Quest for the Magic Wand

Escape Rooms Wellington (Wellington, New Zealand)

Time limit: 60 minutes

Player limit: 2-6 players (recommended 4-5)

Age limit: Under 16 requires adult

Difficulty: Hard

Date visited: December 2025

This was our third and final room at Escape Room Wellington. It’s also their newest and most high-tech room. We did it on separate day to the other two rooms, returning in the morning to play the room before a visit to the WETA Workshop and our return flight back to Sydney. Here are my thoughts on our last room in New Zealand:

• This was a really cool room, a very busy room with lots of challenging, mostly linear puzzles. Not quite a “Harry Potter” theme, but it did have a wizarding school and a Dark Lord to defeat!

• Again, the theming had a bit of a DYI feel to it. There were definitely some cool mechanics and tech, but the overall vibe still lacked polish, with black drapes used to cover walls and props that were clearly acquired on a lower budget.

• Z unfortunately broke one of the props during his vigorous performance of a physical puzzle, though apparently it was already damaged the previous day and the owner thankfully had a spare to replace it with.

• The puzzles were awesome and infused with plenty of technical magic that aligned with the theme. This was by far their most technologically advanced room and even included moving dioramas!

• The hints were delivered via a hybrid voice-of-god system where the GM could see the players at all times and sent through hints on a screen in the room, though we didn’t need any this time.

• There was a bit more reading involved in this one, as well as several tricky logical deduction puzzles — a couple of which stumped us and ate up a fair bit of time. Nonetheless, we powered through as a team and managed to set another all-time record!

• Owner Steve was very nice in allowing the kids to pick his brain about escape room design and prop building in between and after our games. He’s clearly a very talented escape room and puzzle designer, and I think he would be able to create some world-class rooms if he had access to a bigger budget.

Escape time: 45 minutes (new all-time record!)

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

Verdict: Escape Room Wellington's newest and most technologically advanced room is a challenging and magical experience with some really cool ideas.

OVERALL RANK:

H	E	Z	J
B+	B+	B+	B+