Narrow Escape Rooms (Penrith, Australia)
Time limit: 60 minutes
Age limit: None
Player limit: 2-6
Difficulty: Medium (50% success rate)
Date visited: January 2025
There’s nothing more Aussie than going to an escape room on Australia Day!
For our final escape rooms before the end of the school holidays, we made the long trip out west to Penrith to tackle two rooms at Narrow Escape, Undetected and The Inheritance, which are considered their two more difficult rooms. We chose to do Undetected first because that’s considered the slightly easier one.
After some brief acting from our GM to explain the scenario, we entered Undetected as a team of thieves aiming to steal a piece of technology that will apparently “change everything”. We had 60 minutes to get in and out undetected and were guided on comms as necessary.
Undetected was a cool concept and a room filled with hi-tech puzzles and gadgets. There were wires to connect, buttons to press, objects to insert, and touch screens to access. With only a single padlock in the entire room, it is definitely one of the most hi-tech rooms we’ve played to date. It felt like a cross between Mission Escape and Next Level, adopting the former’s hi-tech slant combined with the latter’s cheeky vibe and sense of fun. Sci-fi fans in particular will get a real kick out of some of the props in this room.
We actually struggled with this room more than The Inheritance, largely because we’re more used to traditional brain teasers than hi-tech, task-based puzzles. Both types of puzzles are fun in their own ways, but tech puzzles tend to be more restrictive and can sometimes feel out of place or not make much sense in the space.
One of the puzzles we struggled with early in Undetected was a case in point. We deduced what we saw in front of us must be relevant to a puzzle, and the way of solving it even cross my mind, but I figured that couldn’t be it because the solution wasn’t logical. And when we eventually asked for a clue, the way to solve the puzzle turned out to be what I initially rejected for not making sense.
There were several more task-based puzzles throughout the room that were cool and fun to decipher but felt a little forced and irrelevant to what we were there to achieve as thieves. This problem became more pronounced because there were some other puzzles that aligned with the theme perfectly.
Still, Undetected was a pretty solid room that provided us with both fun and satisfaction. Lovers of hi-tech, no-padlock rooms should have a great time. Narrow Escape has a third room, Launch, which we aim to eventually play and will probably do so when Narrow releases their new Aztec-themed room, hopefully some time in 2025.
Escape time: 47 minutes and 16 seconds
Verdict: A hi-tech room with mostly task-based tech puzzles and lots of cheeky sci-fi and pop culture references.
Rating: 8
Player | Theming | Atmosphere | Puzzles | Creativity | Fun | Average |
H | 8 | 8 | 8 | 8 | 8 | 8 |
E | 7.5 | 7.5 | 7.5 | 7.5 | 7.5 | 7.5 |
Z | 8 | 8 | 8 | 8 | 8 | 8 |
J | 7.5 | 8.5 | 9 | 9 | 8.5 | 8.5 |
Rating | 8 |
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