This time our travels took us to ancient China. I looked for an Escape Room in English and it was hard to find one and even more difficult to talk to someone in English. With the help of my hotel I was able to speak with Mr. X. A big chain of Escape Rooms all over China, with over 100 rooms.
This was in the heart of financial Beijing. A very modern mall with lots to offer. I was lucky enough to meet up with a group of teenagers that spoke English. With 7 rooms to choose from, I chose Escape of Alcatraz. The waiting area was extremely nice, a bar like scene that used a lot of Retro elements. They requested us to leave outside everything in our pockets, nothing was to be taken inside the room with us.
To my surprise we were split into two teams and started in two very secure prison cells. Only one artifact was there and hardly anything written on the walls. I was amazed how the first puzzle worked out. The whole cell was the puzzle. Then we had to crawl through a vent to reach our next room. It took us quite some time and we used our only hint where the RM had to come inside the room to help. We finally made it to the 3rd room and I was shocked, a huge room mostly under water. Yes! water, surrounded by aliens and no way to reach the other side. Needless to say we had to wait for the other part of our team to solve their puzzles and meet us there to be able to solve the game from this point. It was a very different experience than I’m used to. There was hardly any texts. No hints or clues besides the one we requested. We had to used our minds and use anything we had on us. We had to work with our wardrobe as well. Who would’ve thought!!!
It was an incredible experience but very different. I really liked the decoration and room layout. I had two very clear wow moments but I felt the theme wasn’t strong enough and the flow was a bit weak.
I would do any one of their other rooms just to see what other wow puzzles they have as I haven’t seen anything like them in the Western World.
Asia and the West have two different approaches to Escape Rooms for sure. At the end of the day I took the best of that world and I’m happy with what we are doing at Captured LV.
M.
Game Design 7/10
Puzzles 8/10
Service 6/10
Room/Theme 8/10
WOW factor 10/10
