Labyrinth Escape Rooms (Parramatta, Australia) Time limit: 60 Age limit: None Player limit: 2-8 (recommend 4) Difficulty: Medium to Hard Awards: TERPECA Nominee (2022) Date visited: January 2026 Our final escape room adventure before the start of the 2026 school year took us back to Parramatta, this time to Labyrinth Escape, a small business that opened back in 2015. We decided to take advantage of a Sunday special they had at the time, where children under 18 received a 50%

Scram Escape Rooms - Church St, Parramatta (Sydney, Australia) Time limit: 60 minutes Age limit: None Player limit: 2-8 Difficulty: 49% escape rate Awards: TERPECA Nominee (2022) Date visited: January 2026 It was still the school holidays, so we decided to finally head to Scram in Parramatta to tackle a few of their rooms. Hard to believe, but it took me over 125 rooms before I finally played an Alice in Wonderland theme. Here are my thoughts: This is one of Scram's older lo

Escape Mate (Wellington, New Zealand) Time limit: 60 minutes Player limit: 4-16 players Age limit: Recommended 8+ Difficulty: 8.5/10 Awards: TERPECA Nominee (2024) Date visited: December 2025 For our second Escape Mate room, Atlantis , we travelled south to their Victoria Street location after a visit to the Wellington Botanic Garden and lunch at Flight Coffee Hangar Cafe. This was a very hyped room, given that it has received a lot of glowing reviews from casual players and

Xcape Wellington (Lower Hutt, New Zealand) Time limit: 60 minutes Player limit: 2-8 Age limit: Under 14s require adult in the room Difficulty: 8/10 Date visited: December 2025 This was the third of our 5 rooms in one day at Xcape — one of the highest rated escape room establishments in New Zealand — situated in Lower Hutt, about 15 minutes north of Wellington.   Here are my thoughts: This was another strong room, set in an abandoned insane asylum. The backstory revolves arou

Get Out Escape Rooms (Te Awamutu, New Zealand) Time limit: 60 minutes Player limit: 2-7 Difficulty: Challenging Awards: TERPECA Nominee (2025) Date visited: December 2025 This one wasn't initially in our itinerary, but thanks to a major schedule stuff-up by yours truly that was discovered just a few days before departure, we ended up with a free afternoon and an extra escape room to play — which turned out to be Z's 100th game! Wanting to experience as much of New Zealand as

Containaphobia (Geelong, Australia) Time limit: 70 minutes Age limit: 15+ (under 18 requires adult) Player limit: 2-5 (3-5 on Friday, Saturday, Sunday & Public Holidays) Difficulty: Hard Awards: TERPECA Nominee (2021-2025), Best of Morty (2023) Date visited: October 2025 After our first room in Queenscliff, we immediately headed to Containaphobia to play Mayhem Manor  as a team of 3 (as one team member is horror-averse). Situated in a massive barn in the Geelong suburb of Mo

Society of Curiosities Age: Recommended 14+ Players: 1-4 Playing time: 2-3 hours Difficulty: Medium Awards: Best Overall Table-Top Game Of The Year - Bullseye Award (2020) This was the last tabletop game we played before my solo Melbourne trip. Created by the Society of Curiosities, Madok’s Lost Treasure  is classified as a “mystery-in-a-box” game, a self-contained adventure that contains everything you need as long as you have an internet connection. You can purchase it outr

PostCurious Players: 1+ (1-3 recommended) Playing time: 2-4 hours Difficulty: 2.5/5 Awards: Golden Lock Award - Tabletop (2024) My solo Melbourne trip to play Carnivorous with the Escape Room Explorer was coming up, but I still had tabletop games I borrowed from him that we hadn’t played yet. One of them was The Morrison Game Factory  by PostCurious, a game I had heard great things about and had always wanted to play.   So, despite having a ton of work to finish, the boys and

Project Immersive (Brisbane, Australia) Time limit: 50 minutes Age limit: None (under 14 requires adult) Player limit: 2-6 Difficulty: Medium Awards: TERPECA Finalist (2025), TERPECA Nominee (2024), Best of Morty (2023-2024) Date visited: September 2025 We went straight into Project Immersive’s second room, Area 1: Nuclear Enrichment, after completing the excellent Area 1: The Portal . I won’t rehash all the general comments about Project Immersive here. You can read up on t

Project Immersive (Brisbane, Australia) Time limit: 50 minutes Age limit: None (under 14 requires adult) Player limit: 2-6 Difficulty: Medium Awards: TERPECA Nominee (2024-2025), Best of Morty (2023-2024) Date visited: September 2025 On the last day of our trip, just before our flight back to Sydney, we left the Gold Coast early and headed back to Brisbane to visit Project Immersive, who have the top two rooms in the Brisbane/Gold Coast region on Morty. So, did we leave the

Eclipse Escape (Gold Coast, Australia) Time limit: 60 minutes (formerly 75 minutes) Age limit: None Player limit: 2-12 (would no recommend more than 6) Difficulty: Medium or Hard Awards: TERPECA Nominee (2024-2025) Date visited: September 2025 Much to our disappointment, weren’t able to play The Flaming Pearl  at Eclipse last year we were on the Gold Coast because its release was delayed. We had heard many good things about the room since then, and were very eager to play th

Eclipse Escape (Gold Coast, Australia) Time limit: 60 minutes Age limit: None (but there are horror elements) Player limit: 2-9 (would not recommend more than 6) Difficulty: Medium to Advanced Awards: TERPECA Nominee (2024) Date visited: September 2025 I still remember when we first visited Eclipse over a year ago, the reason we avoided playing Retro Revenge  — despite it looking like a really cool room — was because we were terrified of the concept of having a live actor in

DarkPark Games Age: 14+ recommended Players: 1-4 Play Time: 1.5-3 hours Difficulty: Medium Awards: Golden Lock Award - Tabletop (2024) This was the second DarkPark tabletop escape game that our friend the Escape Room Explorer lent us while we were on the Gold Coast and our third tabletop game (played the next morning).   After Witchery Spell , our expectations were quite high, so I’m glad to say we enjoyed Never House  even more. Personally, I think the two games are probably

Sherlocked - Home Mysteries Age: 12+ recommended Players: 1-4 Play Time: 120 minutes Difficulty: Hard Awards: Golden Lock Award - Tabletop (2024) Our second tabletop escape game on the Gold Coast was The Medusa Report by Home Mysteries, the tabletop label of the Amsterdam-based physical escape room outfit Sherlocked, best known for the TERPECA Top Room The Alchemist . It is the sequel to the popular Vandermist Dossier , which we have not played, though we understand this does

DarkPark Games Age: 12+ recommended Players: 1-4 Play Time: 1.5-4 hours Difficulty: Medium Awards: Best Overall Table-Top Game of the Year - Bullseye Award (2020), Gold - Player's Choice - Table-Top Games - Bullseyes Award (2020) During our Brisbane /Gold Coast trip, we managed to catch up with our buddy the Escape Room Explorer and he was kind enough to lend us some of his tabletop escape games — all of which I had really wanted to buy online but held off because of the exor

Lost Locks (Gold Coast, Australia) Time limit: 60 minutes Age limit: None Player limit: 2-8 Difficulty: Medium Awards: TERPECA Nominee (2024-2025) Date visited: September 2025 Gripped with a sense of FOMO, I decided to book in a room at Lost Locks towards the end of my planning for our Brisbane/Gold Coast trip. I had heard good things about a couple of the rooms at this venue and wanted to see for myself. So was it worth it? The first thing to note is that Mad Monster  is a

Quest Room (Brisbane) Time limit: 60 minutes Age limit: None Player limit: 2-5 Difficulty: Hard 5/5 Awards: TERPECA Nominee (2024-2025) Date visited: September 2025 This was our third and final game at Quest Room during our Brisbane/Gold Coast trip. It’s also their newest game, released in late 2024. Here’s what I thought: We could really tell this was their newest room. It had a new-generation feel, with quality props and cinematic techniques that really enhanced the immers

Quest Room (Brisbane, Australia) Time limit: 60 minutes Age limit: None Player limit: 2-5 Difficulty: Medium 3/5 Awards: Best of Morty (2024) Date visited: September 2025 This was our second game at Quest Room following Sherlocked . We’ve always been a fan of the steampunk theme, though the boys and I were weary after our first steampunk-style room, Kraken: Nemo's Revenge at Escape This, was a huge disappointment. Here are my main points: We really enjoyed this one, and E a

Quest Room (Brisbane, Australia) Time limit: 60 minutes Age limit: None Player limit: 2-5 Difficulty: Medium 4/5 Awards: TERPECA Nominee (2022-2023) Date visited: September 2025 This was our first of three games at Quest Room the first of our Brisbane/Gold Coast trip. Our GM Lex was a hoot, putting on a wild demeanour and accent that was so good that I wasn’t sure if it was an act or just how he was. We were lucky that it was not a busy day and he allowed us to play all thre

Studio Escape - Daikoku-cho (Osaka, Japan) Time limit: 60 minutes Age limit: 10+ (ages 10-16 requires an adult) Player limit: 2-4 Difficulty: Easy Awards: TERPECA Finalist (2025), TERPECA Top Room No. 95 (2024), TERPECA Nominee (2023) Date visited: July 2025 With a trip to Europe or North America out of the question for the foreseeable future, our only chance to play a room in the 2024 TERPECA Top 100 was to head to Osaka, Japan, home of Studio Escape and the world’s 95th r