Slip through the doorway between David Jones and Rip Curl on Market Street and you’ll find a lift that takes you up to a series of escape rooms created by Jason Tang and Anthony Chiu. CT Adventure Escape Rooms has three themes to choose from: a jungle expedition called ‘Gotcha’, a terrifying room called ‘The Witch’ that has just a five per cent success rate, and a museum heist called ‘MU-T’ – with a far friendlier 30 per cent chance of escape.
We like our odds of busting into (and out of) the museum. Eye masks on, we’re led into the first room knowing we have 60 minutes to work out way through the puzzles and eventually retrieve the ‘T’. Our escape room expert calls out what’s in the room – she’s a veteran games nerd and knows it’s all about communication and teamwork.
We have a few easy wins: A key! A handle! A video tape! It feels like we’re flying through… We’ll be out of here in record time. Then comes the video tape. Like a spoof version of The Ring, we’re told our fate – there’ll be a telephone, there’ll be numbers, there’ll be people out to get us. Why is she dressed like that? Is that a child’s voice?
In the second room, the theme becomes a little clearer but a few clues slow us down. Luckily we have a tall person in the team to reach some of those mechanisms, but we use two phone calls for clues to trigger some of the puzzles – the morse code, for example, doesn’t correspond to short and long pulses. But we’ve come this far, so we push through and smash our way through other mechanical puzzles with the help of four pairs of hands.
We reach the final room, but time is running out… Our smallest thief weaves her way through laser beams as others yell numbers from rooms one, two and three. Ten minutes on the clock. Three codes disarmed. We watch the video again… We’re so very close, but out of luck. Undeterred by our failure, we know we’ll be back to tackle The Witch.
Outcome: Failed
Atmosphere: ✮✮✮
Creativity of puzzles: ✮✮✮✮
Difficulty: ✮✮✮
Fun: ✮✮✮
Best quote: “This room isn’t made for short people.”
Our tip: Listen to that videotape very carefully.
