Sunday 16 November 2014

Can you Escape…?

I've recently added a new addiction to my life and it is Escape Rooms. It's a fairly new idea to the Melbourne scene, where you have 45 minutes to find clues and solve puzzles to help you escape from a "themed" locked room. 

Escape Room has been open for roughly two months and comes with six themed rooms - Slaughterhouse, Vampire Chronicles, The Gallery, Jungle Safari, Prison Break and The Mummy Returns. There is a gradual turnover with new rooms every six months or so, and one upcoming room is an "Up" themed room!
There are four steps to solving an Escape Room:

1) Find - Discover all the hidden clues and passages
2) Think - Give your brain a workout
3) Solve - Reach your lightbulb moment
4) Escape - Determination and persistence win the day

Proud to be on the Wall of Shame
Sometimes that "lightbulb moment" can be almost impossible to find, so you are allowed two hints throughout the 45 minutes. Other than that, you are on your own, which can be frustrating as some of the puzzles are incredibly random in their solutions. However, once you get in the frame of mind of substituting numbers to letter or looking for patterns within numbers it does get easier. 

The first one I tried with one friend was the Slaughterhouse, which we completed in 42 minutes and subsequently had our photo taken on the Wall of Fame! Being on a winning high, we decided to try The Gallery, which is apparently easier but were unsuccessful and ended up with our photo taken again but this time for the Wall of Shame.

I recently attempted The Vampire Chronicles with three friends and realised these games are best with 4-5 people as between us there were more puzzles solved and the collective energy and satisfaction as we solved them created a lot of fun.

I have already booked The Mummy Returns for next week and will definitely be going back for the other two. The game lasts for only 45 minutes, so you can even sneak in a quick one during the week, just make sure your brain is switched on 110%.

Escape Room can be found on Level 1, 108 Bourke Street and open from 10am - 10pm.

4 comments:

  1. Funny, the only two rooms I did were Jungle Safari and Prisonbreak.

    Obviously going to not spoil anything, but Prisonbreak works quite well with only two people (me and my friend tried it and loved it, though I suspect the atmosphere would be lost a little bit with much more). That being said, we did Jungle Safari with the full six and that worked very well. We failed both in the end, but Prisonbreak was nailbiting - my friend buzzed for our second hint in the last thirty seconds out of sheer desperation as we figure we're at the final challenge. No success though.

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    1. I actually completed all six rooms over the weekend. Only succeeded in Slaughter House and Jungle Safari sadly. Came SOOOOO close in Prison Break and The Mummy Returns though! :/
      I agree, I did Prison Break with one person and it worked well. I think a minimum of three people is going to be best with any room as when I did it with larger groups, people would often think of things that no one else would!
      There's a few other escape rooms in Melbourne though which I will check out until Escape Room changes theirs over!

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    2. I came in from Adelaide and had one of my friends stumble across it while we were having lunch downstairs in the food court, so I'm almost certain when I next get the chance there'll be new rooms ready.

      And what's this about other escape rooms? Where are they? I'm assuming they're the same in terms of structure?

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    3. There are three in the QV in Melbourne, one in Kensington and one in South Melbourne although the last two are booked till January! Will be checking out the three QV escape rooms soon!

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