Next Level Escape - The Game Review (Sydney)

 

Hi everyone!

Just before Christmas 2020, my team managed to finally get back to Next Level to check out their latest rooms.  We have enjoyed all of our experiences at Next Level, right back to when they opened and they had a 15 minute blitz room, to pop-up experiences they have designed for conventions through to their online and physical rooms. 

A little over 2 months ago now, my team and I tried out Next Level Escape’s The Game.  In fact, we tried 2 of their rooms back to back – both The Show Must Go On and The Game rooms.  

This time we were our usual team of 4 adults.  The Game was our 162nd room to date (and our 95th room in Sydney).

Here is the summary of The Game from Next Level Escape’s website:

 

Ladies and gentlemen, boys and girls, the greatest game of the century is back! Split your group into two teams, Red and Blue, and compete for fame and fortune. Will your team leave in a blaze of glory or in a cloud of shame? If you’ve ever wanted to be on a TV game show, this is your big chance!

Oh, and ignore the remnants of the Green Team, our crew is working on cleaning that up…

IT’S TIME TO PLAY THE GAME!

As always, I’ll start off with what I liked about the room:

• simply put, this is one of my favourite rooms I have played to date;
• firstly, the theme is right up my alley - a competive room, jam-packed full of puzzles in which players are split up into different coloured teams fighting it out for bragging rights to wear the victor's crown. What's not to like? 
• The Game contains a series of puzzles which each team races to complete.  Without going into details, many of the puzzles contain elements from different games from my childhood.  I really enjoyed this element (and the room theme completely allows for this fantastic flexibility of puzzle choices);
• the quality of theming and props was incredible throughout all aspects of The Game;
• The Game is one of those very few escape rooms in the market where players are not only racing the clock, but where teams are racing each other.  The only other rooms I can think of where this is the case are where escape room businesses have built the same room twice (and therefore 2 different teams can simultaneously play the same room, racing for bragging rights to escape first).  Good examples of this in Sydney, for those who are interested, are Ex Libris at Next Level Escape and Gateway 9A at Parapark.  In The Game, I found the race between the teams to be incredibly stressful, and it certainly had our adrenalin running.  I loved it;
• there are so many other clever elements of this room I could talk about: clever use of hunt and seek puzzle elements, dilemmas posed to players when considering to ask for a hint (because the downside is that the other team can listen in), etc, but my absolute favourite element is the design of the overall experience.  Again, this is a spoiler-free zone so I can't go into this at all, but suffice it to say that I have played around 170 escape room experiences at the time of writing this review, and I cannot think of a room design that I have been as impressed by as much as I was impressed by The Game.  The puzzle and room flow are as good as it gets;
• this wouldn't be a Next Level Room if it didn't contain a heap of humour and laughs, which it certainly did; and
• Aaron was an excellent game master for our team on the day and as always, we had a long chat with Aaron and Leanne afterwards about the room, the various puzzle elements, how they came up with the design, etc. 

The biggest compliment that I think I can give to Aaron and Leanne is that this was one of my absolute favourite rooms to date, and that is despite the fact that I was on the losing team on the day!

The Game is competitive, stressful, bright and fun, jam-packed full of interesting puzzles and incredibly well-designed. It is also family-friendly.

I don't remember how long it took our team to complete The Game, but I enjoyed every minute.

I love all of the rooms at Next Level Escape, but The Game is my new favourite. 

Where:                   Lower Ground, 23 O'Connell Street, Sydney

Duration:               75 minutes

Themes:                4 (plus an online game)

Cost:                      $52pp per team of 4 (we played at the kind invitation of the owners)

Overall Rating:      One of my absolute favourite rooms (and I was on the losing team!)

More details:          https://www.nextlevelescape.com.au/