Eclipse Escape Room - Magic Moonstone, Flaming Pearl and Knights Templar Reviews (Gold Coast)

 

Hi everyone

In October of 2024, on our weekend away to the Gold Coast, we checked out a total of 7 escape rooms. Our fifth, sixth and seventh rooms were Moonstone, Knights Templar and Flaming Pearl at Eclipse.

Here is what we thought:

Moonstone Review – Room 316

We really enjoyed Moonstone. We have played many (many) magic-themed rooms to date – they are always a popular choice with our daughters. I thought Moonstone was one of the better magic-themed rooms.

I enjoyed the quality of the set and the props throughout. There were some really nice puzzles and puzzle elements, with a really good mix. I think the strongest element of Moonstone was the puzzles (which is where I think many other magic-themed rooms fall down). I would describe Moonstone as being about a medium level of difficulty – we escaped with plenty of time and our girls led the way for the most part.

Knights Templar – Room 317

Knights Templar was another strong room. The initial set was quite simple and straight forward, with players beginning in an internet café. Whilst the set quality improved throughout the experience, I think this was probably the least impressive set of the 3 rooms that we played at Eclipse.

We enjoyed the puzzles in Knights Templar, as did our daughters. They were varied and all challenging. We did get stuck at the end because we had solved everything but just didn’t know where we were supposed to place the final item (and perhaps more cues in the room for this would not hurt). This was a fun room but probably my least favourite of the 3 rooms that we played at Eclipse. 

Flaming Pearl – Room 318

Flaming Pearl was an awesome room (and in fact, it was our favourite room of the trip). Flaming Pearl is their newest room and had only been open for a few days when we played.

It is a very pretty room with so much to take in. Flaming Pearl has a really cool mechanic where players have a (large) number of puzzles to solve, but there is a central board which shows their progress. There are puzzles (and puzzle elements) everywhere! The room is non-linear for the most part, so we divided and conquered (especially in the first 15-20 minutes). We then regrouped and worked together on the puzzles for the rest of the experience.

The puzzles and room flow are the standouts at Flaming Pearl. The puzzles were all incredibly varied – there were so many different puzzle types (which we all loved). They were challenging and really satisfying to solve. There is a lot of hidden tech in this room, which was all flawlessly concealed.

We absolutely loved this room and it was our favourite on the Gold Coast by some margin. Our GM (and the owner) Kerri is very enthusiastic about escape rooms and it was lovely chatting with her before, in between and after we escaped from her rooms. By far my favourite ER company on the Gold Coast.

Where:                    Level 1, Chevron Renaissance Shopping Centre, Surfers Paradise

Duration:                60 minutes

Themes:                 5 themes

Price:                      $45 per person (for a team of 4) (children cheaper)

Overall Rating:       Flaming Pearl was our favourite room on the Gold Coast!

More details:           https://eclipseescape.com.au/

Lost Locks – Cottage Capers (Gold Coast)

Hi everyone

In October of 2024, on our weekend away to the Gold Coast, we checked out a total of 7 escape rooms. Our fourth room was Cottage Capers at Lost Locks. 

This was our 315^th room to date. Here is what I thought:

• the room very much felt like a generation 1 room. The quality of theming was pretty poor by current standards;
• the puzzles were all ok, but not memorable. We did have a few mechanisms throughout the experience that did not work (some were finnicky and worked on the third or fourth attempt, others were poorly designed so that we solved them before we should have solved them);
• my girls enjoyed the Christmas theme, but that was probably the best part of the room. The actual execution of the theming, with props and quality of floor/wall/ceiling dressings, was below average; and
• I thought this room should have been retired some time ago and was surprised that the price charged was more than what we paid at other, much better escape rooms on the Gold Coast. Prices here are $55 per adult, which I think is far more than this room deserves to charge. We were out in less than half the time, with a pretty unsatisfying, anticlimactic ending.

I would give this one a miss. Our family of 4 paid $210 for less than 30 minutes for an average, generation 1 room. For less money, go and check out Padlockd or better yet, Eclipse Escape Rooms (which are the cheapest and best rooms we played on the Gold Coast).

Where:                 3240 Surfers Paradise Blvd, Surfers Paradise

Duration:            60 minutes

Themes:              7 themes

Price:                    $55 per person (over 15yo)

Overall Rating:     Give this room a miss – should have been retired long ago

More details:        https://lostlocks.com.au/

Padlockd – The Carnival (Gold Coast)

 

Hi everyone

In October of 2024, on our weekend away to the Gold Coast, we checked out a total of 7 escape rooms. Our third room was The Carnival at Padlockd. 

After having just played their School of Magic room, which was a near duplicate of a room we had played in Sydney, we were hoping for a better experience with The Carnival. Thankfully, it delivered.

The Carnival was our 314^th room to date. Here is what I thought:

• we played The Carnival with our 2 daughters and we all had a great time. The story behind the room is that players find themselves in an abandoned carnival where they have to make their way through the carnival to hit the big red button to escape;
• The Carnival is not a scary room. There are poorly-lit areas, but no jump scares and nothing scary (our timid girls were fine);
• there is a nice room flow and scale to The Carnival, which was much bigger than I had anticipated. There was a really fun mix of puzzles as well;
• the most memorable aspect of The Carnival was that we all got to do something we have never done before (or since) in an escape room, which was pretty cool;
• there were some fun puzzles that had us all running all over the place; and
• one cool thing that Padlockd does is that all players walk away with a free, high quality, coloured pin. We walked away with both a Carnival and School of Magic pin, which were really nice (not many ER businesses provide keepsakes, but I wish more did).

The Carnival was a really fun, family-friendly room. The puzzles were all fun and we all really enjoyed ourselves. The only issue we had was that one puzzle had not been reset correctly and a spare key had been left in the room, which we found and then skipped a puzzle. That was a shame, but it didn’t ruin the experience.

Where:                 3177 Surfers Paradise Blvd, Surfers Paradise

Duration:            60 minutes

Themes:              14 themes

Price:                    $54 per person (over 15yo)

Overall Rating:     A really fun, family-friendly room

More details:        https://padlockd.com.au/

Padlockd – School of Magic Review (Gold Coast)

 

Hi everyone

In October of 2024, on our weekend away to the Gold Coast, we checked out a total of 7 escape rooms. Our second room was School of Magic at Padlockd. 

I had written to Padlocked ahead of playing this room to confirm that it was a unique room (given the number of ‘magic’ themed rooms that we have now played both in Australia and overseas). Padlockd confirmed that the room was an Indestroom room, but that the only other place that the room had been constructed was in Brisbane (and even then, there were just elements from the room that were shared in that Brisbane room).

Unfortunately for us, that didn’t turn out to be correct. Within about 10 seconds of entering the room, I knew we had played it before. Whilst there were some subtle puzzle differences, I can confirm that School of Magic at Padlockd is almost identical to Wizardry at Paniq Room at The Rocks in Sydney. We played on (but didn’t enjoy the experience, given we had played Wizardry in Sydney only maybe 6 months before). We zoomed through and escaped in about half the time.

To their credit, Padlockd refunded our money after I sent them an email (the GM on the day didn’t seem to appreciate that we were disappointed, but Emily, their COO, did when I emailed her).

School of Magic was my 313^th room. I won’t bother reviewing the room here – instead, you might as well read my review of Wizardry here (given the rooms are near identical).

I do want to make a comment though about Indestroom rooms. For those of you who don’t know, Indestroom is a company (based in Europe I think) that designs and sells fully-constructed rooms. The concept, as I understand it, is that ER businesses can purchase a room and it is then sent across (presumably in a shipping container) with instructions on how to build and combine all of the pieces together.

I am not a huge fan of this model (and I suspect most enthusiasts aren’t). What this type of product is good for is to allow ER businesses to get a new room up and running very quickly and to therefore start bringing in revenue. And I have heard directly from Sydney ER owners that have had a successful partnership with Indestroom (albeit subject to exclusive contractual obligations to purchase spare parts from Indestroom for life, and an inability to change the room designs in any real way). However, I have yet to be amazed by the quality of any Indestroom rooms (and none to my knowledge sit on the top 300 TERPECA rooms list). They are typically reasonable rooms with high quality props and theming, but without any wow factor, large scale or any kind of well, soul.

The biggest issue with Indestroom rooms is that the same rooms are now appearing all over the place and ER owners are not, in my view, adequately flagging this fact on their websites. For example, I am aware that there are Indestroom puzzle elements from that same School of Magic Gold Coast room now at SCRAM in Parramatta and obviously at Paniq Room at The Rocks. So that is 3 magic-themed rooms in Australia (that I know of) with some identical puzzles/props (and in the case of School of Magic and Wizardry, almost completely identical rooms). That’s a problem.  

If Indestroom is going to sell its pre-made rooms, surely it should only be selling those rooms/puzzles in different geographic locations (and surely ER owners would want to ensure that is the case in their contracts as well)? But this does not seem to be the case. I also think any ER owners that purchase Indestroom rooms or puzzle elements should make that clear on their websites.

Where:                 3177 Surfers Paradise Blvd, Surfers Paradise

Duration:            60 minutes

Themes:              14 themes

Price:                    $54 per person (over 15yo)

Overall Rating:     A reasonable room, an identical copy of which we had already played elsewhere

More details:        https://padlockd.com.au/

[Add family photo]

Fox in a Box Gold Coast - Wild West Saloon Review (Gold Coast)

Hi everyone

In October of 2024, my wife had a work conference on the Gold Coast, so we decided to take our girls up for a few days. Whilst there, we managed to check out a total of 7 escape rooms. The first room was Wild West Saloon at Fox in a Box.  I had previously played some rooms at Fox in a Box in Brisbane, so I had a pretty good idea of what to expect (as far as room/puzzle quality was concerned).

This time, we were a team of 6. I had been telling my Dad for years about escape rooms and I finally managed to bring he and his wife along to see what it was all about (together with my wife and girls). 

Wild West Saloon was my 312^th escape room to date. Here is what I thought:

• I would describe Wild West Saloon as a pretty simple, family-friendly room (no dark areas and no jump scares of any kind);
• the puzzles were all straight forward (with the exception of one, which was a little illogical for my taste), but overall they were reasonably good;
• there was some nice, albeit simple, theming in the room. There was no amazing floor or ceiling treatments, but the props made sense in the space; and
• the puzzles were all fun to solve.  We divided and conquered, with my girls solving several puzzles by themselves. There was also a good mix of hunt and seek fun, together with some low and higher-tech puzzles.

Wild West Saloon was a straight-forward, family-friendly room. There were no wow moments, but the puzzles were all largely good and the theming was also reasonably good. My family had played an amazing wild west themed- room in Paris together earlier in the year, and that room easily outshone this Fox in a Box room. I would also describe Wild West Saloon as being on the easier side (we escaped with plenty of time to spare, even though we weren’t rushing). Of the 7 rooms we played on the Gold Coast, this was about middle of the pack.

Where:                 Level 1, 3173 Surfers Paradise Blvd, Surfers Paradise

Duration:            60 minutes

Themes:              8 themes

Price:                    $42 per person (team of 6)

Overall Rating:     A reasonably good family-friendly room

More details:        https://www.foxinaboxgoldcoast.com/

Quest Room Brisbane - Review of 5 Rooms

 

Hi all

The final escape room outfit that we checked out on our 3 days of escape room madness in Brisbane in November 2023 was Quest Room.  They are based in Spring Hill, which is a very short distance from the Brisbane CBD. 

We played 5 rooms at Quest Room pretty much back to back.  Our game master for the day was Lex, who stayed in character throughout the whole day (except when I made him laugh a few times 😉).

Here is what we thought of the rooms at Quest Room:

Darkness (Room 257)

This was a really interesting room.  I had never before played a completely dark room, although I have played rooms that had small sections of blackness.  It meant of course that we had to really focus on our other senses to escape the room.  I was surprised that our team of 4 didn’t bump into each other too often and nobody hurt themselves. We really struggled with one smelling puzzle (as I always have because I find artificial scents to be really difficult to identify, and once you have one smell in your nostrils, all bets are off).  We enjoyed this unique experience, which was very simple and escaped in 27 minutes (of a possible 60 minutes).

Sherlocked (Room 258)

This was probably my favourite room at Quest. Friends of mine had recommended this room and I can easily see why. The quality of the room was excellent – the theming and props were all beautifully done, the puzzles were also interesting and fun to solve and we really felt immersed in the set.  We managed to blitz through this room and escaped in 24 minutes (of a possible 60 minutes) and broke the room record.

Heist (Room 259)

We thought this was the hardest room at Quest Room (or at least it was for our team).  We managed to escape in 45 minutes (of a possible 60 minutes). I thought there were some interesting puzzles in Heist, but there were also some puzzles that had us really scratching our heads.  I have spoken with other enthusiasts who have separately played Heist and they both got stuck on the same puzzle.  The theming in Heist was solid but simple (and I appreciate there’s only so much you can do with an office-themed room).  It was a solid room but probably my least favourite over all at Quest Room.

Steampunk (Room 260)

This is by far the biggest room at Quest Room.  There are a lot of puzzles to get through, ranging from some hunt and seek (and attention to detail) puzzles, through to some dexterity and other really beautiful puzzles.  I always like a good steampunk theme and I thought this room was beautifully done.  I am pretty sure this room exists elsewhere in the world (as I recall a fellow escape room enthusiast friend telling me that they had played this room elsewhere, I think in Europe?).  So if you have played any Steampunk rooms in Europe, you might want to double check with Quest Room before playing this one. We escaped Steampunk in 45 minutes (of a possible 90 minutes) and had a great time.

Flying Dutchman (Room 261)

I thought the theming of this room was excellent - easily one of the best themed pirate rooms I had played to date. The set design and props were all brilliant and the level of immersion was very high.  The puzzles were all on the easier end (and I suspect this room would be really popular with kids for birthday parties or with families).  We escaped this room in 21 minutes (of a possible 60 minutes) and broke the room record.

Final thoughts

We really enjoyed the rooms at Quest Room and it was great to finish our long weekend on a high.  I thought Sherlocked was their best room for enthusiasts, Flying Dutchman their best family-friendly room and Steampunk their best bigger room for larger groups. Lex was an excellent host and ensured that we had a great time over the 6+ hours that we were there.

Thanks

Quester Scott

Where:                        Ground floor, 56 Little Edward Street, Spring Hill

Duration:                    60-90 mins

Themes:                      6 themes

Cost:                           $47.50 per person (assuming team of 4)

Overall Rating:           Some really beautifully-themed and fun rooms!

More details:              https://questroom.com.au   

Arcadium Adventures - Review of 3 Rooms

 

Hi all

Another escape room outfit that we checked out on our 3 days of escape room madness in Brisbane in November 2023 was Arcadium Adventures.  They are based in Spring Hill, which is a very short distance from the Brisbane CBD. 

We played the following 3 rooms:

• The Pursuit of the Elixir of Life (Room 254);
• Search for the Stone of Destiny (Room 255); and
• Seeking the Lost Chagama (Room 256).

Here is what I thought of our experience at Arcadium Adventures:

a)    when we sat down in the bar area ahead of playing the first room, I remember googling Arcadium Adventures for the first time and learning that they were affiliated with TRAPT in Melbourne (or at least the owner of Arcadium is or was involved with TRAPT).  I would rate my experiences at TRAPT amongst the worst escape room experiences I have had to date, so my expectations plummeted;  

b)    I tried to keep an open mind though, but then our game master handed us a “magical” item that we should use throughout our adventure.  It was an old smart phone with an app on it.  More about that later…; and  

c)    I thought the theming and quality of puzzles in each of the rooms was reasonably well constructed and designed. However, there are not nearly enough puzzles in each room to justify a full 60 minute room.  I appreciate that the target market for Arcadium Adventures might be newer players or corporates, but we escaped their rooms in less than 1/3 of the allowed time, so that was disappointing.

Whilst the theming was decent in each of the rooms, and some of the puzzles were quite good, there are two fundamental failings of each of the Arcadium rooms that we played:

a)    the magic device they provided (ie the old smart phone) was very gimmicky and detracted from the immersion in the room.  It didn’t work perfectly and its design means that players are somehow supposed to know what items to use it on (which means that players must inevitably place the device onto every item throughout the experience).  You know how it can be annoying to have to shine a blacklight on every surface of a dark room?  Well this was kind of the same, but with a device that is dicky and doesn’t always work (and the device is not a "one and done" single time use, so unlike the blacklight, you're never really sure when the device is no longer needed); and  

b)    the fundamental design of each room at Arcadium Adventures is that 3 separate experiences have been designed to be played in the same physical space.  So, each time you play a room, 2/3 of the puzzles and props in the space are irrelevant to your game. They try to overcome this by using small signs in the room to identify which puzzles do and do not relate to your experience, but this is far from perfect.  There is also something inherently disappointing about seeing many puzzle elements in a space but knowing that the majority are not part of your adventure.  This design also means that if you return to play another experience within the same space, any secret doors are no longer a mystery to you. Also, when you return, you know which puzzles are definitely not part of your experience (because you had solved them last time you were there in a different experience).

I have played rooms before where the same space is utilised for multiple experiences.  I appreciate the commercial benefits to an escape room business under this model, but I thought the execution was very poor at Arcadium Adventures.  If you wanted to do this properly, I think you would need to:

·        completely hide puzzle elements that are not part of the experience being played (rather than instead using a small sign to indicate that they are irrelevant);

·        have multiple hidden door mechanisms, so that return players still get to enjoy the magic of moving from one space to another; and

·        provide enough puzzles to make players feel like they are getting good value for their money.  I honestly think our team could have played all 3 rooms back to back and gone close to escaping in 60 minutes in total.

I walked away thinking we had been given 3 disappointing 20 minute rooms for the price of 3 x 60 minute rooms.  I really did not enjoy the experience here and was very happy when it was time to leave.

Where:                        The Basement, 97 Wickham Terrace, Spring Hill

Duration:                    60 mins

Themes:                     5 themes

Cost:                           $45 per person (assuming team of 4)

Overall Rating:           It’s a hard pass from me - my least favourite Brisbane outfit.

More details:              https://arcadium.com.au

Project Immersive - Review of The Portal and Nuclear Enrichment

 

Hi all

Another escape room outfit that we checked out on our 3 days of escape room madness in Brisbane in November 2023 was Project Immersive.  They are based in Yeronga, which was about a 15 min drive south of Brisbane city.  We ended up playing both of their rooms back to back (as part of our 13 rooms in a single day record attempt insanity).

One of my favourite elements of the Project Immersive experience occurred before we had even walked inside. Our game master, Damian, was in character before our car was parked.  He played the role of a sort of android who was there to assist us by providing information in relation to the facility (and general background to the storyline of our adventures).  He met us in the car park, at dusk, wearing a white lab coat – it was really cool because it immediately set the scene (and an awesomely high level of immersion).

The Portal (Room 250)

The first room that we played was The Portal.  We played the role of “expendable contractors” who were tasked with entering a research facility to resolve a power surge (and to perhaps find the missing Dr Verdant). 

The setting of the experience was fantastic.  Project Immersive has been constructed inside an old paint factory, so the hallways and rooms within the experience felt brilliantly authentic (there were no fake bricks or wallpaper in this space).  I recall the room being largely linear, with players having to work together to complete certain tasks in order to progress through the room.  There is an enormous amount of tech going on in The Portal – lots of audio-visual effects are used, which also really adds to the immersion.

The puzzles in The Portal were also very varied and fun to solve.  There was one phenomenal puzzle in particular that I have not seen before (or since).

The Portal is one of those rooms that has a movie set feel to it – the theming and audio-visual effects are all first rate. It is a must-do room (and it was awesome that it was my 250^th room!).

Intermission between rooms

In addition to writing about the wonderful rooms at Project Immersive, I thought I would also write about one of my favourite memories of our Brisbane trip, which occurred that night at Project Immersive. Long-time readers will know that I very much enjoy making game masters/actors break character (in fact, sometimes I focus more on achieving that goal than I do on escaping the room). During our pre-game briefing before The Portal, our android game master Damian was unflappable (despite our many attempts to flap (?) him…).

However, in between playing The Portal and Nuclear Enrichment, our android left us in the waiting area while he went to “look into something”.  We seized the opportunity and decided we needed to step things up a little if we were going to succeed in making him break character. So we ducked out of the waiting area and went and hid out of sight. We heard our android walking slowly and in a controlled manner back to the waiting area (in keeping with his character).  But we then heard his footsteps stop as he reached the waiting area and we could almost hear the gears in his android brain turning as he was thinking where the heck we were.  After a few seconds, we then heard our android begin to run around the facility trying to find us.  Meanwhile, we were hiding on the stairs laughing – he then heard us and immediately returned to his android character, with slow, methodical footsteps and a monotone voice.

We later laughed with Damian about this and he said he initially thought we had gone to the toilets, but when he heard us laughing, he thought “you fuckers are hiding on the stairs”. 

Our mission was a success - we absolutely made him break.  

Nuclear Enrichment (Room 251)

The second room we played at Project Immersive was Nuclear Enrichment.  This was my favourite room at Project Immersive (and my favourite room in Queensland of those that I have played to date).

The storyline is a continuation of The Portal’s storyline, with our fearless group of “expendable contractors” returning to the reactor facility to regain control from a disgruntled employee.  Our job was to bring everything back online.

The tech in Nuclear Enrichment was even more impressive than the fantastic tech in The Portal.  I felt that Nuclear Enrichment had a stronger storyline with a more narrative feel.  This was achieved through the use of a non-player character “AI” computer, which players can interact with at any time throughout the experience.  The interactions were all a lot of fun and were incredibly well-considered. 

As with The Portal, Nuclear Enrichment is a largely linear game (with a couple of points where players can tackle different puzzles at the same time).  We divided and conquered where we could.  The puzzles were again really varied, ranging from more traditional logic puzzles and some hunt and seek fun through to incredibly high-tech (and visually brilliant) puzzles. 

The theming and quality of props were again first rate in Nuclear Enrichment.  Again, there was a lovely authentic feel to the space given its history as an old paint factory – everything felt, smelled and sounded like the real deal (and the level of immersion was off the charts).  It was all brilliant.

Final thoughts

The rooms at Project Immersive are special. There is a lot of clever high-tech, really interesting puzzles, intricate storylines, top-quality theming and effects and great game master interactions.  Their rooms have been created by escape room enthusiasts for escape room enthusiasts and it shows.

I really hope more TERPECA nominators and voters are able to play the Project Immersive rooms as I think they deserve to make the list.

Where:                        The Paint Factory, 115 Hyde Road, Yeronga

Duration:                    60 mins

Themes:                      2 themes

Cost:                           $49 per person (assuming team of 4)

Overall Rating:           Our favourite rooms in Brisbane!

More details:              https://projectimmersive.com/  

Puzzled Room Escape - Review of All Rooms

 

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 (Room 249)

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