Hi everyone
The fourth and final room at Riddle Room that my team played during our March 2021 long weekend was The Hotel.
The summary of The Hotel is as follows:
In an old abandoned Hotel lies a treasured stone. Tasked with the job of retrieving it, you enter the Hotel, but soon find that you might be an unwelcomed guest.
Players: 4 - 7
Recommended Players: 4 - 6
Difficulty: 3 / 5
Scare Factor: 2.5 / 5
The Hotel was our 7th room in Canberra and our 174th room to date. Here’s what we thought:
· this room was brilliant and easily our favourite room in Canberra;
· Hotel is a scary room, both thematically and in terms of lighting. There are also a couple of jump scares, but they are all pretty tame. For this reason, I don’t think it would suit younger children (but it would obviously depend on the kid);
· there were a lot of puzzles in Hotel and they came in all types. The variety was brilliant and it included both tech and more old school-type observation puzzles;
· the theming in Hotel is off the charts. Enthusiasts often talk about Cipher Room in Sydney as being the leading escape room company when it comes to theming (and it is). I think the quality of the theming in Hotel is the closest we have seen to Cipher Room. We all absolutely felt like we had been transported to another place and another time. The props all made sense in the space, the sounds and lighting were perfect, as were the wall and floor treatments. It took Riddle Room over 6 months to construct this room (and that was following at least 6 months of room design) and it shows;
· the room design was also excellent. All of the spaces in the experience are well considered and well designed. I would describe the room as non-linear, but with definite points of convergence which bring all players back together;
· the back story to the room is fantastic and it continues throughout the experience. The puzzles all link to that back story flawlessly;
· there is so much well-concealed tech in Hotel, but none of it seems out of place or forced at all. Again, as with their other rooms, my absolute favourite puzzle in Hotel is a low tech puzzle (I can’t think of a way to describe this subtly, other than to say that it was a pattern recognition puzzle). It was brilliant and as clever as it was simple;
· I think there is a little more hunt and seek fun in Hotel than in some of the other Riddle Room rooms. In fact, the only time that we were stuck was because we couldn’t see what was right in front of us…;
· as always, the customer service side of things was flawless. We had a dedicated game master watching our every move – she was friendly and helpful. One of the owners Chris spent time with us after we escaped not only taking us through the puzzles in Hotel, but he also showed us behind the scenes in their game masters room, their workshop and their expansion space. This was excellent (and it’s always fun chatting with other enthusiasts); and
· Chris showed us the software that Riddle Room has designed to communicate with players and to identify when they have solved each of the puzzles in their rooms. This was really impressive.
Hotel is a fantastic room. It is an escape room enthusiast’s room. It ticks all of the boxes that enthusiasts are looking for – off the charts theming and immersion, strong storyline and unique, kick arse puzzles. It’s not often these days that my team walks away from a room completely blown away.
I realised when we got back to our hotel later that evening that we actually broke the monthly record for Hotel, with a time of 37 minutes 5 seconds. But far more importantly, we loved every minute of our time in the Hotel.
Hotel is so good, it alone is worth the long drive down to Canberra. It’s that good.
Where: 8 / 160 Lysaght Street, Mitchell ACT
Duration: 60 minutes
Themes: 4 themes (with plenty of space for more rooms)
Price: $40 per person
Overall Thoughts: The best room in Canberra (and one of the best in the country)
More details: http://riddleroom.com.au
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