The Hidden Temple

Narrow Escape Rooms (Penrith, Australia)

Time limit: 60-70 minutes

Age limit: None

Player limit: 2-8

Difficulty: Medium (50% success rate)

Date visited: January 2026

The Hidden Temple was the main reason we made the drive back to Penrith. Given that it's Narrow Escape's newest and most ambitious room, we had pretty high expectations, especially after seeing some glowing reviews from play testers (mostly other Sydney escape room owners). Did it live up to the hype?

• Absolutely! The Hidden Temple is hands down a top-tier escape room that deserves to be mentioned among the best in the Greater Sydney region. Whether in terms of size, theming, atmosphere, tech, effects, or puzzles, this was a huge step up from Narrow Escape's previous games.

• The theming was off the charts. This was floor-to-ceiling immersion with beautiful stone walls and all kinds of carvings, ornaments, and objects, complete with excellent colour scheme design. We could tell a lot of thought was put into every aspect of the aesthetics. Think Indiana Jones and Tomb Raider, but with decor that's less movie realism and more theme park magic.

• The tech was also incredible and hidden extremely well behind the walls. I loved that the tech was woven through the entire experience, not only providing great visuals and reveals but also forming an integral part of the puzzles.

• And yes, the puzzles were the star of the show. They were varied, high-tech, diegetic, and entirely free of padlocks, as a temple-themed room should be. The best part was that the puzzles aligned perfectly with the overall theme and there was an internal logic that gave them a sense of balance and cohesion. The game flow was mostly linear and the signposting ensured that we would move smoothly from one puzzle to the next.

• An important part of the game was a notebook that acted as a guide to the puzzles. Interestingly, we were told after the game that there are multiple versions of the notebook with varying levels of detail, offering a kind of adaptable difficulty depending on the team that is playing. For our experienced team, we were given the least detailed notebook, but for teams with all young kids, for instance, theirs would contain more explicit clues.

• The only puzzle we didn't love was a sound puzzle that was not the easiest to hear or decipher, and it took us a few tries to work out the mechanics of how it worked.

• We've played quite a few ancient temple/tomb type rooms by now and this was pound for pound the best one. I would say Heart of the Mountain might be more flashy and has more high-tech cinematic effects, but in terms of puzzles, flow, and polish, The Hidden Temple is in a class of its own.

PS: Quite a few Easter eggs referencing famous franchises. See if you can spot them!

Escape time: 41 minutes and 9 seconds

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

Verdict: Temple rooms are hard to pull off, but Narrow Escape really hit it out of the park with The Hidden Temple, a fabulous balance of artistic aesthetics and masterful puzzle design.

OVERALL RANK:

H	E	Z	J
A+	A+	A+	A+