Quest Room: Sherlocked [Review]

 Location: Quest Room, South Brisbane, QLD, Australia

Date completed: October 2017 (2 players). Succeeded escaping!

Creativity: 8.5; Difficulty: 7.5; Atmosphere: 9; Fun: 9.

Requirements:

• 2-5 players (we recommend 2-3)
• Fluent English
• Acute Senses
• Familiarity with Sherlockian lore enhances the experience

It is very probable that 221B Baker Street is one of the most famous addresses in the world. If you were a young investigator in London in 1885, that is where you should go to if you discovered that an evil genius was trying to bomb your city, and that is the story behind this immersive game in Quest Room. Investigation  shows that Professor Moriarty plans to explode a bomb somewhere in London and players are sent by Scotland Yard to consult Sherlock Holmes – but he is not there. Not to fear! Sherlock has left guidance and clues on his investigation. It is up to the players to think like the brilliant detective, act like him… and be completely Sherlocked.

There are many good things to be said about Sherlocked: seamless tech, beautiful setting and fun. For a fan of detective stories like myself, it was specially pleasant to see one of my favourite characters so well represented in a game – both his good and polemic aspects.

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Puzzled: Haunted Academy [Review]

Location: Puzzled Room Escape, Holland Park West, Brisbane, QLD, Australia

Date completed: October 2017 (2 players). Oh no, we failed!

Creativity: 7.5; Difficulty: 7.5; Atmosphere: 7.5; Fun: 8.

Requirements:

• 2-6 players
• Fluent English

The urban legends of an evil that lurks over the school takes a macabre turn when some of the students begin to disappear for real. In this creepy escape room by Puzzled, players receive a letter from the president of the Supernatural Society seeking help in locating the whereabouts of their vice-president, Sharon Hommes, the last to disappear.

Haunted Academy has a strong horror setting and a few jump scares, so it may not be for the faint of heart. For that very reason, Trapspringer was assigned to open all doors – I’m such a scaredy cat. We started the game with just an electric candle in a school changing room, which seemed to have been the site for something horrible. It was surely not a good day at school…

Puzzled: Monkey Run! [Review]

Location: Puzzled Room Escape, Holland Park West, Brisbane, QLD, Australia

Date completed: October 2017 (4 players). We escaped!

Creativity: 8.5; Difficulty: 6.5; Atmosphere: 8; Fun: 9.

Requirements:

• 3-6 players
• No language required
• Most of the team not colour blind
• At least one player with full mobility

How can you escape a room of you cannot read or write? How can you escape if you are not even human? Monkey Run! has a very interesting plot that incorporates those challenges: players are a team of monkeys who are being used in experiments by Dr. Irov. Tired of not knowing if they will be alive tomorrow, they decide to escape using their monkey skills!

This room was highly recommended to us by other enthusiasts, and we could see why. The unusual background story is well translated into the setting, resulting in a room with no letters, no numbers and no common locks – as they would not make any sense for monkeys. It was more task-driven than puzzle-driven, but it did not lack logic. It was heaps of fun and bananas!

BMW X-Cape [Review]

Event: BMW X-Cape, Sydney (5-7 Apr 18); Brisbane (12-13 Apr 18); Melbourne (26-27 Apr 18)

We completed: Sydney Opera House, Sydney , NSW, Australia

Creativity: 2; Difficulty: 1; Atmosphere: 5; Fun: 5.

Requirements:

• Native English speaker
• Full mobility to reach the location
• Up to 30 minutes

Chances are that if you have been in Sydney recently, you would have come across ads promoting an escape room experience associated with the release of a new model of BMW, the X2. Located in the carparks below the Sydney Opera House, the online bookings for this event pretty much got taken within 3 hours of release. Sounds exciting right? We gave the BMW X-Cape a try this weekend and found that it was less an escape room, and more an abstract experience. But hey, free alcohol….

Scram Escape Rooms: The Doll House [Review]

Location: Scram Escape Rooms, Parramata, Sydney , NSW, Australia

Date completed:  September 2017 (2 players). Succeeded escaping!

Creativity: 8; Difficulty: 8; Atmosphere: 8; Fun: 8.

Requirements:

• 2-8 players
• At least one player not colour blind and with full mobility

Dolls have this incredible skill of turning into creepy objects when subjected to the right light or setting. If the dolls are made to look scary on purpose, then you have a horror movie waiting to happen. That was how I felt in The Doll House by Scram. In this game, you were kidnapped by a maniac that collects dolls, and you will be the next addition to his collection.

Playing as a duo, Trapspringer and I started the game isolated from each other, which made things even scarier. The rooms looked like a kid’s bedroom, but there was something very, VERY wrong about it.

Scram Escape Rooms: The Wizard Chambers [Review]

Location: Scram Escape Rooms, Parramata, Sydney , NSW, Australia

Date completed:  September 2017 (2 players). Succeeded escaping!

Creativity: 8; Difficulty: 7.5; Atmosphere: 8; Fun: 8.

Requirements:

• 2-8 players
• Full mobility (to access the room)
• Fluent English

I have never received a letter to study in a wizardry school. Nor have mysterious pipe-smoking magic dudes ever invited me for quests. Not even the tooth fairy used to visit me. There’s probably not a drop of pixie dust in me – but thankfully this is not a prerequisite to play The Wizard Chambers.

In this game, you are in a magic school and students from a rival dorm stole your magic wand. The bullies also locked you in your dorm. You have one hour to get out of the place, recover your wand and go to class. The Wizard Chambers is a very family-friendly game that will provide a lot of fun (and great post-game photos), especially for the younger ones and for Harry Potter fans.

Escape 60′ Jardins: Os Piratas de Montserrat [Review]

Location: Escape 60‘ Jardins, São Paulo (SP), Brazil

Date completed: December 2017 (2 players). Succeeded escaping!

Creativity: 6.5; Difficulty: 6; Atmosphere: 7.5; Fun: 8.5

Requirements:

• Fluent Portuguese, English of Spanish
• 2-8 players

It was just another pirate day on board Captain Ghost’s ship, the Montserrat. But while we were doing our rounds (as the good mates we are), we noticed El Pancho docked Montserrat unexpectedly at an unknown island. Was this Brazilian game going to be another treasure hunt?

Nope. In Piratas de Montserrat, your not-amigo El Pancho actually snitches your team to the Dutch Navy, and players have one hour to get all valuables out the ship and run before they are executed! Trapspringer was not there to play this time, so escaping was on the hands of me and my gamer/escaper sister!