Next Level Escape - A new escape room outfit is on its way

Hi all

I learned about a new escape room outfit that is coming to Sydney's CBD shortly (thanks Joan for letting me know!).

Next Level Escape is the brainchild of Aaron Hooper and Daniel Thomason, who are putting their tech and creative skills to good use in their 3 rooms, slated to open in August and September.

Here’s a quick summary of each of their rooms:

Ex Libris

Imagine you could visit the world of literature: fight alongside elves and dwarves as you the fate of Middle Earth is decided, travel 20,000 leagues under the sea with Captain Nemo aboard the Nautilus, curtsy to the Queen of Hearts in Wonderland – what fun!

But what if you couldn’t find your way back home…

The Artefact

A mysterious artefact with the power to destroy an entire civilisation, an infinitesimal chance to save the planet and everyone you love from certain death… it couldn’t be more dramatic if we tried! You’re an expert among the elite team of scientists tasked with the impossible. But heck, you know your stuff ­– what could possibly go wrong?

Blitz Room

Join Next Level Escape for a world-first opportunity: our Blitz Room. 15 minutes, 1–4 people, a room that changes every month, and incredible prizes for the best scores – what are you waiting for?!

Our first Blitz Room theme is Game of Thrones. You’ve watched the series, you’ve read the books; it’s time to take part in it yourself! Night gathers and now your watch begins…

The owners seem to share my crazy level of enthusiasm for great escape rooms (and old school PC adventure games), which is uber cool.

I’m truly intrigued by their Blitz Room – I love the idea of having an hour’s worth of puzzles but only 15 minutes to do your best.  Unlike anything I have heard of before.
They are currently hard at work building their rooms, which will be located at Level 2, 37 Bligh Street, Sydney.  

I have a feeling these rooms are going to be awesome.

You can check our more info at their website here.  Also, look out for competitions on their website for the chance to win tickets to their opening VIP room sessions!

Thanks
Scott

Labyrinth Escape Rooms' latest room opens - Mexican Cartel

Hi all

Labyrinth's much anticipated third room, Mexican Cartel, is about to open. 

Here's the summary of their room from their website:

You’re a high ranking member of the powerful Mexican Cartel but when a deal goes south, the rival Cartel starts kidnapping your men.  Your boss sends you back to his house to get his passports to move his family and all flee the country.  As you arrive, you get ambushed and locked inside. You over hear their leader will get there in an hour to execute you, so you need to break free from the handcuffs, find your way around the house to get the passports and escape without getting caught!  Will you outsmart the rival Cartels before it’s too late?

I'm really looking forward to going back to Labyrinth to check out both the Mexican Cartel room and the Mad Scientist room.  I'm hoping to get there in the next month or two.

Also, Labyrinth are planning something very special for later in the year.  I'll post more information here once dates and further details are known!

Thanks
Scott

Mission Sydney's third room opens - The Lost Mine

Hi everyone

I have recently learned that Mission Sydney have just opened up their third room (thanks Joel).

I really enjoyed their first two rooms, Vampire Castle and Dr M.  Mission Sydney are known for their high tech rooms and I would bet any money that this third room will be no different.

Here's the summary from the website of The Lost Mine:

While shopping at a Sunday market, you come across a widow trying to sell her husband’s belongings. Out of curiosity, you start up a conversation with her.

Her husband had grown up an orphan and faced many difficulties throughout his life.
Without any experience, he was offered a highly paid job as a worker in a remote mine. Shocked but overjoyed, he threw himself into his work.

One day he returned from the mine with a purple crystal and quit his job. He became taciturn and reserved, refusing to say why he quit. Years later, he fell ill and passed away, leaving a diary and a voice recorder among his belongings. His wife decided to sell them along with the crystal to make some money.

Seeing the crystal’s value, you purchase all the items and conduct research. You discover that this kind of crystal is extremely rare and are sold for a very high price. These crystals were mined by an ancient underground civilization. The people and its ruler have vanished from record and no crystals have been found ever since.

Driven by your curiosity, you travel to the mine he worked, hoping to find more crystals and uncover the mystery of The Lost Mine.

This room is a 90 minute room, which officially makes it the longest escape room experience in Sydney (or Australia as far as I am aware).  The next longest escape room experience is their Dr M room (80 mins).  

According to their website, The Lost Mine is also their hardest room, with just a 15% success rate.  You also need at least 3 adults in your team for this room (and a maximum of 7 players).  

 

Normally we would wait about a month (so they can iron out any kinks) before checking out this room.  However, their website says that they don't allow children, pregnant women or certain disabled people (presumably due to challenges in the room design or scary elements?).  

My wife is almost 6 months pregnant, so it looks like we won't be checking out this room until after October.  I'd be grateful for any spoiler-free comments from anyone who goes there between now and then though!

The only negative I'll say though about The Lost Mine is the price!  The room is $240 for 4 people, which equates to $60 per head.  Despite the fact that their rooms are of a very high quality, I'm not sure too many people would be willing to part with that much money when there are so many other great escape rooms in Sydney that are around $35 per head. 

I get that this room is (up to) 90 minutes long, but $240 is too much in my humble opinion.   I think $50 per head is probably the absolute limit, and even then I'm going in with VERY high expectations at that price.  At $60, I'm not sure they could meet my even higher expectations.  

Time will tell though...

Thanks

Scott

Outlast Escape Room - Silent Hospital Review [CLOSED]

Hi everyone!

My wife and I brought along 2 newbies to try out a new escape room in Ashfield called Outlast Escape.

I wrote to the owners last year when they opened, asking for more information about their escape room business and despite a follow up, I'm still waiting on a response.

One of their rooms requires someone in the group to be able to read Chinese characters, which made me a little worried that the other rooms might have translation issues.

This was our 29th room in Sydney and 41st room in Australia.

As usual, I’ll start with a summary of all of the things that I liked in Outlast Escape's Silent Hospital: 

• some of the technology was cool (there was one thing we hadn’t seen anywhere else), but it didn’t really fit the theme at all (it was high tech for the sake of high tech);
• a couple of the puzzles were pretty good;
• there was a reasonably good mix of hunt and seek and puzzle fun; and
• it was an ok room to bring beginners to.

And as for what I didn’t like:

• there is no back story – you are instead handed a poorly translated laminated card and are asked to read it for yourself;
• there are many puzzles that just do not fit the theme in any way;
• some of the puzzles are very clunky – they aren’t clever but instead feel very forced an incredibly disjointed;
• we had a torch with flat batteries, so they had to come in and hand us the new one, which ruined the flow and immersion;
• in one room, there are various bags of blood (it is a hospital theme after all).  One of these bags burst open all over my wife’s clothes – she was not impressed;
• one of the locks between rooms had been left open, so we didn’t need to open it properly;
• the price of this room is about the most expensive in Sydney at $40 per person.  This is about double what it should be for the quality of this room (and the location).

This room was just “ok”.  As always, I judge rooms based on how much fun I had and overall, this was not a memorable room.  Our first-timers seemed to enjoy the experience, but it definitely was not a great room for anyone who has seen a truly great room before.  The puzzles didn’t make sense in the space, the room flow was not well-considered and felt like it had been thrown together and they used high tech just for the sake of it, rather than weaving a clever story with great immersion. 

Give this place a miss.

Where:                        Suite 2, Level 1, 251 Liverpool Road, Ashfield, NSW, 2131

Duration:                    60 minutes

Themes:                     3 themes

Cost:                           $160 for 4 adults

Overall Summary:      Very overpriced and average

More details:              http://www.outlastescape.com/

Adventure Rooms Adelaide - Black Queen Review

Hi everyone!

This particular review doesn't really fit here on my Sydney-based blog, but I'm not going to bother setting up an "escaperoomsadelaide" blog for just 2 room reviews.

On a recent trip to Adelaide, I tried out 2 rooms at Adventure Rooms Adelaide.  See my separate blog post about their Gaol Break room here.  This blog post is about their second room that we tried (back to back) – Black Queen.

My usual escape room team didn't all come to Adelaide - it was just my wife and I from our usual team, but we also brought along two first-timers, my cousin and my mother in law.  They both knew about this addiction, er hobby, of ours and were keen to see first-hand what all the fuss is about.

The Black Queen was our 40^th room in Australia and our second room in Adelaide.

As usual, I’ll start with a summary of all of the things that I liked in Adventure Rooms Adelaide's Black Queen:

• Black Queen was a really interesting room.  The theme is that your team finds themselves handcuffed together in a dark castle – the aim of the game is to find the key to escape.  
• the puzzles were really varied and well-designed.  Like Gaol Break, there were a couple of puzzles we have never seen anywhere in Australia before. 
• I think the puzzles in Gaol Break were a little more creative than in Black Queen, but there were a couple that were truly genius (and both a mix of low and medium tech). 
• we found that everyone in our team was fully engaged for the whole experience.  There is a good amount of puzzles of varying difficulties.  We obviously have an advantage over most teams because we have been to so many escape rooms and therefore many of the puzzles are of a type we have seen before, but the first-timers in our team really enjoyed the experience too;
• we broke the record for this room, getting out in about 30 minutes without any clues.  Usually I would say that a room where we get out so quickly should have an extra puzzle or two, but this room had a heap of puzzles – we got lucky with a few of them and a couple we had seen elsewhere so we breezed through them;
• it’s hard to describe this aspect, but this room had a good mix of light and shade.  By that, I mean that it had very different spaces that had very different feels to them, but all of them worked really well with the theme.  The theming in Black Queen was great;
• the price here was about right for the quality of the room;
• there was a really good mix of hunt and seek fun and puzzle solving;
• the location is excellent – there is an almost hidden lift on one side of Rundle Mall between the shops.  If you weren’t looking for it, you would easily miss it;
• the game masters were really enthusiastic, which I always appreciate.  They were engaged and were watching us the whole time; and
• we didn’t need to communicate with the game masters, but their comms system seemed like it would be useful.   They watch and listen to teams and then apparently provide messages on screens within the room – it sounds pretty effective to us.

And as for what I think could be improved:

• there is a music puzzle in this room.  We breezed through it, but I know from other escape room owners that many people are truly tone deaf and therefore even simple music puzzles can be very difficult for some groups.  The other difficulty with a music puzzle is that there really isn’t a useful hint that you can give someone – instead, it really is just a matter of giving the answer.  That being said, I think this puzzle worked well with the theme and it was a creative use of mixing a music puzzle in with a 4 digit code.  But I don’t think this puzzle would be for everyone;
• like Gaol Break, I think the immersion aspect would have been strengthened if we were given a better back story.  Instead we were given a very brief back story and found ourselves locked together in a room.  It would have been nice to better understand how we came to be handcuffed together, why we only have 60 minutes to get out (ie what is the consequence of not escaping in time), etc; and
• their website says that they take up to 7 people in Black Queen.  This is far too many – 4 people is the maximum team size that would allow everyone to be comfortable and fully engaged.  The game master was telling us that they also offer teams duels, where half of the escapees will work on one or two rooms within the Black Queen escape and the other escapees will work on the other rooms, and then they will swap.  I don’t like this idea at all – it would ruin the flow of the story of the rooms.  Stick with 4 people (or maybe 4 adults and 2 kids) at most here.

We really enjoyed this room.  Our first-timers also really enjoyed the experience and I think one of them in particular is hooked!  The game master was also kind enough to stick around afterwards and chat with us about how we did in the room and what we thought of the puzzles, which was great.

We got out of both Gaol Break and Black Queen in the same time (30 minutes), so I think for us at least, they were about the same level of difficulty.  I think on recollection though that Black Queen felt a little more difficult (we had more time where we were stumped for what to do next, whereas Gaol Break all seemed pretty straight forward).  Both are great rooms!

 

Where:                        Level 1, 51-53 Rundle Mall, Adelaide, SA

Duration:                    60 minutes

Themes:                     3 themes

Cost:                           $128 for 4 adults

Overall Summary:      A great room with some really creative puzzles

More details:              http://www.adventurerooms.com.au/