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.

Next Level Escape: The Artefact [Review]

Location: Next Level Escape, CBD, Sydney , NSW, Australia

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

Creativity: 9.5; Difficulty: 9; Atmosphere: 8.5; Fun: 9

Requirements:

• Fluent English
• 2-7 players
• Acute senses
• 2 team members not colour blind
• 75 minute room

It was just another normal day in our escape room enthusiast life when the FBI came got me and Trapspringer into a facility to check out an alien artifact. Sounds interesting, why not? Then we were told that all scientists disappeared and the artefact was doing something strange. Okay…. Then they locked the door behind us and left us with a crazy AI computer compulsively trying to destroy Tasmania. Yep, this is bad – but why Tasmania?!

In late-2017, Next Level Escape opened their new escape room, The Artefact. As we had an excellent experience in their first room, Ex Libris, we were curious to see if The Artefact would keep up with the high standards. The theme was very different from their previous room: out with the magical fantasy, in with the crazy sci-fi. But the complexity, the creativity and the hilarious unexpected moments were still there. Yay!

The Cipher Room: The Cabin [Review]

Location: The Cipher Room, Newtown, Sydney , NSW, Australia

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

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

Requirements:

• Intermediate English
• Acute senses
• 2-8 players

Your team of detectives got a promising lead that may shed some light of the investigation of a serial killer. Someone acting suspiciously has been visiting an abandoned old cabin and strange noises were reported coming from it. Armed with a search warrant and a good dose of courage, you must go in and try to find out what is hidden in The Cabin.

This detailed game, crafted by the designers from The Cipher Room, has borderline creepy elements and one of the most interesting plot twists we’ve seen in Australian escape rooms.

The Cipher Room: Espionage [Review]

Location: The Cipher Room, Newtown, Sydney , NSW, Australia

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

Creativity: 8.5; Difficulty: 7; Atmosphere: 9; Fun: 9.

Requirements:

• Intermediate English
• 2-8 players

In Cipher Room’s Espionage, it’s late-war in 1945. Players are rookies tasked with conducting a rendezvous with an Agent M, but something is amiss. She sends an urgent message to shift the RV to a safe house where she had been conducting surveillance. Not a good sign. Once you get to the safe house, it doesn’t help that Agent M is missing. However, like any good spy, she had backup plans and hid her communication to the team through a number of puzzles.

Espionage is a room with historical references hidden in every corner. But mission first. Time to get to work. Those enemies aren’t going to defeat themselves.

Powerhouse Museum: The International Exhibition of Sherlock Holmes [Review]

Location: Powerhouse Museum, Sydney CBD,  Sydney, Australia

Date completed:  August 2017.

Creativity: 6.5; Difficulty: 3.5; Atmosphere: 8.5; Fun: 7

Requirements:

• Fluent English
• Adult: $27; Concession: $25; Child (4–16): $16

I’ve always liked visiting Sydney’s Powerhouse Museum since I was a kid. With it’s enormous displays on all manner of transport, space travel and other technology, I was never bored. Over the last decade, the museum has had a number of interesting exhibitions which cater to my geeky side: Star Wars, Harry Potter…  and now, The International Exhibition of Sherlock Holmes. 

Admittedly, interest in the Great Detective was always a thing with Pá but I’ve come to appreciate Arthur Conan Doyle’s creation through the last few years if for no other reason than the mysteries being set in one of my favourite settings – Victorian England. This exhibition takes visitors back 200 years to the era of the Industrial Revolution, rampant crime and incredible developments in science through an interactive adventure. Time to put on a quaint accent, a hat and a carry a walking stick.

Jetpack Theatre: Art Heist [Review]

Location: ‘Wade Galleries’, Dulwich Hill, Sydney , NSW, Australia

Date completed:  July 2017 (4 players). Failed as thieves!

Creativity: 8; Difficulty: varies; Atmosphere: 9; Fun: 8.

Requirements:

• Fluent English
• 1-4 players

After our successful foray as bank thieves in Small Time Criminals, we thought we had it covered when we were assigned the job of conducting an Art Heist to retrieve a painting named The Fat Dragon from Wade Galleries. This job turned out harder than expected and hilarious antics and theatrics ensued.

At first glance, the job seemed simple enough. We had 15 minutes to case Wayne Galleries, determine its security layout and then have 45 minutes to steal the mark. After coming up with a relatively simple and straightforward plan, we executed it only to find that the security systems were better than we thought. Huh. No plans survive first contact. We adapted, but we did not overcome.

Next Level Escape: Ex Libris [Review]

Location: Next Level Escape, Centre Point, Sydney , NSW, Australia

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

Creativity: 10; Difficulty: 9; Atmosphere: 8.5; Fun: 9.5.

Requirements:

• Fluent English
• 2-10 players
• Acute senses
• 1 team member not colour blind

If you ever checked the About Us page, you will see that I describe myself as a bookworm. Before I became a puzzle-lover, little Pá was already a book lover, always with her eyes on some fantastic story. When we were invited by Next Level Escape to try their room, Ex Libris, I was immediately excited. A room about literature? In which you are trapped inside the book world? Why would I even want to escape from there? 😀

The risk of great expectations is that if they are not met, you can get really disappointed. That was not the case in Ex Libris, which was a beautiful, great escape room, with a myriad of tasks and puzzles of various types that fitted beautifully in its literary theme. Maybe people who are not so fond of literature may not feel as excited. But for me, who had Hercules, Frodo and Narizinho as some of my best childhood pals, it was a delightful experience.

Social Escape: Baker Street Mystery [Beta Test Review]

Location: Social Escape, Alexandria, Sydney , NSW, Australia

Date completed:  October 2016 (2 players). Failed… We were so close!

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

Requirements:

• 2-6 players
• 1 team member not colour blind
• Fluent English

We were recently invited by Mark, the owner and gamemaster of Social Escape, to test out their hard level escape room in the Baker Street Mystery. After we warmed up our brains by playing Paris Escape, we took on the role of detectives who had one hour to solve a murder mystery and dismantle the notorious Baker Street Five – a high profile gang that has been terrorizing Victorian London. This room had a constant pace, witty riddles and clever puzzles which defeated us. But we were so close!