Escape Science Centre (ESC) - Shangri-La and Museum of Humankind (Singapore)

Hi all

The second escape room business that we checked out in October 2024, while on a holiday with our girls, was ESC (Escape Science Centre) at Science Centre Singapore. Again, Singapore is not known for its great escape rooms, but our girls were keen to check out the Science Centre and the escape rooms are in an adjoining building, so we figured why not.  

We played 2 rooms back to back. The first was Shangri-La and the second was Museum of Humankind. Here is what I thought:

Shangri-La – Room 320

This room was our favourite of the 2 rooms. It was more of an Indiana Jones-style adventure room. We began with a backpack of items on our back and we set off on the adventure. The theming in Shangri-La was pretty strong, as were the props. The puzzles varied from the quite simple to the more involved. The highlight for me was one particular 'construction' puzzle that we really enjoyed. It also involved some pretty impressive tech. We escaped this room pretty quickly - our GM told us we broke the all-time room record, which was cool. This was a fun adventure room.

Museum of Humankind – Room 321

Whilst not our favourite room at ESC, we enjoyed this room as well. The theming was not quite as impressive, but there were a lot more puzzles (and more challenging puzzles) than Shangri-La. The theme was about human's impact on the planet - whilst interesting (and certainly suiting Science Centre Singapore), it was not quite as exciting as the adventure-themed Shangri-La room.  

If you find yourself heading to Science Centre Singapore (which our girls thought was really cool and worth a day out), then I would recommend checking out Shangri-La while you're there. It was a fun adventure room - very family friendly with no jump scares or even dark areas at all. 

Where:                15 Science Centre Rd, Singapore 609081

Duration:             60 minutes

Themes:              3 themes

Price:                    $80SGD per team of 4 (depending on time of day)

Overall Rating:    Fun rooms - Shangri-La was our favourite

More details:       https://www.esc.sg/

XCape Singapore - Azkaban Review (Singapore)

 

Hi all

In October 2024, we took our girls on a trip to Singapore. Singapore was the first country I every travelled to as a teenager, so I have been keen for a long time to take my girls there (and to hit up as many hawkers as possible). We had a great trip and ate so much food (our favourite place by far was Maxwell).

I had reached out to the enthusiast community ahead of our trip to Singapore to ask which rooms we should play. Unfortunately, the overwhelming consensus was that Singapore doesn't have many great escape rooms. So we only ended up playing 3 escape rooms while we were in Singapore, the fist of which was Azkaban at XCape. This is a Harry-Potter themed escape room.

Azkaban was our 319th room to date. Here is what I thought:

• the theming in Azkaban was relatively average. There was A LOT of wear and tear and the age of the room really showed;
• as far as the quality of the set design and props, it was again average compared to the rest of international ER market;
• the puzzles were reasonably good, although our enjoyment was impacted by some puzzle elements that were almost impossible to see (even when told where to look) due to how worn out they had become;
• the storyline was pretty weak and very forgettable; and
• the room generally was pretty easy (despite the hiccups due to the room's wear and tear). We escaped in 33 of 75 minutes, much to the surprise of our GM. The room needs more puzzles to justify a 75 minute timeframe. 

Overall, I would give this room a miss. I think it either needs to be properly maintained and improved upon (with an extra room's worth of puzzles), or retired. It scratched the ER itch, but only just.

Where:                 Bugis Village, 161 Rochor Road, S188436

Duration:             75 minutes

Themes:               9 themes

Price:                    $140SGD per team of 4

Overall Rating:    Give this one a miss

More details:        https://www.xcape.sg