Verone Live Action Escape Rooms - Don't Take a Breath (Athens)

Hi all

The fourth escape room that we checked out on our November-December 2024 trip to Athens and Spain was Don’t Take a Breath at Verone.

The only information that I had read online about Don’t Take a Breath was that it was TERPECA #8 at the time that we played it, so that was enough for me. It was not an easy booking to get – we had to liaise directly with the owner and schedule our trip around that one room. But I am glad that we did…

The story behind this experience is as follows:

Everything suggested that it was a good idea for easy money; they had all the information they needed, even the keys to the house from the security company that was maintained by the father of one of the group! A helpless, blind man would not be a great obstacle between them and the money. However, reality turned into a pure nightmare. Because they did not know that the 'helpless' blind man was a veteran of the Special Forces of the American army who always carried with him the scars and the trauma of his war in Iraq in 1991. And the huge isolated house of 230 square meters was his theatre of operations. This house in this infamous neighbourhood hid more secrets than they expected and ended up becoming a battlefield. Will the invaders manage to survive a deadly game of escape?

Don’t Take a Breath was our 325^th room to date. Here is what I thought:

• firstly, this room is incredibly unique. It really was incredibly different to anything I had seen before or since. Whilst it is a scary room, it is not a horror room. I had read that going in, but I did not appreciate what it really meant of course until we experienced it for ourselves;
• so to explain further, DTAB is a not a room where you are being chased by one or more actors whose sole intent is to scare the shit out of you. There is plenty of that kind of thing on offer in Athens, but DTAB isn’t that. Instead, it is more about having players appreciate the game from the experience of the main character in the story, an elderly man with poor vision and hearing who is haunted by his time in the Iraq war. So whilst there are some jump scares and there are some tense moments with character interactions, I found this experience WAY less scary than 90% of the rooms in Athens, particularly once I started to appreciate that this was a different room to most;
• given that the experience is not a horror experience, that allows players to spend more of their energy concentrating on puzzles, which means the designers were able to include more puzzles than most Athens rooms (and they are reasonably challenging). The puzzles in this experience have been designed by a fellow enthusiast and it really shows;
• the quality of the build is incredible. The designer has constructed a two storey house inside a warehouse in a very quiet Athens street. The house feels incredibly authentic, from the props to the wall paper to the creaking floors. There is such a high level of attention to detail here. And in terms of scale, the experience covers 230m2 – it just keeps going and going; and
• the game design and room flow were really well-considered. There are moments where players are separated, but for the majority of the time we were working together to solve puzzles in order to delve further into the room’s story.

I loved Don’t Take a Breath. It had a very strong backstory, the quality of the theming and set design was excellent, it has a really good number of challenging puzzles and the set was enormous. We were lucky enough to speak with the owner for a little while after our escape – it was VERY clear that he loved escape rooms (and pigs?) and he was a great host.

Where:                 29 Agiou Konstantinou St, Acharnes

Duration:             120 minutes

TERPECA:            #20 in 2024 (formerly #8)

Themes:              1 theme (and another underway)

Overall Rating:    Brilliant - truly unlike anything we have played before or since

More details:        https://verone.gr/dont-take-a-breath  

Coven Escape - Woman in Black Review (Athens)

 

Hi all

The third escape room that we checked out on our November-December 2024 trip to Athens and Spain was Woman in Black at Coven Escape in Athens.

I had heard good things about this room, although I knew it was a scary room. In fact, this was the first truly scary room of our trip. It was at the end of a very long day (which started about 30 hours before when we left Sydney). I remember walking into an unassuming multi-storey residential building in a side street in Athens, entering a lift and then exiting onto a dirty, seemingly disused floor in total darkness. We managed to find a light source and hoped we were in the right location (which we were). The experience began about 15 mins later.

Woman in Black was our 324th room to date. Here is what I thought:

• the beginning of the experience was pretty cool. It involved a calm, interaction with an actor, setting out our mission. That was about where the 'calmness' ended;
• the theming and set quality in this room was phenomenally good. We left the office space with the actor and found ourselves in a small town in the woods. The set was excellent - the quality of the build, the sounds and lighting were all fantastic. A light layer of smoke and brilliant lighting meant that we couldn't see very well, which added to the scare factor;
• we made our way into an old building and that was when we first saw her, the famous Woman in Black. We then spent the next 100 or so minutes running from her, hiding from her, being separated while she magically split into two and terrorised both of us, before managing to get the fuck out of Dodge and returning to the office and once again, taking a breath;
• this was not the scariest room of the trip, but it was up there. I vividly recall at one point being locked in a very small space, only to look up to see, much to my surprise, the Woman in Black looking down at me from above - she was so close her hair/clothing almost touched my face. Sounds like a fun time doesn't it?
• the experience and room flow were both really well-designed. They used loud music and sounds to mask the approaching Woman in Black. They also had us standing in total blackness at one point, where the Woman held small lights pointed at us, which made it incredibly hard for us to see and focus on where the next scare would come from;
• the puzzles in Woman in Black were all pretty strong. What I soon learned on this trip is that you can't really have an escape room that has both super complicated puzzles and actors running around trying (and succeeding) at scaring the shit out of players. Instead, in almost all of the scarier rooms that we played, the puzzles were on the simpler side (and in some cases, there were far fewer puzzles that you would expect in a typical (ie non-scary) escape room). I thought Woman in Black had the right mix of number and difficulty of puzzles for the scares.

You might think from the above review that I did not enjoy Woman in Black. That isn't true - I actually enjoyed myself (at least looking back). In the moment though, it was terrifying and I spent most of the time holding my breath, my whole body fully tensed and just waiting for the next fucking jump scare. I am really glad we played Woman in Black though. The set design and theming were up there with the best I have seen. Woman in Black is currently #151 on the TERPECA list. I think it deserves a much better ranking (and there were certainly other rooms we played in the top 100 that I thought were not in the same league as Woman in Black).

Where:                  Sappho 143 Kallithea, 3rd Floor

Duration:             110 minutes

TERPECA:            #151 in 2024 (formerly #35)

Themes:               1 theme

Overall Rating:    Beautiful set design but incredibly scary

More details:        https://covenescaperooms.gr/  

Lockhill Escape Rooms - Sanatorium Review (Athens)

Hi all

The next escape room that we checked out on our November-December 2024 trip to Athens and Spain was The Sanatorium at Lockhill Escape Rooms.

We had heard great things about Lockhill, particularly their Chapel & Catacombs room, which has previously sat at #1 on TERPECA (and which sat at #3 at the time that we played it).  The Sanatorium sat at #81 at the time that we played it, having previously peaked at #5 on TERPECA.

Sanatorium was our 323rd room to date. Here is what I thought:

• the theming in Sanatorium was pretty strong. The quality of the set design and props were all very good;
• after about the tenth minute of this experience, my mood dropped a little due to my left foot being completely saturated. In fairness, before we began, our GM warned us that before opening any doors we should be careful because there is one room with water in it. That is however easier said than done, given the very low lighting and the fear/excitement/adrenalin. So of course, I opened a door and then found my foot in ankle-deep water. Actually, it was so brown and gross that I think it is more accurate to call it filthy liquid. The owners really should clean the water (regularly would be nice, annually would be an improvement). And it wouldn’t kill them to lay down a metal grille so that players don’t actually have to stand beneath the surface of the water...
• I remember coming away from Sanatorium thinking that the puzzles were ok, but nothing spectacular. There were some hunt and seek elements and some puzzles that required players to remember different elements from different rooms, but overall the puzzles were just ok and the storyline was quickly forgotten;
• we did not play the scariest version available of this room and maybe the scarier version would have been a better (albeit horrifying) experience. Having since played many scary rooms in Athens and Spain, I wish we had played the scarier version of Sanatorium, because the scarier character interactions probably make up 50% of the ‘puzzles’ in this experience.

I thought Sanatorium was just ok. They need to fix the gross water issue and I think they need to consider including more puzzles in the non “Midnight” (scariest version) of the experience to make it a little more interesting for players.

Where:                   Deligiorgi 55-59, Platia Karaiskaki Athens

Duration:               90 minutes

TERPECA:             The Sanatorium #81 in 2024 (previously #5)

Themes:                 5 themes

Overall Rating:      We were a little underwhelmed

More details:          https://www.lockhill.gr/

The Paradox Project - The Mansion, The Music Academy and The Bookstore Reviews (Athens)

Hi everyone

In November-December 2024, I headed off on a trip to Europe to play as many escape rooms as we could possibly fit in both Athens (for one week) and then all over Spain (over the following two weeks). With me on this trip was my fellow-escape room enthusiast (and some would say rhythmically-challenged), Aaron. We also played a number of rooms with Aaron’s friend Selina who joined us in Spain.

I had heard wonderful things about rooms in Athens and Spain (and quite honestly, we picked Athens and Spain because of anywhere in the world, they hold the largest number of top TERPECA rooms). I did however have a genuine concern about the scarier rooms (particularly in Athens), as I had heard from other owners in Europe that the horror rooms in Athens and Spain involve multiple actors running at you, touching you and all kinds of ‘fun’. I was particularly concerned because we were going to play most of the rooms as a team of 2, which I thought would be much scarier than in a team of 4. I was right…..but more on that later.

We flew into Athens early in the morning and after some food and caffeine, the first escape rooms business on our trip was The Paradox Project. They have 3 rooms, which we played over 3 different days on our trip (but I will review all 3 together in this blog post).

Paradox Project boasts (as far as I am aware), the longest escape rooms in the world. I had always been intrigued by really long escape rooms and what they would be like. They sound great right? The ability to play rooms for hours in a row. I am no stranger to playing a lot of rooms in a single day (with our current record being 13 rooms in a 24 hour period). However, the Paradox Project rooms vary between 180 minutes and 200 minutes. Yeah, that’s between 3 hours and 3 hours and 20 mins per room!

Dimitri, the owner, was a great host. One of the biggest issues we found in booking rooms in Athens (and to a lesser extent Spain) is that so many escape rooms are only open in the afternoon and evening. Helpfully, there were a few owners who let us play rooms during the day (including Paradox Project).

Paradox Project is well-regarded in the ER enthusiast world, with many Europeans describing their rooms as the best puzzle rooms in the world. Here is what we thought of each of the 3 rooms at Paradox Project:

The Mansion – Room 322

The Mansion was their oldest room. There wasn’t really much in terms of set design – the room’s theme was an old mansion and we played the room in an old multi-storey building in Athens. Similarly, the props were very simple (somewhere between a Gen 1 and a Gen 2 room).

The highlight of the room though was the puzzles. Whilst some were simple hide and seek puzzles, there were others that were more intricate, including some that were multi-part puzzles. There was a little more tech towards the back end of the experience, but overall I would describe it as relatively simplistic from a design and theming perspective. There was also a little wear and tear (although that did not detract from our experience). The experience was long, particularly after 30+ hours of travel, but I didn’t feel too tired by the end of the experience.

The Music Academy – Room 329

The Music Academy is the newest room at The Paradox Project. I could see a significant difference compared with The Mansion. There were many elements of The Music Academy that I liked. I agree with other enthusiasts that the strongest element of Paradox Project’s rooms are the puzzles. There was a really nice variety of puzzles. Some of my favourite puzzles were those that required a really keen eye for detail, as well as others that were multi-layered. When I think back about this room, my main memory is the sheer scale of the rooms that we traversed. I think the backstory was also pretty strong and made sense. There was some nice misdirection and a nice character interaction as well. There was one particular puzzle that I did not like (I think it is not intuitive and that it let down what was otherwise a strong experience).

The Bookstore – Room 338

This was our favourite room at Paradox Project. I also thought it was their most challenging room. Again, the sheer scale of the experience was amazing (I have lost count of how many spaces we travelled through). We had to scratch our head a number of times with some of the puzzles, but we got there in the end. The variety of puzzles was enormous and I 100% get why puzzle lovers enjoy this room so much. Whilst we found the puzzles challenging (particularly as a team of only 2), we had a lot of fun and we took our time to enjoy the experience. That being said, The Bookstore is their longest room (and certainly the longest room we had ever played) at around 3 hours and 20 minutes. We needed every bit of that time to escape and we needed a few hints along the way. But this was definitely my favourite of their rooms.

Overall thoughts

Paradox Project is revered by many escape room enthusiasts, particularly those based in Europe. I think it especially stands out in Athens, where to be quite honest, I did not find the quality of puzzles to be very strong (especially compared to Australia and to the phenomenal rooms in The Netherlands and Belgium, for example). Escape rooms in Athens (and many parts of Spain) are more geared at the horror market. We played many of the scarier rooms and in those experiences, the puzzles take a backseat to the jump scares. So I think for that reason Paradox Academy’s rooms stand out in Athens.

That being said, I think The Bookstore is a fantastic escape room – great puzzles, great theming, great storyline and its sheer scale. And I think it deserves its TERPECA spot (#57 at the time of posting this review). Being honest though (as I always try to be on this blog), I think all of Paradox Project’s rooms would benefit from some editing and refining. I think they are too long (and I don’t think their length is necessary, particularly if they were streamlined).

Which brings me to my final point, which relates to the duration of each of their rooms. I love escape rooms and before I played their rooms, I thought nothing could be better than a really long escape room. But having played all 3 of their rooms, I can confirm that I do not think players can focus and remain fully engaged for more than about 2 hours. Whilst Paradox Project offers players a short interval, this was still not enough for me to remain engaged. I enjoy playing many rooms in a single day, but I think the difference is that when playing many 60 or 90 minute rooms in a day, players have a chance in between rooms to have a mental break, debrief about the last room, get some caffeine and then, importantly, be challenged by a completely new theme and storyline. 

Also, there were some puzzles in the Paradox Project rooms that do not perfectly fit the theme or the backstory and I sincerely think they could be removed to make way for a more streamlined 2 hour experience. I honestly think players would enjoy the shorter experience.

Where:                    93 Harokopou & El. Venizelou (Theseos) and

          All Saints 92 Kallithea, 17676, Attica

Duration:                180-200 minutes

TERPECA:              Bookstore #57 in 2024 (previously #2)

                                Music Academy #100 in 2024 (previously #12)

                                Mansion (previously #70)

Themes:                 3 themes

Overall Rating:      The Bookstore was the stand out

More details:          https://paradoxproject.gr/ 

Escape Science Centre (ESC) - Shangri-La and Museum of Humankind (Singapore)

Hi all

The second escape room business that we checked out in October 2024, while on a holiday with our girls, was ESC (Escape Science Centre) at Science Centre Singapore. Again, Singapore is not known for its great escape rooms, but our girls were keen to check out the Science Centre and the escape rooms are in an adjoining building, so we figured why not.  

We played 2 rooms back to back. The first was Shangri-La and the second was Museum of Humankind. Here is what I thought:

Shangri-La – Room 320

This room was our favourite of the 2 rooms. It was more of an Indiana Jones-style adventure room. We began with a backpack of items on our back and we set off on the adventure. The theming in Shangri-La was pretty strong, as were the props. The puzzles varied from the quite simple to the more involved. The highlight for me was one particular 'construction' puzzle that we really enjoyed. It also involved some pretty impressive tech. We escaped this room pretty quickly - our GM told us we broke the all-time room record, which was cool. This was a fun adventure room.

Museum of Humankind – Room 321

Whilst not our favourite room at ESC, we enjoyed this room as well. The theming was not quite as impressive, but there were a lot more puzzles (and more challenging puzzles) than Shangri-La. The theme was about human's impact on the planet - whilst interesting (and certainly suiting Science Centre Singapore), it was not quite as exciting as the adventure-themed Shangri-La room.  

If you find yourself heading to Science Centre Singapore (which our girls thought was really cool and worth a day out), then I would recommend checking out Shangri-La while you're there. It was a fun adventure room - very family friendly with no jump scares or even dark areas at all. 

Where:                15 Science Centre Rd, Singapore 609081

Duration:             60 minutes

Themes:              3 themes

Price:                    $80SGD per team of 4 (depending on time of day)

Overall Rating:    Fun rooms - Shangri-La was our favourite

More details:       https://www.esc.sg/

XCape Singapore - Azkaban Review (Singapore)

 

Hi all

In October 2024, we took our girls on a trip to Singapore. Singapore was the first country I every travelled to as a teenager, so I have been keen for a long time to take my girls there (and to hit up as many hawkers as possible). We had a great trip and ate so much food (our favourite place by far was Maxwell).

I had reached out to the enthusiast community ahead of our trip to Singapore to ask which rooms we should play. Unfortunately, the overwhelming consensus was that Singapore doesn't have many great escape rooms. So we only ended up playing 3 escape rooms while we were in Singapore, the fist of which was Azkaban at XCape. This is a Harry-Potter themed escape room.

Azkaban was our 319th room to date. Here is what I thought:

• the theming in Azkaban was relatively average. There was A LOT of wear and tear and the age of the room really showed;
• as far as the quality of the set design and props, it was again average compared to the rest of international ER market;
• the puzzles were reasonably good, although our enjoyment was impacted by some puzzle elements that were almost impossible to see (even when told where to look) due to how worn out they had become;
• the storyline was pretty weak and very forgettable; and
• the room generally was pretty easy (despite the hiccups due to the room's wear and tear). We escaped in 33 of 75 minutes, much to the surprise of our GM. The room needs more puzzles to justify a 75 minute timeframe. 

Overall, I would give this room a miss. I think it either needs to be properly maintained and improved upon (with an extra room's worth of puzzles), or retired. It scratched the ER itch, but only just.

Where:                 Bugis Village, 161 Rochor Road, S188436

Duration:             75 minutes

Themes:               9 themes

Price:                    $140SGD per team of 4

Overall Rating:    Give this one a miss

More details:        https://www.xcape.sg

Eclipse Escape Room - Magic Moonstone, Flaming Pearl and Knights Templar Reviews (Gold Coast)

 

Hi everyone

In October of 2024, on our weekend away to the Gold Coast, we checked out a total of 7 escape rooms. Our fifth, sixth and seventh rooms were Moonstone, Knights Templar and Flaming Pearl at Eclipse.

Here is what we thought:

Moonstone Review – Room 316

We really enjoyed Moonstone. We have played many (many) magic-themed rooms to date – they are always a popular choice with our daughters. I thought Moonstone was one of the better magic-themed rooms.

I enjoyed the quality of the set and the props throughout. There were some really nice puzzles and puzzle elements, with a really good mix. I think the strongest element of Moonstone was the puzzles (which is where I think many other magic-themed rooms fall down). I would describe Moonstone as being about a medium level of difficulty – we escaped with plenty of time and our girls led the way for the most part.

Knights Templar – Room 317

Knights Templar was another strong room. The initial set was quite simple and straight forward, with players beginning in an internet café. Whilst the set quality improved throughout the experience, I think this was probably the least impressive set of the 3 rooms that we played at Eclipse.

We enjoyed the puzzles in Knights Templar, as did our daughters. They were varied and all challenging. We did get stuck at the end because we had solved everything but just didn’t know where we were supposed to place the final item (and perhaps more cues in the room for this would not hurt). This was a fun room but probably my least favourite of the 3 rooms that we played at Eclipse. 

Flaming Pearl – Room 318

Flaming Pearl was an awesome room (and in fact, it was our favourite room of the trip). Flaming Pearl is their newest room and had only been open for a few days when we played.

It is a very pretty room with so much to take in. Flaming Pearl has a really cool mechanic where players have a (large) number of puzzles to solve, but there is a central board which shows their progress. There are puzzles (and puzzle elements) everywhere! The room is non-linear for the most part, so we divided and conquered (especially in the first 15-20 minutes). We then regrouped and worked together on the puzzles for the rest of the experience.

The puzzles and room flow are the standouts at Flaming Pearl. The puzzles were all incredibly varied – there were so many different puzzle types (which we all loved). They were challenging and really satisfying to solve. There is a lot of hidden tech in this room, which was all flawlessly concealed.

We absolutely loved this room and it was our favourite on the Gold Coast by some margin. Our GM (and the owner) Kerri is very enthusiastic about escape rooms and it was lovely chatting with her before, in between and after we escaped from her rooms. By far my favourite ER company on the Gold Coast.

Where:                    Level 1, Chevron Renaissance Shopping Centre, Surfers Paradise

Duration:                60 minutes

Themes:                 5 themes

Price:                      $45 per person (for a team of 4) (children cheaper)

Overall Rating:       Flaming Pearl was our favourite room on the Gold Coast!

More details:           https://eclipseescape.com.au/