A
bit of a different review this time. My usual fellow escape room buddies
in my usual team did not try this room with me, but instead I tried this room
with work colleagues. We booked a corporate afternoon with 4 teams trying
different Break the Code Plus rooms simultaneously (Avatar, Indiana Jones,
Mission Stealth and Da Vinci rooms). This was my twenty-first escape room
in Sydney (and my thirty first room in Australia so far!).
First
off, I'll say what I enjoyed most about the Avatar room at Break the Code Plus:
1. Their front of house and online
booking system were excellent.
2. The theming was ok - not the best,
but better than most.
3. They had one puzzle mechanism that I
hadn't seen before, which is cool.
4. We were handed a photo of our team
after our escape - this is a nice touch and by memory, Mission Sydney is the
only other room that hands out photos after the escape.
And
now for what I didn't like:
1. They have a really bad communication
system, which involves players hitting a button and then the game master
walking into the room. This really ruins the immersion aspect and
detracts from the flow of the game.
2. The puzzles are largely very clunky.
There are one or two puzzles that are reasonably well done, but the
majority are not well designed. A couple of the puzzles use cool
mechanisms, but the input data used to solve the puzzles is vague, ambiguous or
has multiple interpretations. This was really annoying and unimpressive.
3. Some of the puzzles are examples of
lazy design. Without giving any spoilers, one puzzle involves hunting down a
tiny code that has been hand-written in invisible ink in the room. This
is not clever - it's really uncreative and disappointing.
4. My team this time consisted of myself
and 3 other first-timers. We did not escape within the allowed 60 minutes
(I think it took about 65 minutes all up). We needed help on the final
puzzle and when the solution was explained, I rolled my eyes and thought it was
pretty poor (and again, ambiguous).
5. Their price (without a discount
coupon) is $180 for 4 adults. This makes them the most expensive escape
room outfit in Sydney (equal with Mission Sydney's Dr M, which is a far
superior room). Their rooms are not good enough to justify this price
tag.
This
room was below average in my honest opinion. Their Indiana Jones room is
much better (although not without its faults as well). This escape room
outfit is pretty cheap and cheerful - most aspects of their rooms are average
or below average.
We
still have another 2 Groupon vouchers for Break the Code Plus, so we will be
back soon to try their Da Vinci and Lost rooms.
One other aspect of their rooms that REALLY annoyed me today was that the staff
had not correctly reset one of the other rooms being undertaken by another of
our corporate teams. Without spoilers, one of the doors between rooms in
one of the other themed escape rooms was accidentally left open before the
escape began, so that team walked straight through the door and then were
really confused by the various puzzles in the previous room which didn't seem
to do anything. This is truly inexcusable and is a sign of a poorly run
outfit.
Overall, this is a below average room - don't waste your money.
Where: Level
1, 741 George Street, Haymarket, NSW
Duration: 60
minutes
Themes: 6 themes
(which will apparently change often)
Cost: $180
(for a team of 4) (although we had a Groupon for $80)
Overall Summary: Disappointing
and very overpriced.
More details: http://www.breakthecode.com.au/
