The Iron Kingdom

Escape Reality - Central Coast (Tuggerah, Australia)

Time limit: 60 minutes

Player limit: 2-6 players

Age limit: Under 15 requires adult

Difficulty: 3/5

Date visited: January 2026

It was still the school holidays, so we decided to take an overnight trip to the Central Coast to play the 4 games at Escape Reality in Tuggerah. All 4 of their games are rated quite highly on Morty, so we went in with moderate expectations. I booked the games in the order of lowest to highest rated, so we started off with The Iron Kingdom. These are my thoughts:

• This was a solid game. Solid theming, solid puzzles, solid fun. Nothing special but good enough. The only thing that really stood out was the enthusiasm of our GM, who really put a lot of zest into his delivery.

• On the positive side, the room was a good size with multiple spaces. The medieval set design was fairly standard, with mostly wooden and metal props you might expect to find in such a theme.

• All of Escape Reality's rooms use a tablet hint system that I'm not the biggest fan of. Basically, you scan QR codes for hints when you get stuck, but each time you use a hint, you incur a 5-minute penalty to your escape time (which is shown at all times on the tablet.

• Interestingly, you can also summon your GM into the room at any time to them ask questions, which does not incur any penalties.

• The puzzles were straightforward for the most part and not too difficult. However, we did get stuck on a couple of puzzles. The first time was because we overthought it and got confused by a prop that was seemingly related but turned out to be merely a decoration that was not relevant. We eventually abandoned that prop and managed to decided to go the simple route, and managed to solve it quite quickly after that.

• The second time we got stuck was on the final puzzle, which was plagued by some rather confusing wording and no guidance on the direction in which to place certain objects. Rather than wasting time trying different combinations, we decided to summon our GM into the room to clarify. As it turned out, we once again read too much into the puzzle and the solution was ridiculously straightforward – literally requiring no thinking or logical deduction whatsoever.

• Apart from these issues, there wasn't really any negative stuff to report about the room — unless you consider the fact that it had nothing that was particularly outstanding or memorable as a negative.

Escape time: 36 minutes and 27 seconds

Theming	Atmosphere	Puzzles	Creativity	Fun
B	B	B	B	B

Verdict: The very definition of a solid escape room. It won't wow anyone but still offers a solidly fun time.

OVERALL RANK:

H	E	Z	J
B	C+	B	B