Author Archives: escapethereview

The Puzzle Box: Der magische Rätseltisch

Munich, Feb 2025

All three of the Puzzle Box games we tried were distinctive and impressive, but for me there was a clear standout, and it was this one. For a start it’s a beautiful object. The others were appealing and well-themed, but this looks like a hand-crafted… (more)

The Puzzle Box: Der Hutmacher

Munich, Feb 2025

The second Puzzle Box we tried was Wonderland themed, and unlike the first was intended to be tackled by a small group. The premise is that you’re helping the Mad Hatter, and delightfully the box is presented in the form of an exceptionally large hat… (more)

The Puzzle Box: Der Biosphären – Decoder

Munich, Feb 2025

Visiting Munich, we had the chance to sample some of the games available from Puzzle Box, a.k.a. escape room legend (and friend) Heiner. These games are what’s sometimes called ‘crate’ games, available for hire to play in a location of your choosing,… (more)

Seoul Escape Room: The Lost City of Amazon

Seoul, Sep 2024

My experience of this game was that it was simultaneously spectacular, and spectacularly bad. It combines very cool set design on a pretty large scale, with puzzles that varied between tedious and flawed.

Like the other Seoul room we played, hints w… (more)

Midgaard Event: Downfall

Copenhagen, Feb 2025

Because of a certain movie, I kept expecting Downfall to be a WWII theme, but it’s actually set four decades later at the end of the Cold War: the general in control of a Soviet republic has a plan to start a nuclear war, and you are the spies tasked… (more)

New UK escape rooms February 2025

Winter is ending, and new escape rooms are popping up like snowdrops pushing up through the cold earth (except probably with a lot more hard work from the designers, these things don’t grow themselves you know). Here’s the list of new UK games for February: Greater London 🔒 I’m pretty sure Room Lockdown open as… Read More »

Deepthinker: Ongyi’s Dream

Seoul, Sep 2024

Deepthinker is currently a single game venue, and although the website gives few clues as to the story, the cute cat artwork looked promising. The briefing had me bracing myself for disappointment though, after our (friendly and helpful) host had fin… (more)

Breakout KL: Mr Oswald’s Greatest Show

Kuala Lumpur, Sep 2024

Breakout has a reputation as the biggest and most sophisticated chain in Malaysia, so seemed an obvious choice to try when passing through Kuala Lumpur; and they were quite advanced in some ways, but also had some idiosyncrasies that I suspect will p… (more)

Enigma Escape JB: Tongshan Prison

Johor Bahru, Aug 2024

All the escape venues in JB seem to be a half hour taxi ride away from the central station, and by the time we booked many of the options were booked up for Friday evening. Enigma Escape had availability, and we picked their non-horror option. All th… (more)

Inmers: Break Through The Soil

Singapore, Aug 2024

My previous experiences of escape rooms in Singapore have tended to be a little underwhelming; although the industry developed here relatively early, it seems to have lost its energy around 2016 and seen few advances since, meaning the games I’ve tri… (more)