Pharaoh [法老]

Miss Game - Ximen (Taipei, Taiwan)

Time limit: 60 minutes

Age limit: Minimum height 110cm; children under 12 require an adult

Player limit: 2-6

Difficulty: Medium

Date visited: July 2025

Our second room in Taipei was at Miss Game in Taipei’s hip Ximending district. The entrance was a tiny hole in the wall that had the metal shutter down because they were short-staffed, so we could have missed it had there not been groups of young people waiting outside.

The room we chose was Pharaoh, which coincidentally looked a little similar to our first room in Taipei, Red Sun. Fortunately, they turned out to be quite different experiences, as Red Sun contained many different cultures, while Pharaoh was focused on the Egyptian theme.

It’s not a huge room, but clever design enabled it to have multiple areas and transition spaces — so it actually felt like we were traversing a lot of ground and venturing deeper and deeper into the pharaoh’s tomb. The theming was consistently stellar, and just about every prop and wall looked sturdy and professionally built.

The puzzles were varied and of medium difficulty. The symbol puzzles were generally quite straightforward, though there was a big logic puzzle towards the end that ate up quite a bit of time, especially as the tech did not trigger until we were told to angle the items a certain way.

If I were assessing Pharaoh strictly for its adherence to its Egyptian theme, it would have received pretty high marks because of the quality of the theming, the immersive atmosphere, and the feeling of adventure that it evoked. Unfortunately, the room also had some major flaws. 

The main issue was that it had whole bunch of tiny crawl spaces, steep steps, and low-ceiling transition areas that we were not warned about in advance. We had my mother (who is in her 70s) with us and it was a real struggle getting her through some of these spaces. And to be honest, it did not feel like the cleanest place to be on our hands and knees or shifting along the floor on our backsides. We were lucky that my mum is still relatively fit and that none of us are big-boned. Most above-average-sized foreigners would probably get stuck or break something trying to squeeze their way through. I guess safety regulations must be more lax in Taiwan.

Our second issue with the room was its completely unnecessary final act. We thought we had completed the room, only to be told that we had triggered another mechanism that didn’t open properly. So we opened it manually and completed that, thinking that was the end, only to see that there was still more! And this last part was frankly a letdown (complete with tech malfunction) that dampened the finale.

Pharaoh was advertised on the Miss Game website as having an English version, but like most escape rooms establishments in Taiwan, the GMs can only communicate in Mandarin. However, you likely won’t need your GM in the room itself, as the hint system works through a paper notebook and a tablet. The notebook tells you the sequential order of the puzzles to solve and provides a corresponding keyword for each puzzle. Type that keyword into the tablet's chat app to receive a clue. We never had to use this function outside of the initial test at the very beginning, so I’m not sure how good the hint system actually is.

Escape time: 50 minutes out of 60

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

Verdict: An interesting Egyptian-themed room with some cool contraptions and solid theming, but is not recommended for the elderly, immobile, or those of above-average height or girth.

OVERALL RANK:

H	E	Z	J
C+	C	B-	B-