top of page

Escape from The Runaway Train

Tokyo Mystery Circus (Tokyo, Japan)

Time limit: 50 minutes

Age limit: None

Player limit: 2-4

Difficulty: Expert

Date visited: January 2025


Fresh off Escape from the Witch’s House in the Woods, we jumped straight into Escape from The Runaway Train, another “Nine Rooms” experience crafted by SCRAP at Tokyo Mystery Circus.

 

I won’t repeat all of the generic things about how the Nine Rooms experience works. You can read up about it in my review of Witch’s House.

 

Runaway Train begins with a live actor playing the train conductor saying lines in Japanese, and if you require English, another staff member will hold English subtitle cards (lol). I really applaud the energy and enthusiasm of the actress, even though she knew we couldn’t understand her. We were off to a great start.

 

The main difference between Runaway Train and Witch’s House is that the former provides you with a “hint book” (we were told they were testing this format). It’s basically the same as the hints provided on the tablet, except you can access them at any time rather than at fixed intervals, ensuring much better time management and control over your fate. However, the 50 minute time limit, the 10 extra minutes you can buy, and the option to pay to replay the final room again with hints, are exactly the same.

 

Runaway Train is definitely a tricky room, and we definitely had to consult the hint book a few times. J felt the puzzles in this one were better than those in Witch’s House, offering more variety, cooler concepts, and requiring more logic.

 

However, our experience playing Runaway Train was less than ideal. Your reservation gives you a time frame within which you should report to the service counter. We went at the very start of that time frame but had to wait about 30 minutes before we were called in, and once we were in, the teams ahead of us were so slow that we had to wait a long time in every single room before we were able to advance, dragging out the experience from 50 minutes to 90 minutes. Waiting around for nearly half your time in an escape room was not a fun experience and sapped any momentum or flow we had.

 

Additionally, one of the rooms had a puzzle that was not working. We were informed of this in advance, and when we finally got to the room, a staff member had to come in and stand there while we solved the puzzles until we got to the faulty one, and he bypassed it once we pointed to the “solution”. It was awkward, but I guess it was better than them not dealing with it.

 

Even though we tore through the first 8 rooms and had around 14 minutes in the final room, the rules meant that we only had 10 minutes to use. We solved a few of the puzzles but couldn’t quite get there in the end after getting stumped on what to do next. Again, we decided against repeating the final room for 1,000 yen per person. Having played all 9 rooms already, we didn’t feel it was necessary.

 

Like Witch’s House, Runaway Train is a mixed bag, and our two experiences in these rooms reflect their unpredictable nature. Nine Rooms is an interesting concept that can be a lot of fun, but their cash grabbiness, the potential long waits, and the rough edges in terms of noise, incomplete resets, and faulty puzzles can lead to polarising opinions.

Escape time: Failed!


Verdict: A mixed bag of an experience that has plenty of potential for fun and excitement but also frustration and tedium.


Rating: 8.2

Player

Theming

Atmosphere

Puzzles

Creativity

Fun

Average

H

8

7

8

8

7

7.6

Z

8

8

8

8.5

8.5

8.2

J

9.5

8.5

8.5

9

8.5

8.8

Rating






8.2


1 view0 comments

Recent Posts

See All

Comments


bottom of page