Outlast Escape Room - Silent Hospital Review

Hi everyone!

My wife and I brought along 2 newbies to try out a new escape room in Ashfield called Outlast Escape.

I wrote to the owners last year when they opened, asking for more information about their escape room business and despite a follow up, I'm still waiting on a response.

One of their rooms requires someone in the group to be able to read Chinese characters, which made me a little worried that the other rooms might have translation issues.

This was our 29th room in Sydney and 41st room in Australia.

As usual, I’ll start with a summary of all of the things that I liked in Outlast Escape's Silent Hospital: 

• some of the technology was cool (there was one thing we hadn’t seen anywhere else), but it didn’t really fit the theme at all (it was high tech for the sake of high tech);
• a couple of the puzzles were pretty good;
• there was a reasonably good mix of hunt and seek and puzzle fun; and
• it was an ok room to bring beginners to.

And as for what I didn’t like:

• there is no back story – you are instead handed a poorly translated laminated card and are asked to read it for yourself;
• there are many puzzles that just do not fit the theme in any way;
• some of the puzzles are very clunky – they aren’t clever but instead feel very forced an incredibly disjointed;
• we had a torch with flat batteries, so they had to come in and hand us the new one, which ruined the flow and immersion;
• in one room, there are various bags of blood (it is a hospital theme after all).  One of these bags burst open all over my wife’s clothes – she was not impressed;
• one of the locks between rooms had been left open, so we didn’t need to open it properly;
• the price of this room is about the most expensive in Sydney at $40 per person.  This is about double what it should be for the quality of this room (and the location).

This room was just “ok”.  As always, I judge rooms based on how much fun I had and overall, this was not a memorable room.  Our first-timers seemed to enjoy the experience, but it definitely was not a great room for anyone who has seen a truly great room before.  The puzzles didn’t make sense in the space, the room flow was not well-considered and felt like it had been thrown together and they used high tech just for the sake of it, rather than weaving a clever story with great immersion. 

Give this place a miss.

Where:                        Suite 2, Level 1, 251 Liverpool Road, Ashfield, NSW, 2131

Duration:                    60 minutes

Themes:                     3 themes

Cost:                           $160 for 4 adults

Overall Summary:      Very overpriced and average

More details:              http://www.outlastescape.com/