Ancient Temple

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 three) to free up a bit more time to see the city and not rush so much, a decision that I do not regret.

Our first Escape Mate experience was Ancient Temple, situated on Johnston Street (a different venue to Atlantis). It was pretty close to our hotel, so we walked over in the morning after a filling brunch. Here are my thoughts:

• This was a small but very busy room packed with multi-linear puzzles. Accordingly, we split up into two groups for the majority of the game and tackled puzzles in different areas.

• The theming was decent aesthetically, albeit somewhat inconsistent. There was a distinctive and pretty green colour palette, with vines, leaves, and other décor imitating a forest/temple environment.

• The puzzles were quite fun and involved a variety of skills including observation, logical deduction, and hunt and seek elements requiring a lot of attention to detail. Quite a few of the puzzles involved finding an object or where to place an object through searching and recognising potential connections.

• I wouldn’t say the puzzles were very difficult, but there were quite a few and they did challenge us and force us to think, making the experience fairly fun and satisfying. The tech behind a couple of the puzzles/props was very cool.

• There were, however, a couple of glaring issues with the room. First of all, as the room was situated in the basement of a building, they had to try and mask things like overhead pipes, but there was only so much they could do to try and keep the immersion intact. The light of the monitoring camera, for instance, was constantly visible.

• Secondly, and the biggest flaw of the room, was its cultural and thematic inconsistency. This was supposed to be a Mayan temple, but for some reason we had to deal with Egyptian gods and hieroglyphics, and even Buddhism-related puzzles. Many casual players probably won’t care, but I can imagine this being a deal breaker for those who do.

• Additionally, it made no sense why there were so many padlocks in a Mayan temple, and even an electronic number lock! Admittedly, we didn’t think about this too much when our focus was on solving the puzzles and the adrenaline was pumping, but the room's theming and design fell apart very quickly once we started analysing it afterward.

• Our enjoyment of the room was boosted at the end when we discovered that we had smashed the monthly record and earned a free game by finishing the room in under 30 minutes. This meant we would play Atlantis in the afternoon for free! Woohoo!

Escape time: 28 minutes and 9 seconds

Theming	Atmosphere	Puzzles	Creativity	Fun
B-	B	B+	B	B+

Verdict: A small room packed with puzzles that's a lot of fun if you can overlook its thematic inconsistencies and confusion.

OVERALL RANK:

H	E	Z	J
B	B	B	B+