The Mystery Rooms: Chapter 1 – The Lost Tomb [Review]

Location: The Mystery Rooms, Fitzroy (Melbourne), VIC, Australia

Date completed: June 2017 (4 players). Succeeded escaping!

Creativity: 10; Difficulty: 8; Atmosphere: 9; Fun: 9.5.

Requirements:

• Basic English
• 4-6 players
• Acute senses
• Full mobility

The borders between the Fantasy World and the Real World are crumbling. To restore them and avoid an invasion by ill-intended magical creatures, a secret organization called GRIMM recruited you and your friends too look for the talismans of Strength, Knowledge and Courage and restore the separation between realms.

This is the story behind all Mystery Rooms games, in Melbourne. Chapter 1 – The Lost Tomb is the adventure to recover the Book of Dead, talisman for Knowledge, lost in the Ancient Egypt eras ago. Players are sent back to Cleopatra’s time, and the first thing they will notice is that the desert has a lot of sand. According to our GM, Mystery Rooms used seven tons of sand to build this room. We recommend exploring it barefoot!

Ultimate Roomscape: The Lost Scepter of Tutankhamun [Review]

Location: Ultimate Roomscape, Malaga, Perth, WA, Australia

Date completed:  January 2017 (3 players). Succeeded escaping!

Creativity: 7.5; Difficulty: 7; Atmosphere: 8; Fun: 8

Requirements:

• Intermediate English
• 3-8 players

When an archaeologist brings to light strong evidence that the scepter from Tutankhamun actually exists, you and your team of fellow explorers decide its time to venture inside the famous pharaoh’s tomb and look for the artifact.

However, you soon realise that there was a reason for all the legends of curses and magic surrounding Tutankhamun’s rest place. There is something mysterious in the air, and every new clue will bring answers to the questions buried for thousands of years. Differently from games which define the minimum number of players for business cost reasons, The Lost Scepter of Tutankhamun really requires at least 3 people to be solved. This room can please families looking for a fun time together, beginners and experienced players alike.

Realmz: Curse of the Mummy [Review]

Location: Realmz Escape Game, Morley, Perth, WA, Australia

Date completed:  January 2017 (3 players). Succeeded escaping!

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

Requirements:

• Fluent English
• 45-minute room
• 2-5 players

If you have ever been to a big amusement park, such as Universal Studios or Disney World, you have probably been to those rides full of animatronics, sounds, lights and things moving around you. Curse of the Mummy feels like that – as if you had just entered a movie set or one of those “Disney World-esque” places. It is beautiful. The attention to detail is amazing. It was so much fun! Do not be fooled by Realmz’s simple entrance door! Once you step into the tomb, you will probably be surprised by your surroundings.

Then you ask “ok, but what’s the deal?” The deal is that in ancient times, a particular pharaoh was not allowed to complete his transcendence to the other world after death. Those who manage to bring back honour to this pharaoh’s name and complete the trip into the afterlife “shall be granted wealth and power beyond their wildest imaginations”. Sounds good! However, those who fail must perish inside his eternal tomb. Not so good…

ClockLocked: Cleopatra [Review]

Location: Clocklocked, Ultimo, Sydney , NSW, Australia

Date completed:  July 2016 (3 players). Succeeded escaping!

Creativity: 8; Difficulty: 7.5; Atmosphere: 7.5; Fun: 8.5.

Requirements:

• 3-7 players
• One team member with full mobility
• Intermediate English
• 90 minute room

Cleopatra is the newest room in ClockLocked and also the biggest: it is a 90-minute room! What is Cleopatra about?  A long-time friend sends a package with a message to your team, saying he is in an excavation project in Egypt. He claims to have found an ancient treasure and is now being chased by smugglers. The treasure has been hidden and he has left notes for you to retrieve it.

Will you be quick enough to find the artifacts and your friend before the fiends find you? Be ready to grab a Fedora hat and a crack whip and start the treasure hunt!

Trap Milano: The Pyramid [Review]

Location: Trap Milano, Milano Centrale region, Milan, Italy

Date completed: March 2016 (2 players). Succeeded escaping!

Creativity: 8.5;  Difficulty: 7; Atmosphere: 7.5; Fun: 7.5

Requirements:

• Intermediate English or Italian (for hints)
• 2-5 players
• Full mobility

We surely lost count of how many locks we have opened since we started playing escape rooms, a bit more than a year ago. So, when our gamemaster in Trap Milano said The Pyramid had no locks at all, we were quite surprised. “Not even one?”. Nope. An entire room with a lot of puzzles, but no keys and no number locks to open. Wouldn’t it be enough to call your attention?

Besides that, The Pyramid also has a very interesting story. A pharaoh named Hor had no descendants, so he built a pyramid full of challenging enigmas. Whoever could get out of that mysterious trap would be worth of the throne of Egypt and would become the next pharaoh. Those who perished had their souls lost in the underworld forever.

Lost HK: Exodus [Review]

Location: Lost HK, Causeway Bay (near Times Square), Hong Kong

Date completed: Jan 2016 (2 players). Succeded escaping (with extra time).

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

Requirements:

• Basic English
• 2-10 players
• 45 minute room
• Musical training (singing or instruments) not required, but can assist

Religous texts say Moses and his people escaped from the Pharaoh, left Egypt, and wandered in the desert for 40 years until they found the Promised land. Exodus, in Lost HK, proposes to replay that story in a bit more than 40 minutes. You will lead your people through this treacherous journey in this Old Testament escape room. What?! Come again?!

At first, Trapspringer and I didn’t know how to react at this room. We’d certainly never seen a religiously inspired one until now. Was it even serious? We talked to the gamemaster at the venue, who recomended it as her favorite room in the place. We had had good runs with Castiglione and Aokigahara, so we decided to try Exodus to satisfy our curiosity. It proved to be a really fun and elaborate room, with the craziest application of a technological device we’ve seen until now.