The Artist

Expedition Escape Rooms - Gladesville (Sydney, Australia)

Time limit: 60 minutes

Age limit: None

Player limit: 2-6

Difficulty: Hard (41% success rate)

Date visited: October 2025

We were originally supposed to play Strange World’s new room, Cabin Cult, as a mini celebration for my birthday just before solo my Melbourne trip, but I received a call the day before wondering if I would like to push back my booking.

As often is the case with new rooms, the release of Cabin Cult was delayed, meaning we would have been one of the first groups to play it. After hearing from other players how much Strange World had tweaked and improved their first room, Mrs Claws, following our visit, they suggested pushing back our booking by a few weeks so we could get the optimal experience this time. I immediately accepted the offer — in fact, I was so grateful that Will and Tanner of Strange Worlds cared enough to contact me.

Desperate to find a replacement room at short notice, I contacted Expedition Escape to see if we could play The Artist at their Gladesville location at short notice. We had already played the two rooms at their Redfern branch (Kingdom Besieged and The Forgotten Son), and I had always wanted to try one of their other rooms.

Luckily, they could accommodate. Here are my thoughts on The Artist:

• The backstory is that your late grand uncle has left you a key to a mysterious location in Europe, a place that may be hiding priceless artworks. At least that’s what I remember, anyway. In short, you need to solve puzzles to prove you are worthy.

• The Artist looks and feels like a traditional escape room that’s been around for a few years. It’s dimly lit and the props were starting to look quite old and worn around the edges, and we were even warned by the GM beforehand that some mechanisms may not work perfectly and that locks needed to be pulled with force.

• That said, the set design was solid, matching the overall vibe of the theme and utilising the space quite well by ensuring the walls were put to good use. Imagine replicas of famous paintings and inventions from Leonardo da Vinci’s era.

• We enjoyed the puzzles, which were challenging but logical. There were padlocks but also mechanical and tech puzzles – a lot of interactive things that required us to use our eyes and hands. Even as we approach 100 rooms played, it's always good to see puzzle ideas we have never encountered before. In The Artist, there were a few.

• The flow of the game should have been quite smooth, but unfortunately a particular box opened earlier than it should have for some unknown reason, and we ended up being stuck on it for quite a while, which also messed up the order of the puzzles.

• There was also one puzzle towards the end that Z, in following the GM’s order to pull locks with force, accidentally pulled off the entire metal latch. Nothing that couldn’t be fixed with a bit of super glue (I hope).

• We ended up escaping in under 40 minutes, which was apparently good enough to place us in the top 1% or so. We still think we could have done a lot better but for the technical issue and a self-own from failing to see a couple of items in a box we had opened.

Escape time: 39 minutes and 10 seconds

Theming	Atmosphere	Puzzles	Creativity	Fun
B	B	B+	B	B

Verdict: The Artist had an interesting theme, decent theming, and solid puzzles. Like many well-made older games, it was enjoyable for the most part but lacked truly impressive or memorable moments.

OVERALL RANK:

H	E	Z	J
B	B	B	B+