Ok, here’s a little preview for a room that I played in Hong Kong more than a year ago. I was still new to escape rooms. I think it was among the first 5 that I played so any room was still cool and awesome.
During that time, Escape room @eCurve was the only operator in Malaysia but in Hong Kong, there were already plenty, so I thought, let’s check out at least one of the room in this city. My first concern was the language barrier; my reading vocab of Chinese characters is probably as many as my fingers and toes. The Escape HK has their website in English and they do have the games in English too. So that is it.
Roped in some friends who live in HK and we found ourselves becoming band members scheduled to play on the big stage for the first time.
I guess we fell asleep while waiting for our turn. When we woke up, the room was dark . The good news is, we have 60 minutes before we are due on stage. the bad news was the door was locked and we need a number code to unlock it. It was our big break. If we missed this chance, that’s it, we’ll be doomed to be basement musicians forever.
I can’t remember much from the ordeal but I remember we frantically searched the room. We had practically turned the whole room upside down and searched every corner. At least, that’s what we believe we had done. But twice, not once, it was two times our progress were stunned by very well hidden objects. We knew exactly what we need to look for. We knew exactly where to find it but we just don’t see it.
As much as we want to hold on to our pride, we had no choice but to call for help or else we would have missed our big break on stage. No chance we are going to give that up. Pride or not.
Help came and showed us the secret compartments, I couldn’t believe we didn’t see it in the first place. It was there all along, we had it in our hands but we just didn’t see it… Secret compartments. Damned the secret compartments.
Merely seconds before we are due on stage, we managed to find the code to the door, we tried and tried numerous of time on the lock. It is the correct code. We knew it. There’s no way it was wrong. But the lock just won’t budge. Why??? I was screaming inside, we were so near, so near… we can’t fail like this.
As the buzzer went off, the lock turned and the door opens. We froze for a moment as reality hits us, we made it out, we can make it on stage. It’s our big break. Thus, that night became the beginning of our band’s history. So we thought.
Nope, our music career didn’t fly as we thought it would so each of us went back to what we were doing before we foolishly think we had any musical talent. However, it all turned out well after all. One of us is now a Nobel Prize winner, the other has become the world richest man according to Forbes, and me… I’m here typing away an award winning article.
So, what exactly happen to the door at the very last second. The Noble Prize winner had been turning the knob the wrong direction all the time. The Noble Prize that she won; she invented a door lock that goes against all physics. Saving troubles for people (like herself) who can’t differentiate anti-clockwise and clockwise.
Anyway, we still had fun and the room is a good room for beginers. The puzzles were easy, simple and straightforward. Could have made it out in less than half an hour if it wasn’t for the damn secret compartments. Nice touch thou.
Theme: 3/5
Puzzle difficulty: 2/5
Props/set: 4/5
Production quality: 4/5
Search amount: 4/5
Physical activity: 0/5