Arabian Nights [天方夜譚]

Funlock Studio - Taipei (Taipei, Taiwan)

Time limit: 40 minutes

Age limit: 7+

Player limit: 2-6

Difficulty: 3/4

Date visited: July 2025

Our second room at Funlock was Arabian Nights, the first time we had played a game with the “Aladdin” theme. Like for our previous room, Song of Inari, we sat in the waiting area until our GM called us over to the dedicated briefing room to watch an instructional video about the rules and the background story. And once again, the English was barely comprehensible, and bad in an awkward, grammatically illogical way that messed with my brain.

We started the room with one half of the team locked into a small cage, with the other half allowed to roam around. Both halves had to work together to get the caged teammates out and reunite in the next section. Arabian Nights did feel like a room for youngsters, as later sections of the room required some players to climb up and down some very steep steps and move large objects around.

The theming of Arabian Nights was solid, resembling an ancient Middle-Eastern marketplace, with stone walls, carts, and stalls with herbs and fake fruits. While some of the props did have wear and tear, the room was very clean and comfortable to play in.

As an “English-friendly” experience, all of the props relevant to solving puzzles featured both Chinese and English characters. However, as we would discover in the room, some key pieces of information got lost in translation, making one of the puzzles almost impossible to solve without some guesswork and luck. Our team fortunately had players who could read Chinese, or else it would have been a real bottleneck. The design of the other puzzles were decent, ranging from easy to rather challenging, requiring a keen eye for detail and a good dose of logical reasoning.

Like Song of Inari, we escaped in the final minute of the 40-minute experience, needing a couple of clues when the time got tight. And again, when we asked for a clue, the GM physically came into the room to assist us with solving the puzzle, which was oddly immersion-breaking. I can only assume, with 11 rooms at the venue and not a lot of space, Funlock probably does not have eyes on the players at all times, making it more time-efficient for GMs to simply go into the rooms to assist than try to figure out what puzzle they are stuck on via the walkie-talkie.

In my opinion, 40 minutes for this kind of room is definitely doable, especially for more experienced players, but it forces customers to rush through at a pace not conducive to immersion or an enjoyable experience.

Escape time: 39 minutes and 9 seconds out of 40

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

Verdict: A solid room that satisfied the requirements of a fun experience, but it was let down by poor English translations, an odd clue system, and a shorter-than-ideal time limit.

OVERALL RANK:

H	E	Z	J
B-	C	B-	B+