Tuesday, 22 April 2025

Sherlocked - The Alchemist Review (The Netherlands)

Hi everyone

The sixth room on our May/June 2024 child-free trip to Holland was The Alchemist at Sherlocked Escape Rooms. It is located in the centre of Amsterdam in a lovely old former stock exchange building.

I had previously played Sherlocked’s The Vault room online during the pandemic, which at one point involved our game master/live avatar exiting the building and walking down the main street of Amsterdam. So it was a little surreal to be there in person this time, standing in front of the same (very impressive) building. The Vault was one of the most fun online escape rooms I played during the pandemic, so I had high hopes going into The Alchemist.

The Alchemist was our 296th escape room and here is what I thought: 

  • the venue is great. It is such a beautiful, historic building. Whilst this no doubt would have thrown up many challenges for the owners in designing the room, they did a great job. One thing to note is that we had to walk up a number of stairs to play this room, so keep that in mind;
  • the theming in The Alchemist is incredible. There was some really nice misdirection (although we had been to enough Dutch rooms at that point to spot it coming) and then we entered the main escape room area. It was amazing. The scale was impressive and all elements suited the theme beautifully;
  • the room contained a really nice mix of varied puzzles of varying levels of difficulty. There was also a nice variety to the puzzles – several relying on some clever tech and others more straight forward. There were some unique puzzles thrown in as well (of a type we had not seen anywhere else); and
  • there are 3 specific moments in The Alchemist that are honestly spectacular. I won’t give anything away, but the most visually impressive moment is the ending which is honestly the most impressive sequence I have seen to an escape room (before or since).

We all really enjoyed The Alchemist. The room flow and puzzles were excellent. The main drawcard here though is the spectacular moments, which are the reason why The Alchemist is currently holding the #32 TERPECA ranking. It is well-deserved.

Where:                 Beurs van Berlage, Damrak 247, 1012 ZJ Amsterdam

Duration:            90 minutes

Themes:              4 themes

TERPECA:          #32 in 2024 (formerly #31)

Price:                    Prices from 39€ per person

Overall Rating:     A truly spectacular room!

More details:        https://www.sherlocked.nl/experiences/the-alchemist


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