Friday, 25 January 2019

CT Adventures - The Virus review



Hi all

My team checked out CT Adventures’ The Virus room in December.  We had been to CT Adventures twice before – the first time to check out MU-T (which was a great room) and their Gotcha! Room (which was less great).

CT Adventures is one of those outfits that have high tech rooms without the immersive, layered experience.  I think MU-T is their strongest room, with the best variety of puzzles. 

The theme of The Virus is as follows (taken from their website):

The newest high-tech computer system has been created recently by our research institute and the Doctors named it “LYU”.
However, a computer VIRUS “X” has hacked into our “LYU”System and controlled it all. Please try to enter the control room ASAP and fix all the system. Restart “LYU” and find the way of clear the Virus ......Good Luck!

So in a nutshell, there’s a virus that players have to identify and fix.  It’s not the most unique of storylines unfortunately…

The Virus was our 105th escape room in Australia and our 75th escape room in Sydney.  Here are my thoughts:

·         there was a mix of mostly high tech puzzles, with a few old-school Hungarian style puzzles.  Many of the high tech puzzles were high tech for the sake of it – given this was a computer virus themed room, it did kind of suit the theme I suppose;
·         the hint system was by way of a walkie talkie – this was effective but not nearly as strong as the more common Voice of God hint system that is common in most rooms these days;
·         there wasn’t too much hunt and seek fun in the room – it was 95% about the puzzles;
·         the theming was ok – certainly not in the same ballpark as some of the stronger rooms in Sydney or Melbourne;
·         this room had replaced the earlier Pokemon-themed Gotcha room, which my team had tried.  Unfortunately, the room layout is identical to the previous room – this was disappointing and a little lazy on the room owners’ part;
·         some of the puzzles were not exactly logical or clear – we had to ask for a hint at one point because we didn’t understand what we were supposed to do with the techy puzzle elements;
·         in the end, we didn’t understand the storyline and whether we had achieved in our quest (although I had kind of got bored by that point and had lost interest in the quest itself).

I would describe this room as being pretty lack-lustre.  We escaped in less than half of the permitted time – it felt like we were running through the motions without a single wow moment or fun element.
As always, the true test of a room for me is whether we had fun.  We didn’t have fun in this room.  The other measure of a room, at least for me, is how well I remember the puzzles.  For my favourite rooms, I can tell you in detail each puzzle in the space 2 or 3 years later. 
With this room at CT Adventures, it has been less than 2 months and I can barely remember any of the puzzles.  Give it a miss.

Where:                                        61 Market Street, Sydney
Duration:                                     60 minutes
Themes:                                      3 themes
Cost:                                            $40pp
Overall Summary:                      Not unique, fun or enjoyable – give it a miss
More details:                               https://ctadventureescapegame.com.au/


1 comment:

  1. Hi Scott,

    Our team completed the virus room back in Feb, and your review was on the money. The Virus is below standard. This room is a hard pass! Don't be tempted by the groupon deal (like my team was), it's still not worth the money.

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