Song of Inari [稻荷之歌]

Funlock Studio - Taipei (Taipei, Taiwan)

Time limit: 40 minutes

Age limit: 7+

Player limit: 2-6

Difficulty: 2/4

Date visited: July 2025

*Note: Players must wear socks

I contacted Funlock, another well-known escape room brand in Taiwan with branches in both Taipei and Taichung, about which of their rooms are playable in English, and I was informed that they currently had two games with “English versions”. And so on a hot summer’s day, we made our way over to their Taipei branch in Zhongshan District to play both back to back. First up, the cute Japanese-themed room, Song of Inari.

The first thing that stood out about Funlock was how popular it was. We entered the foyer area to see shelves filled with different pairs of shoes, as players are required to switch to slippers upon entry. It was a seemingly chaotic scene, with walls of lockers and various players and GMs weaving through traffic — quite impressive for an escape room business on a Tuesday afternoon (albeit during summer holidays for students). And yet, the venue looked very clean and tidy, and the staff seemed on top of their assignments. This was all a good sign, as it suggested that Funlock was a well-oiled machine.

After sorting out the payment, we were asked to sit in the waiting area and place a sign with the name of the room we were playing on the table so our GM could identify us. Once the room was ready, the GM came and ushered us into a briefing room to watch a short instructional video that went over the rules and the room’s background story.

It is important to note that the GMs here did not speak English, though the instructional video did have “English subtitles”. I put that in quotation marks because the English in these videos was atrocious. It’s unfortunate that such an obviously commercially viable business went cheap on these translations, or more likely, just did them in-house. Google Translate and ChatGPT would have both been significantly better options.

This made me wary heading into Song of Inari. Fortunately, the room did not require a lot of reading save for one puzzle, and that was the one we got stuck on for quite a while because the English translation was less than ideal.

That said, it was still a pretty solid room — small but with multiple spaces, professionally made props, and nice to look at with pretty traditional Japanese theming and colour design. At times, it did feel like they simply crammed a bunch of culturally Japanese items into a room, especially as the story was virtually non-existent.

The puzzles were also more challenging than I had anticipated (not just due to the bad English), in part because this was a 40-minute room and probably should have been a 60-minute room. This was a commercial decision I didn’t love, as there were a total of 11 (!) rooms at Funlock in Taipei and each room had booking slots only 1 hour apart throughout the entire day.

The clue system was also somewhat odd, as we were given a walkie-talkie before going in, but our GM actually physically came into the room when we needed a clue towards the end when time was running out. We managed to escape in the final minute, satisfied but wishing the experience could have been a little more.

Escape time: 39 minutes and 38 seconds out of 40

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

Verdict: Undoubtedly fun, but more of a commercialised, mass market experience than the intimate, bespoke creations that genuine enthusiasts would love.

OVERALL RANK:

H	E	Z	J
B-	B	B-	B