Scram Escape Rooms - The Wizard Chambers Review

Hi all

My usual team of 4 managed to check out Scram Escape Rooms at Parramatta over the Easter weekend.  My 6 month old tagged along, so we were officially a team of 5.

It was our 53^rd room in Australia and our 41^st room in Sydney.  Here’s what we liked most about The Wizard Chambers:

·           they have done a great job with the theming of the space, which is Harry Potter inspired.  Their front of house looks great as does a small area beneath the stairs which sets up the first room theme really well.   They have managed to provide a real feeling of a wizarding world. 

·           the puzzles are great.  There is a really good mix of high tech and low tech puzzles throughout the rooms – they are all intuitive and make sense.  It’s always nice to see puzzle elements that we have not seen used before in 50+ rooms.  There were a number of things we saw in The Wizard Chambers that we had not seen anywhere before, which was cool.

·           they have some nice tech in the room, but some of my favourite elements in the room were low tech puzzles and door mechanisms, which were awesome. 

·           they have a simple voice of God hint system, which worked perfectly.

·           the room has a really good flow.  There were a couple of parts that had us scratching our heads, but when we figured it out it was all logical and made sense.

·           they have a dedicated game master watching each players’ every move, which is fantastic.  

·           after our escape, the game masters Walid and Jess stepped us through each puzzle in the room, which was a nice touch (particularly when certain puzzles were solved by my team members before I had even seen them).

·           it’s also really impressive that the owners designed the rooms and all of the puzzles themselves.  This is no easy feat (with more and more escape room companies in Sydney opting to purchase room designs or puzzle elements).  Scram has done a great job on this front.

·           they have a great location – they are close to Westfield and the train station, which is really convenient.

·           I think this room is an intermediate difficulty level.  We escaped in around 44 minutes (which I think was a record for about half a day until it was broken by another team).  None of the puzzles are impossibly hard – they are largely logical with a couple of elements that require you to really pay attention to your surroundings. 

·           this is therefore a great room for teams who are new to escape rooms and it’s really well-suited to family teams.  There are a couple of sections that are a little poorly-lit, but otherwise it’s not scary at all for young kids.

·           their pricing is great – at around $31 per person (for a team of 4), they are considerably below the average price for escape rooms in Sydney.

I’m pleased that there really isn’t much to report on the negative side.  I have given the owners my suggested tips/comments on minor things (some puzzle and theming tweaks mainly).  

This is a great room that I think is particularly suited to family or younger teams as well as beginner to intermediate players.  It's really fun!

Where:                   48/2 O’Connell Street, Parramatta

Duration:               60 minutes

Themes:                 1 currently (and another room planned)

Cost:                       $31 each (4 players) (*we played at the kind invitation of the owners)

Overall Rating:      A family-friendly room of magic and fun!

More details:          http://www.scramescaperooms.com.au/