Escape This (Sydney, Australia) Time limit: 60 minutes Age limit: 13+ Player limit: 3-8 (4-8 on Friday and Saturday peak times) Difficulty: 8/10 Date visited: January 2026 The first Escape This game we played was The Wizard's Chamber , which was gorgeous but had middling puzzles. The second one we played was Kraken: Nemo's Revenge , which we did not like at all. But I wanted to take the boys to their first escape room of 2026 and I saw that their newest room, Frankenstein Re

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 fifth 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: All of Xcape’s rooms are highly rated, but this one was No. 1 on Morty in the Wellington reg

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

Scapegoats Escape Rooms (Upper Hutt, New Zealand) Time limit: 60 minutes Player limit: 2-6 Age limit: Under 14s require adult supervision Difficulty: 8/10 Date visited: December 2025 We finished The Cartel and went straight into Unholy Cottage , Scapegoats' highest rated room on Morty. This was a spooky horror room with occult themes, but it's all driven by atmosphere, with no live actors or major jump scares. Here are my thoughts: We enjoyed this one more than The Cartel,

Confinement Escape Rooms - Taupo (Taupo, New Zealand) Time limit: 60 minutes Player limit: 2-8 Age limit: Parental discretion advised for children aged 8-13 Difficulty: Standard (4/5), Advanced (5/5) Date visited: December 2025 When planning our New Zealand escape rooms, I mainly went for enthusiast recommendations or high Morty scores. But we were going to be staying in Taupo anyway, so I thought, "Why not book a game here?" The one we settled on was The Hunting Lodge at C

Escape Rooms New Zealand - Tauranga (Tauranga, New Zealand) Time limit: 90 minutes Player limit: 2-8 Difficulty: Hard Date visited: December 2025 After finishing at Get Out in Te Awamutu, we drove 90 minutes east to Tauranga, where we settled for the night. The next day — Z's 14th birthday — we went to the Tauranga branch of Escape Rooms New Zealand, intending to play The Orphan's Revenge: A Murder Mystery (a personal recommendation of the owner). This was also J's 100th ga

Escapist  (Hamilton, New Zealand) Time limit: 75 minutes Player limit: 2-6 Difficulty: Hard (5/5) Date visited: December 2025 We were very fortunate that the earlier session of Bloodstone Keep was not booked out on this particular morning, so we were able to go straight into it after completing El Dorado . This one had a vampire theme and was considered spooky but not frightening, with darkness and atmosphere but no real scares. Here are my thoughts: The theming was again v

BE Escape (Sydney, Australia) Time limit: 75 minutes Age limit: 14+ Player limit: 2-8 Difficulty: 4.5/5 Date visited: December 2025 [This review is written by Z, who played this room with 2 friends during the school holidays. We initially had no intention of playing BE Escape, which opened in February 2025, because of its fake 5-star Google reviews and exorbitant pricing, though there now appear to be some genuine positive reviews and pricing has come down significantly to b

The Cipher Room - St Peters (Sydney, Australia) Time limit: 60 minutes Age limit: Recommended for age 12+ (creepy atmosphere/themes) Player limit: 2-8 (recommended 3-6) Difficulty: 4/5 Date visited: November 2025 It's hard to believe, but the last time we visited The Cipher Room was to play Espionage in October 2024. At the time, we were optimistic we would be back to play Metamorphosis soon-ish, though I always prefer that escape room builders take their time to deliver t

Strange World Escape Rooms - Darlinghurst (Sydney, Australia) Time limit: 70 minutes Age limit: Recommended 18+ (jump scares, coarse language); under 17 requires adult Player limit: 2-8 (recommended 4-6) Difficulty: 3/5 Date visited: November 2025 One of our most anticipated new rooms of the year was the new entry by Strange Worlds, which impressed us last year with their first room, Mrs Claws , a fun, campy horror-comedy. For the longest time, we thought the new room would

Escape Games Melbourne (Melbourne, Australia) Time limit: 60 minutes Age limit: Under 16 requires adult Player limit: 2-7 Difficulty: 4.5/5 Date visited: October 2025 We were still amped up after our transcendent experience at Carnivorou s in Geelong the night before, so my friend V and I decided to do one more room in the morning before my return flight to Sydney. As a two-man team, we decided upon Motel at Escape Games Melbourne to take advantage of a Groupon deal that ma

Containaphobia (Geelong, Australia) Time limit: 80 minutes (intended to be played multiple times) Age limit: 18+ Player limit: 3-4 Difficulty: Expert Awards: TERPECA Top Room No. 77 (2025) Date visited: October 2025 Be prepared to run...   Some time over the past year, a legend began to grow about an escape room so wild, so insane, and so terrifying — yet so brilliant — that it had to be played to be believed, probably even multiple times. Countless people cried and gave up

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

Scram Escape Rooms - Penrith (Sydney, Australia) Time limit: 60 minutes Age limit: None (best suited to 13+) Player limit: 2-8 Difficulty: Hard Scare Factor: 4/5 Date visited: October 2025 It was only a few days before our scheduled trip to Scram Penrith that I discovered they had just opened a brand new room called The Butcher , a huge surprise considering their previous room, Plagued , was released not that long ago. Being the escape room degenerates that we are, I simply

Scram Escape Rooms - Penrith (Sydney, Australia) Time limit: 60 minutes Age limit: None (best suited to 13+) Player limit: 2-8 Difficulty: Hard Scare Factor: 3/5 Date visited: October 2025 Plagued  is one of Scram’s new rooms and one of the main reasons we decided to make the drive to Penrith. We had never played a Black Death room before and were curious to see how such an experience would be designed and executed. Here are my thoughts: This was a great room, not very scary

Fox in a Box (Gold Coast, Australia) Time limit: 60 minutes Age limit: None Player limit: 2-6 Difficulty: Hard Date visited: September 2025 Our final game on the Gold Coast was a last-minute addition (escape room addicts doing what escape room addicts do). I’ve always had a fascination with the Zodiac Killer, and this was one of their other rooms that got decent reviews, so we ended up choosing it over Wild West Saloon , which is apparently on the easier side. Here are my tho

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

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

Fox in a Box (Gold Coast, Australia) Time limit: 60 minutes Age limit: None Player limit: 2-8 Difficulty: 4/5 Date visited: September 2025 Right after playing our very first escape room at Eclipse in July 2024, we asked our GM which other rooms she recommended, and she said one of her favourites was The Other Side  at Fox in a Box. It’s taken us more than 14 months, but we finally got to play The Other Side  on our Brisbane/Gold Coast trip in September 2025. My thoughts are a