really fun.
• There was a really broad mix of puzzles – in fact, probably a broader mix of puzzles of any room I can think of at the time of writing this review. Not all of the puzzles were brilliant (or even suited the theme), but I think where The Dome really shines is in a few select puzzles that are some of the best puzzles I have seen anywhere in the world. For those who have played The Dome, their design of a computer game in a real world escape room environment in the game was phenomenal (as was their shadow puzzle as well as a couple of others). In fact, I wonder how much that single 'real world computer game' puzzle contributed to their spot in TERPECA…
• Where I think The Dome does not shine though is in the backstory and how some puzzles fit into that story line. The story line, ie that all players are hallucinating, felt like a cop out to me – it also seemed to be a bit of a crutch from a design perspective, as it allowed the designers to include puzzles that just didn’t make sense (both in the space and in the story). More importantly, there were aspects of the story that I am pretty sure I still don’t understand more than 6 months later.
• We had an additional issue with The Dome that was a little unfortunate. We arrived early and were told that there was an issue with the game/previous team, which meant that we didn’t start until about 25 minutes past our scheduled starting time. That was a little disappointing for a few reasons – it meant that I spent a lot of time quite distracted right before (and after) the room contacting the next room we were going to to let them know we might be a little late (I had only allowed just enough time to get there), and it also meant that after playing The Dome we did not get to watch back our experience. I understand that most players go into a quiet room where they get to watch back video of themselves during their escape. That would have been really cool but alas it wasn’t to be for our team.

I thought The Dome was a really strong room. Some of the puzzles were truly unique and easily some of the best I have seen to date. However, from a room flow and story perspective, I did not think The Dome was nearly as strong. I understand that whilst The Dome has a huge following in the enthusiast world, there are also many enthusiasts who do not think it ever deserved its #2 TERPECA spot. I fell into the latter category at the time that I played The Dome and having played another 100 rooms since The Dome at the time of writing this review, I think there are a lot of rooms that deserve the top 10 spots ahead of The Dome. The idea that “you’re all hallucinating so we can get away with anything in our room flow and story line” definitely let them down in my view. But hey, the room is worth playing just for the couple of world class puzzles.


Where:                        Nijverheidsweg 5b, 3751 LP Bunschoten, Utrecht

Duration:                    60 minutes

Themes:                      3 themes

TERPECA:                 #7 in 2024 (formerly #1)

Price:                          199€ (for a team of 4)

Overall Rating:          Really unique ER with some standout puzzles

More details:              https://escaperoom.nl/en/  

Rock City Escape - Soup du Jour Review (The Netherlands)

 

Hi everyone

The third room on our May/June 2024 child-free trip to Holland was Soup du Jour at Rock City Escape in The Netherlands. Rock City Escape is located in Amersfoot, which from memory was about a 45 minute uber from Amsterdam. We took an uber because we were only heading out of the city for the one day (ie we managed to fit in a number of rooms around Amersfoot back to back), but hiring a car would have probably been a good option.

Rock City Escape is located in OLV ter Eemklooster (Our Beloved Lady of the Eem monastery). It’s a really cool location for an escape room. We met our ‘sister’ at one location and then, in character, she took us down various corridors until we found the restaurant where today’s soup du jour was to be served. The story of the room is that nuns have been disappearing from the monastery while at the same time, the popularity and reputation of a recently-opened restaurant, La Monastere, continues to grow.

Soup du Jour was my 293rd escape room and here is what I thought: 

• Soup du Jour started off very strong with the actor interaction as noted above;
• the setting for this room was pretty special – having a monastery-themed room located in an actual monastery was amazing. After we escaped, our kind GM gave us directions to a café on the monastery premises, which was really nice;
• Soup du Jour was quite unique in that it blended traditional escape room puzzles with video/cinematics. This was really cool. The puzzles themselves were really diverse and a lot of fun to solve; and
• other than the initial interaction with our GM before we went into the room, there was no other direct actor engagement. The room certainly had scary elements, with one moment of separation resulting in things being more scary for one particular player than the rest. It was not super scary though (more eerie with some jump scares).

I really enjoyed Soup du Jour. This room blended video/cinematics with a more traditional game incredibly well. No doubt it was really innovative when it opened back in 2021 and I can appreciate why it ranked #29 at the time on TERPECA. It has dropped back to #199 in 2024, but it still holds up I think. It was a great room in a phenomenal setting.


Where:                        Daam Fockemalaan 22, 3818 KG Amersfoot

Duration:                    75 minutes

Themes:                       3 themes

TERPECA:                  #199 in 2024 (formerly #29)

Price:                            155€ (for a team of 4)

Overall Rating:            A fun (and scary) blend of cinematics/tech in a real monastery

More details:                https://rockcityescape.nl/