Hi all
Another
escape room outfit that we checked out on our 3 days of escape room madness in
Brisbane in November 2023 was Puzzled Room Escape. They are based in Holland Park West, which
was about a 10 min drive south of Brisbane city. We ended up playing all 7 rooms available at
Puzzled Room Escape pretty much back to back, with a short break for
lunch.
On the
day that we played their rooms, we also played 6 other rooms at other
locations, which meant that we ended up playing 13 rooms in a single day. We had initially aimed to play 10 rooms,
which I think would have equalled what we think is the Australian room record
for most amount of rooms played in a day.
But after we began escaping rooms early, we managed to find some extra
space and so we just kept adding more.
Let’s see how long the 13 rooms in a day record stands….
Here is
what I thought of each of the Puzzled Room Escape rooms that we played:
Puzzle Tech Murder (Room 243)
The first room of the day was Puzzle Tech
Murder. This room was based in an office
space, so the theming was pretty simple.
There were some nice puzzles (and some were a unique take on what we had
seen elsewhere). On one particular puzzle,
one of my fellow players tried to convince me of something that she could see
(but which I could not). Thankfully, she
persevered and proved me wrong. The room
was pretty straight forward on the difficulty side of things and we escaped in 17
minutes and 50 seconds (of a possible 60 minutes) and broke the room record by
about 7 minutes.
Dr Irov’s Laboratory (Room 244)
We found
this room probably the most difficult of all 7 rooms available at Puzzled Room
Escape, at least if you go by our escape time (we escaped Dr Irov’s in 37
minutes and 10 seconds of a possible 60 minutes). The room initially was pretty
non-linear and we broke out into 2 teams and worked our way through the
puzzles. However, the final puzzle,
which is a kind of meta puzzle, was more of or a chore than a fun puzzle. There was a lot of trial and error (and I
largely left if to much more capable team members to solve this one). One cute element of this room is that there
is glass between this room and their Monkey Run room and you can both see each
other while playing the rooms. The rooms are also linked thematically (we were
the scientists and those in Monkey Run were the subjects). In fact, you can even throw bananas to the
monkeys through a hole in the glass…
Haunted Academy (Room 245)
This was
probably our least favourite room at Puzzled Room Escape. The puzzles themselves
were fine, but it was one of those rooms where there is such a low level of
light that it makes it hard to read or see anything. I appreciate that game designers
are aiming for a certain ambience, but there really does need to be a minimum
level of lighting, otherwise it seriously detracts from the enjoyment of the
room. We managed to escape this one in 39
minutes and 53 seconds (of a possible 60 minutes).
Monkey
Run (Room 246)
Monkey
Run was a fun but very simple room. On
the day that we played, we saw two kids birthday parties and Monkey Run was
their room of choice. It’s a really
bright and colourful room. We felt like
we were on fire in this room and we escaped in 15 minutes and 27 seconds (of a possible
60 minutes), and broke the room record.
Mirrored
(Room 247)
Mirrored
was one of their better rooms I thought.
The premises of the room is that you attend a Professor’s office in
light of a recent breakthrough that he has had, only for the Professor to be
nowhere to be seen. The puzzles in this
room were really nicely done, but the standout aspect of this room is that as part
of the story, you step into a different dimension, with that dimension being a
mirror image of the first room you were in.
It’s really nicely done and it makes for interesting puzzle design. We escaped in 21 minutes and 29 seconds (of a
possible 60 minutes).
Treasure Hunter
(Room 248)
This was
probably my favourite room at Puzzled Room Escape. This room is quite unique in that players are
not trying to escape, but are instead trying to find as many artefacts as they
can in 60 minutes (with each artefact having a prescribed monetary value). Before we played the room, we were told by
our friendly game masters that no team has ever found all artefacts – challenge
accepted! This room is packed full of puzzles – we started off by getting stuck
on a map puzzle and then we picked up our pace.
The room is very much non-linear, which meant that we were able to divide
and conquer. We managed to find all artefacts
in about 61 minutes, but in fairness to us we had a technical issue with one of
the puzzles (something was supposed to open but didn’t), which slowed us down
by a few minutes). Luckily, we had an
escape room owner in our team who identified the fault and fixed it, securing
our victory. I really liked this unique
take on an escape room, which I had not seen too many times before. We managed to earn $653,500, and were the
first team to score a perfect game 😉
Operation
Check In was the final room that we played at Puzzled Room Escape. Needless to
say, we were a little tired (and I would be lying if I said that I didn’t take
a little rest on the bed in this room at one point). There were some nice elements to this room,
which reminded me of different puzzle elements I had seen around the
country. The quality of the puzzles and
theming were strong and we managed to escape in 42 minutes (of a possible 60
minutes).
Final
thoughts
I thought Treasure Hunter and Mirrored were the
standout rooms at Puzzled Room Escape. I would also recommend Monkey Run for
newer players, especially families and younger players.
Where: 5/1177
Logan Road, Holland Park West
Duration: 60
mins
Themes: 7
themes
Cost: $37
per person (assuming team of 4)
Overall Rating: A
well-themed, fun mix of games at different difficulty levels
More details: https://puzzledroomescape.com.au
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