Escape Review: Zerospace, Subway Butcher
Hey all! I just completed a room escape game in Taipei, Taiwan with an awesome group of people, and wanted to share the experience! This was the first real life room escape game I've done in another country (and another language) and it was incredibly hard. While we did make it out alive, we made it out one minute over the 60 minute time limit (so close), and technically lost the game!! The game was a murder mystery hosted by Zerospace and we had heard good things about this company. The story line of this game was very well done, as all of the challenges seemed to tie in well to the murder mystery theme and there were many props related to the murder scene that weren't necessarily clues in the game. The setting was a small dark room, supposedly in the Hong Kong metro, and most of the challenges dealt with the Hong Kong metro.
For starters, they had us empty our pockets before the game, leaving everything in a locked treasure chest till after we got out. This was extremely difficult for me because the entire game was in Chinese (although none of the challenges were directly in Chinese) and no phone meant I had no Google Translate app, which I was banking on using before we went. This made it a little hard to follow the hints around the room, although thankfully none of the challenges were based in Chinese. The lack of cell phones further crippled us once we were in the room as there was almost no lights in the actual room, but only a portable flash light they gave us and a portable black light. This made it hard to explore the room and work on challenges at the same time, as light was limited and we had to use it as a group. Further, there was no paper or pen in the room and since we couldn't bring anything in we had no way to write down clues! This proved even more troublesome than we originally expected as we had to watch a series of videos, as well as remember long strings of numbers to solve several challenges, and the ability to take notes would have made a large difference as opposed to memorizing sequences and repeating them as a group.
I really liked the physical rooms, between the low lighting and the props I thought they were pretty well set up, although slightly damaged from wear. At times we had to climb a ladder, crawl through pitch black hallways, and even slide down ropes to access new areas. Those physical set ups were pretty creative and really added to the game!!
The puzzles were particularly challenging because there was seemingly no hint as to how to derive combination locks out of the various images and clues provided to us. Further, with everything being in Chinese, including all of the hints provided by the game masters, at times I felt a bit lost even with the hints. That said, we used the buzzer to get numerous hints throughout the challenges and the staff was good at providing hints without giving us the solutions, which kept us at a fun pace throughout the game. When it came down to the wire, we were on the perfect path but solved the final puzzle just a little to late. All in all, I would definitely play a real life room escape in another country again, it added a whole new level of difficulty and intrigue to the challenges, and was extremely fun!!
For starters, they had us empty our pockets before the game, leaving everything in a locked treasure chest till after we got out. This was extremely difficult for me because the entire game was in Chinese (although none of the challenges were directly in Chinese) and no phone meant I had no Google Translate app, which I was banking on using before we went. This made it a little hard to follow the hints around the room, although thankfully none of the challenges were based in Chinese. The lack of cell phones further crippled us once we were in the room as there was almost no lights in the actual room, but only a portable flash light they gave us and a portable black light. This made it hard to explore the room and work on challenges at the same time, as light was limited and we had to use it as a group. Further, there was no paper or pen in the room and since we couldn't bring anything in we had no way to write down clues! This proved even more troublesome than we originally expected as we had to watch a series of videos, as well as remember long strings of numbers to solve several challenges, and the ability to take notes would have made a large difference as opposed to memorizing sequences and repeating them as a group.
I really liked the physical rooms, between the low lighting and the props I thought they were pretty well set up, although slightly damaged from wear. At times we had to climb a ladder, crawl through pitch black hallways, and even slide down ropes to access new areas. Those physical set ups were pretty creative and really added to the game!!
The puzzles were particularly challenging because there was seemingly no hint as to how to derive combination locks out of the various images and clues provided to us. Further, with everything being in Chinese, including all of the hints provided by the game masters, at times I felt a bit lost even with the hints. That said, we used the buzzer to get numerous hints throughout the challenges and the staff was good at providing hints without giving us the solutions, which kept us at a fun pace throughout the game. When it came down to the wire, we were on the perfect path but solved the final puzzle just a little to late. All in all, I would definitely play a real life room escape in another country again, it added a whole new level of difficulty and intrigue to the challenges, and was extremely fun!!
