Labyrinth Escape Rooms (Parramatta, Australia) Time limit: 60 Age limit: None Player limit: 2-6 Difficulty: Medium to Hard Date visited: January 2026 Note: There are some discrepancies about whether this room is called Game Night or Games Night , as it appears as both on the Labyrinth website as well as other third-party sources. To me, Game Night sounds better, so that's what I've gone with, Our second room at Labyrinth was Game Night , which we tackled after returning from

PaniQ Room (Sydney, Australia) Time limit: 60 minutes Age limit: 2 players must be 16+ (flexible) Player limit: 3-9 Difficulty: 4/5 Date visited: January 2026 After completing Run (Supercell 117) , we had a brief break before heading back to PaniQ Room to play our second room of the day, Time Hotel (Lift) . I thought it had an interesting premise: Your grandfather owned a 1940s hotel that burned down with hidden gold inside, and now you have a chance to travel back in time t

Narrow Escape Rooms (Penrith, Australia) Time limit: 60-70 minutes Age limit: None Player limit: 2-8 Difficulty: Medium (50% success rate) Date visited: January 2026 The Hidden Temple was the main reason we made the drive back to Penrith. Given that it's Narrow Escape's newest and most ambitious room, we had pretty high expectations, especially after seeing some glowing reviews from play testers (mostly other Sydney escape room owners). Did it live up to the hype? Absolutel

Scram Escape Rooms - Church St, Parramatta (Sydney, Australia) Time limit: 60 minutes Age limit: None Player limit: 2-8 Difficulty: 44% escape rate Date visited: January 2026 This was our second of three rooms during our father-and-sons adventure to Scram Parramatta. Despite the name, this was not a horror room and was more of a wizardry magic room. We had previously played The Wizard Chambers at Scram's O'Connell Street venue, which was pretty average, so I was keen to see

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 Reality - Central Coast (Tuggerah, Australia) Time limit: 60 minutes Player limit: 2-6 players Age limit: Under 15 requires adult Difficulty: 3/5 Date visited: January 2026 This was the third of our four rooms at Escape Reality on the Central Coast. This Jumanji-themed room was their second highest-rated game on Morty, and I made sure to check that this is an original game and not the generic Indestroom Jumanji game that can be found in multiple locations across Austr

Escape Reality - Central Coast (Tuggerah, Australia) Time limit: 60 minutes Player limit: 2-6 players Age limit: Under 15 requires adult Difficulty: 3/5 Date visited: January 2026 This was the second of our four rooms at Escape Reality on the Central Coast. It's their third highest-rated room but regarded as their most difficult one according to the GM and their website. So how was it? This was a good room, better in just about every respect compared to the first room we did

Escape Reality - Central Coast (Tuggerah, Australia) Time limit: 60 minutes Player limit: 2-6 players Age limit: Under 15 requires adult Difficulty: 3/5 Date visited: January 2026 It was still the school holidays, so we decided to take an overnight trip to the Central Coast to play the 4 games at Escape Reality in Tuggerah. All 4 of their games are rated quite highly on Morty, so we went in with moderate expectations. I booked the games in the order of lowest to highest rate

Escape Rooms Wellington (Wellington, New Zealand) Time limit: 60 minutes Player limit: 2-6 players (recommended 4-5) Age limit: Under 16 requires adult Difficulty: Hard Date visited: December 2025 This was our third and final room at Escape Room Wellington. It’s also their newest and most high-tech room. We did it on separate day to the other two rooms, returning in the morning to play the room before a visit to the WETA Workshop and our return flight back to Sydney. Here ar

Escape Rooms Wellington (Wellington, New Zealand) Time limit: 60 minutes Player limit: 2-7 players (recommended 4-6) Age limit: Under 16 requires adult Difficulty: Tricky (4/5) Date visited: December 2025 Disclaimer: Our second room at Escape Rooms Wellington was provided by owner Steve free of charge. He saw that I had booked his 2 other rooms and was kind enough to throw in The Diamond Heist  on the house. That said, this in no way affected my thoughts on the room itself:

Escape Rooms Wellington (Wellington, New Zealand) Time limit: 60 minutes Player limit: 2-8 players (recommended 4-6) Age limit: Under 16 requires adult Difficulty: Hard Date visited: December 2025 Our final set of games on our New Zealand trip were at Wellington Escape Rooms. I thought, since we were in New Zealand, we should play a locally themed one, so I booked Operation Beehive (the “Beehive” is the Executive Wing of the New Zealand Parliament). Was it any good?   This

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

Escape Mate (Wellington, New Zealand) Time limit: 60 minutes Player limit: 2-6 Age limit: Recommended 8+ Difficulty: 6/10 Date visited: December 2025 We finally arrived at Wellington, the final leg of our New Zealand trip. According to my research, the dominant escape room company in the CBD area was Escape Mate with three rooms — Ancient Temple , Spaceship , and Atlantis . We initially booked all three rooms but later decided to cancel Spaceship (the lowest ranked of the t

Xcape Wellington (Lower Hutt, New Zealand) Time limit: 60 minutes Player limit: 2-8 Age limit: Under 14s require adult in the room Difficulty: 9/10 Date visited: December 2025 This was the fourth 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: Pirate rooms are hard to get right in terms of theming and puzzles, but I think Xcape did a

Xcape Wellington (Lower Hutt, New Zealand) Time limit: 60 minutes Player limit: 2-8 Age limit: Under 14s require adult in the room Difficulty: 7/10 Date visited: December 2025 This was the second 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: Expectations can be a funny thing. Of all the rooms at Xcape, this art/jewel heist theme wa

Xcape Wellington (Lower Hutt, New Zealand) Time limit: 60 minutes Player limit: 2-8 Age limit: Under 14s require adult in the room Difficulty: 6/10 Date visited: December 2025 This was the first 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: Like all of Xcape’s rooms, we started off in a small briefing room and had to watch a video

The Locked Room (Taupo, New Zealand) Time limit: 60 minutes Player limit: 2-4 Difficulty: Hard Date visited: December 2025 When I first started researching New Zealand escape rooms, one game that kept popping up among enthusiast circles was 1950s Cold War Codebreaker at The Locked Room near Taupo, about an hour south of smelly Rotorua. It was not easy to find, as it was situated on a farm where our mobile internet reception (and thus Google Maps) was very patchy. And it's t

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

Escapist (Hamilton, New Zealand) Time limit: 60 minutes Player limit: 2-7 Difficulty: Medium (3/5) Date visited: December 2025 Day 2 in New Zealand saw us start the day with a 90-minute drive south from Auckland to Hamilton, where we visited Escapist, widely touted by enthusiasts as one of the best escape room establishments in New Zealand. The first room we played was El Dorado , in which our team went on a search of our brother, who went missing 5 years ago while searching

Escapade (Auckland, New Zealand) Time limit: 60 minutes Player limit: 2-6 Difficulty: Medium Date visited: December 2025 We kicked off our New Zealand adventure in Auckland, literally just a couple of hours after disembarking our flight. Due to expected Christmas closures, I had to put together a tight schedule for the first couple of days, meaning we only had one night in Auckland. I didn't want to waste this opportunity, so I asked around for recommendations for ONE room,