Hi everyone
My team of 4 first spoke about going to Canberra to check out the rooms down there in 2016. Life then got in the way (as well as a pandemic), but we finally managed to get down there in March 2021. In fact, we had booked the trip for January 2021 but the Avalon COVID-19 cluster at the time resulted in the ACT Government closing its borders, so we had to cancel at the last minute
Fast forward 2 months and the trip was back on. We drove down early on a Friday morning and arrived into our nation’s capital at lunch time. Our itinerary contained 9 escape rooms in a 47 hour period. It sounds worse that it was – I planned it over 3 days (with lots of nice restaurants included for good measure). We stayed in a hotel in Braddon, which seemed to be pretty central to the 3 different escape room businesses that we were attending over the long weekend.
First up on the itinerary were all 3 rooms back to back at Revelation Puzzle Rooms. They are located in Fyshwick in an industrial estate. I had looked on TripAdvisor for a decent lunch place to hit before we did all 3 rooms. TripAdvisor suggested a café called Pellegrino’s (which was only a few minutes’ drive from Revelation) and the food was great (we all had the chicken schnitzel burgers, which were fantastic).
We arrived and met Daniel, the owner and designer of Revelation Puzzle Rooms. I had been corresponding with Daniel over Facebook Messenger since June 2018, so it was great to finally say hello in person.
Whenever we are checking out multiple rooms at an escape room business, I like to play the rooms in the order of easiest to most difficult. I find that it usually takes one room to warm up and to get inside the head of the puzzle designer. So, we started with their Toxic room, the summary of which is as follows:
A major pharmaceutical company by the name of Genesis Laboratories has posted an ad for researchers to help create a cure. You respond to the job offer; however, when you arrive things are not as they seem.
Thousands continue to fall victim to Valerium. Can you create a cure before it’s too late?
Toxic was our first room in Canberra and our 168th room to date.
Here is my review of Toxic:
- as can be seen from the room summary above, Toxic is a “save the world from a virus” room. Whist this is a pretty popular theme amongst escape room businesses, I thought Revelation Puzzle Rooms executed this theme really well;
- what lifts the room further is that each of the room themes at
Revelation Puzzle Rooms are linked in an overarching storyline. I really liked this element;
- Toxic has some tricky puzzles, all of which fit the room theme. There is a lot of nicely-concealed tech throughout the room, as well as a small amount of hunt and seek fun. The puzzles were all varied and were challenging (without being impossibly difficult);
- the quality of the theming was pretty good – the room theme lends itself
to being simpler to kit out than, for example, some of the other themed rooms
in Canberra which are set in completely different eras. As far as “save the world from a virus” rooms
go, the theming was good. They also have
a killer soundtrack for each of their rooms at Revelation J;
- the hint system was the voice of God system. We didn’t ask for any hints, but it’s nice to
know that they use the best system available.
I’m also very happy to report that our game master Daniel was watching
our every move and knew exactly where we were up to. This was not true of all of our experiences
elsewhere in Canberra unfortunately; and
- I would describe Toxic as being on the easier side. It is also not dark or scary, so I think it would be a good choice for newer players and families. That being said, as an experienced team, we all still had a lot of fun. Our team escaped in 25 minutes and 11 seconds. Whenever we escape a room in less than 30 minutes, my usual comment is that I think the room could do with a few extra puzzles (so that experienced players feel like they are getting their money’s worth). Whilst I think that comment is true for Toxic as well, I assume that a lot of Revelation’s players are newer players, given that this room currently has a 51% escape rate. If Revelation’s market is newer players/corporates, then I can appreciate why the room has fewer puzzles than it otherwise might have. It is difficult to design a room that meets the difficulty level required for new players and experienced players alike.
My team had a lot of fun playing Toxic. We managed to score both the record for the fastest escape time of any 4 player team, as well as the fastest escape time for any team (irrespective of the number of players in the team), so that was nice. For playing the room, we scored a really nice coloured pin – for beating the record, we scored an additional record breaker pin. This is something that only a few businesses provide, but which I think players (particularly enthusiasts) really like. We certainly did.
Based on our escape times for each of Revelation’s rooms, I think Toxic is the easiest of their rooms. Despite being on the easier side, it was definitely a strong room with some interesting and fun puzzles.
Where: 8/151-155 Gladstone Street, Fyshwick
Duration: 60 minutes
Themes: 3 themes (with another one planned for release later in 2021)
Cost: Price: $40pp (depending on team size)
Overall Thoughts: A fun, science-themed room that kept us on our toes!
More details: http://revelationpuzzlerooms.com
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