Is your next group outing in need of a change of pace and you want to check out the top escape rooms in Melbourne? The very idea is enough to get anyone pumped up, and in practise, escape rooms are a great way to spend an evening with friends or loved ones, with or without any prior knowledge of the game.
They put you in the action, and in some cases the action can be tense or even terrifying. Yet, above all else, it is an activity that fosters teamwork and gives you a chance to spend time with your loved ones without the distraction of technology. The best Melbourne escape rooms are waiting for you to try them out.
The era of the escape room has arrived, and it has never been better. It's hard to believe that Melbourne has only had puzzle rooms since 2014, but that was actually when the first one opened.
In addition to the traditional, physical escape rooms, there are also digital and online variants. There are many different types of escape rooms, each with its own unique focus and design to address specific fears. As a challenge, Time Out went to escape rooms all over Melbourne. It's unclear, however, if we were able to escape in time.
FAQs Escape Rooms In Melbourne
AdventureRooms. Melbourne’s Real-life Escape the Room Game. A fun and engaging live escape room experience, perfect for groups of 2-42 people. Your team is locked in a room with hidden and mysterious objects. With only these objects as clues, you have 60 minutes to escape. But, what was once so obvious is no longer as it seems.
As you progress through the Escape room, you will find pieces of the story in the form of videos, audio recordings and photos. There is no rush to Escape, so make sure you relax and enjoy the story! 3. SOLVE PUZZLES You will still need to solve puzzles to Escape.
Adventure Rooms Melbourne Staff are incredibly helpful and friendly. Puzzles were great fun and often gave you that satisfying ‘aha’ moment. 7. Woodbury Escape Rooms - Melbourne So much fun!! Almost escaped the Leaper room, very clever puzzles and lovely staff!!! Thank you for being so awesome. Red Herring Escape Rooms
Escape Rooms In Melbourne
Do you want to do something unique this weekend with your loved ones or coworkers? What about a group outing to one of Melbourne's top escape rooms? The goal is to work together to escape from a room where you've all been locked in.
You must determine your own escape! Throughout the city, you can find escape rooms that offer these thrilling, interactive games. This isn't as terrifying as the Saw movies, but you'll still need to work together and solve problems in order to escape.
Furthermore, the fastest team will be immortalised as a reward for their efforts. Forget about your phones (at least for an hour or two).
So, check out the top five escape rooms Melbourne has to offer.
Ukiyo Melbourne
Ukiyo is a portal to a parallel universe. You can count on new content for this Melbourne-based escape room on a regular basis. Taking part in the newest escape room, Kuebiko: The Crumbling Prince, is like being transported into a Studio Ghibli movie, what with its demi-gods and Japanese garden setting. It is interactive and immersive, but more importantly, it is story-driven and not just a random collection of puzzles strung together. When you factor in the clever set design and cutting-edge equipment, you have one of the best escape rooms in Melbourne.
Get a taste of something different at Ukiyo Escape Room Melbourne. You'll feel like you've stepped into a Studio Ghibli movie in their newest escape room, Kuebiko: The Crumbling Prince, with its demi-gods and Japanese garden setting.
It's not just a bunch of random puzzles thrown together for no reason; it has a story that keeps you invested throughout. When you factor in the clever set design and cutting-edge equipment, you have one of the best escape rooms in Melbourne.
Escape Room Melbourne
Escape Room Melbourne is the first of its kind in Australia, and it's an exciting, engrossing, and challenging experience that groups of all sizes can enjoy together.
An exciting adventure that puts your mental fortitude and problem-solving skills to the test, these escape rooms were conceptualised by two Ph.D.s in psychology. In Flemington, you can find Melbourne's first escape room, where you and your fellow adventurers have 70 minutes to uncover the room's secrets and escape.
Escape Room Melbourne is a live puzzle experience for two to six players that is great for family bonding and building excitement. There are a total of three rooms to explore here, and we've decided to give Fractured: Remember Me a go.
The player takes on the role of Robert, a coma-plagued World War II veteran suffering from post-traumatic stress disorder. The point of the game is to reacquaint him with his loved ones and help him recall past events. At first, we enter a plain white room with few furnishings.
A photo album in sepia tones and a piece of paper with a single instruction are displayed on a plinth in the centre. There's a spooky video projection playing on the main wall and antique radios on two adjacent walls.
That's pretty much it; however, the seemingly unremarkable room conceals some clever tricks and a jaw-dropping reveal. With only 70 minutes to save Robert, it feels like you're racing against time as well as death. For some reason, this story hits close to home, and we care deeply about whether or not Robert comes out of his coma and is reunited with his family.
The Mystery Rooms
Here’s the thing about escape rooms: no matter how many of them you try, you’ll always feel the same sense of nervous intrigue when you visit a new one. Here at Time Out, we can’t get enough of being locked in a room and solving puzzles against the clock to escape – which is why we jumped for joy when we heard about the Mystery Rooms in Fitzroy. Tucked away in leafy Napier Street, The Mystery Rooms occupies the site of a former wool factory. We’re greeted by a couple who discovered escape rooms in Budapest (the city where the craze first took off in Europe) and were inspired to create their own.
Adventure runs through their blood – in 2015, Tom built a boat and rowed with one friend from New York across the North Atlantic to the UK to raise money for a breast cancer charity. Knowing this, it’s less surprising, but no less impressive, that Tom and Jodie have built the rooms themselves in consultation with a set designer.
As an antidote to some of the city’s glitzier CBD operations, The Mystery Rooms is charmingly DIY and a little eccentric: a cosy lounge offers a space to relax before the action begins; the toilet is a Doctor Who 'Police Box’; a small bar is stocked with wine for debriefing with friends after the escape.
There are four rooms here, the Footsteps of the Pharaohs, the Experience, Secrets of Camelot and A Grimm Finale, which can only be played once you've completed the other three.
We choose the Footsteps of the Pharaohs – there’s something about ancient Egypt that lends itself perfectly to solving riddles. So we enter the room, where we’re met by our guide, Cleopatra herself, who is trapped in a tomb.
The door shuts, our bare feet sink slightly into the cool sand on the floor, and we take in our surroundings: hieroglyphics and symbols cover the walls, strange little bottles sit on a ledge, and a large box (could it be a coffin?) is fastened with a padlock.
We won’t give anything else away except to say that this is immersive escapism at its best. The choice to include an actor inside the space provides an elegant solution to giving hints – other escape rooms use walkie-talkies or, at worst, staff members who come into the room, breaking the magic.
The puzzles themselves are creative and involve lots of teamwork, plus a bit of physical activity. As we get closer to solving the final riddle and saving Cleopatra, the pace quickens, and things heat up. It’s certainly not easy to escape, which makes the success all the sweeter. Finally, we're rewarded with the Book of the Dead.
The fourth room, A Grimm Finale, is the culmination of the previous three. You are only allowed to book the fourth room once you've completed the others, and it's in the briefing for this one that we learn what the purpose of those quests was. The Book of the Dead symbolises knowledge, King Arthur's sword symbolises strength, and Ned Kelly's scarf symbolises courage. Those three objects will help us defeat the evil Snow Queen, the ultimate boss in A Grimm Finale.
This is the hardest of the rooms, with lots of technology (videos, phones, doors that pop open, temperature-based puzzles) to make you feel like you're inside a fairytale. Hints come from the most fairytale of sources, and as the puzzles are real head-scratchers, you can ask for as much help as you need. The Mystery Rooms advise bringing a warm top with you for this room, and while we won't ruin the surprise, we will say they don't call her the Snow Queen for anything.
You will need a lot of teamwork to defeat the evil Queen, with puzzles and solutions on opposite ends of the room and a lot of communication needed to get things where they are meant to go.
If you're a super keen escape room lover, you can do all four rooms in one day, but it's much more advisable to take your time and do them one at a time. After all, you don't want to tire out your brains – the Snow Queen will take all your wits to defeat.
Lost In Melbourne Escape Rooms
The moment you enter LOST, you'll be immersed in a world unlike any other. You will forget you are playing a video game thanks to the compelling plot, the realistic environments, and the incredible visual effects.
Both first-timers and seasoned players of escape rooms will find plenty to like about this Melbourne establishment's array of novel puzzles and puzzle solutions. There are three unique and exciting adventures to choose from, making them ideal for social gatherings, corporate events, and team building exercises.
Rush Escape Game – Escape Room Melbourne
At Rush Escape Game, you’ll be testing your wits as you coordinate your team and complete time-based challenges to escape the room. Six different themes unique means there is something for every type of player. Rise as a knight of the round table in 'The Last Knight Rises’, take a trip down the rabbit hole in ‘The Matrix’ or confront the entity haunting a grieving father’s dreams in ‘Its Nightmare’.
Its Nightmare is genuinely scary, so if you can’t make it through a horror movie without wetting yourself, then we suggest trying another of Rush Escape Games rooms. There are six, after all, with themes spanning everything from medieval royal halls to superhero hangouts (a favourite for kids). Even a super tough room was available, which was so hard (it had a five per cent success rate). As a result, the rush had to modify it slightly.
But back to 60 minutes of puzzling, R15+ terror that is the It's a Nightmare, the escape room. Time Out's bravest decided to review. Led down a dark, glowing red corridor, the brave escapees are informed that not only do many people receive bad news shortly after exiting this cursed room but that even the CCTV is said to be cut out occasionally (though we had plenty of assistance when needed).
After making our way down an even darker hallway (with bonus creepy crawlies at our feet), we emerge into the set of a horror flick, complete with bloody handprints and possessed paintings. Genuine screams occurred more than once as we picked our way through the room’s puzzles and tried not to freak out when we had pat-down faceless, creepy child mannequins (anything for a clue).
The flow of each escape room varies at Rush. Its Nightmare is a more intuitive room where you enter with little instruction or direction – a choice that adds to the overall unsettling environs. Read all notes you find carefully for clues, and don’t be afraid to stick your hands into strange holes – if you want to escape alive, that is.
The Mystery Rooms
The Mystery Rooms, located in Melbourne, is an internationally acclaimed escape room provider. Located in the heart of downtown, this puzzle and escape room centre has won numerous awards and features four unique escape rooms with themes ranging from ancient Egypt to a magical forest.
In addition, Mystery Rooms is a great place to host a birthday party, give a gift, or organise a team building exercise. These puzzles are Mystery Rooms' claim to fame, and they're a great way for groups of people to get to know each other, whether they're coworkers or relatives. With Mystery Rooms, you know you're getting the best escape room Melbourne, Australia and one of the top 100 escape rooms in the world has to offer.
The Mystery Rooms Melbourne is a safe bet, having been named both Melbourne's Best Escape Room and one of the world's Top 100 Best Escape Rooms. With its fantastic plots, it is undeniably one of the finest Melbourne escape rooms available. In "The Lost Tomb," you travel back in time to ancient Egypt in search of the Book of the Dead; in "The Medieval Quest," you brave a storm to retrieve Excalibur from Camelot; and in "The Grimm Finale," you'll need to bring a coat to the enchanted woods and frozen kingdom.
Escape Hunt Melbourne
Step into the game at Escape Hunt Melbourne, where each themed room is detailed with rich storylines and incredible set design. This one won’t break the bank but still offers a fantastic escape room experience. Choose from 4 different stories, including Zodiac Heist, Law and Disorder, Machinarium and Odditorium.
Adventure Rooms
For an escape room experience that caters for up to 42 people, Adventure Rooms in Melbourne is a perfect choice. A physicist in Switzerland was the original creator of Adventure Rooms, which now finds itself in Bourke Street Mall, granting you easy access to a thrilling experience! Adventure Rooms’ Mad Scientist room, featured in 20 locations worldwide, is one of their specialty experiences.
Adventure rooms see the enthralling experience on offer as suited to family and friends, coworkers, game enthusiasts and tourists, highlighting that it can be fun for anyone. With only 30 per cent of participants having completed and escaped their live escape game, using the objects and puzzles in these rooms will give you the best of any fun challenge you are looking for.
Adventure Rooms Melbourne requires thinking outside the box as your team of escapees must find all the hidden and mysterious objects, escape the room and beat the clock. Escape the house of a twisted genius in ‘The Mad Scientist’, defeat the enemy and escape the castle in ‘The Black Queen’, or work with your team to reclaim your freedom and escape the cell in ‘Gaol Break’.
Escape Or Die
First things first: despite the name, you will not die if you fail to escape in time at Escape or Die. Though Evan Raif, the creator and head of Escape or Die, says people have called up asking just that. And having worked the way through the escape room, great storytelling means that there are moments where you feel like your life is in peril.
Escape or Die pitches itself as a little different to your average escape room, but the core concept is the same. Your team enters a room, and you have a set amount of time to escape from the said room by solving puzzles. Where Escape or Die differs is in how it’s more story-based, and your ability to follow the story plays a big role in your success.
The premise of the room is that you and your mates are new employees at a haunted house, and you’ve just started your first day of work. What first appears as a delightfully hammy attraction, however, soon becomes increasingly sinister as you realise all is wrong with the haunted house’s staff.
There are quite a few video interludes between puzzles (think of them like cutscenes in a video game) that place you right in the narrative, thanks to some clever techniques featuring pre-recorded audio and video. The videos are varied, switching from advertisements to found footage to quirky (yet disturbing) animations.
Escape or Die doesn’t have the hardest puzzles we’ve encountered, but they are creative and require a healthy dose of lateral thinking – and some teamwork – to solve. But, again, you’ll be rewarded for paying attention to tiny details and for not disregarding items at face value.
We loved the fact that while the game starts pretty normal and unthreatening, by the time you enter the second room, there’s absolutely no time for chit chat as you race to escape from what might be the goriest escape room we’ve tried. At times we had to remind ourselves, “it’s only a game, it’s not real, it’s only a game.”
Woodbury Escape Rooms – South Melbourne
Check out Melbourne's Woodbury Escape Rooms if you're interested in a frightful escape adventure. In 'The Curse of Kidd Island,' you and your team must explore a subterranean cavern in search of your vanished coworkers. Spend some time inside the killer's head in 'Leaper,' or if you need a break from the horror, play 'Wanted,' an old-school western in which you play as a bandit who is trying to retrieve their stolen goods from the sheriff.
Red Herring Escape Rooms
Feel like the only way an escape room experience could get better is with cocktails? Well, Red Herring Escape Rooms will be perfect for you. Red Herring offers a unique and extra-fun briefing period where alcohol and beginning puzzles are available 30 minutes before the escape room game.
After the experience, described by the Red Herring team as thrilling, fun and frustrating, a report is available for players to evaluate their performance. A fun night with friends could not be better spent at Red Herring Escape Rooms!
Escape Room
In 2014, when Melbourne's first escape room opened, rumours spread like wildfire. We enquired as to the nature of escape rooms and whether or not they were exclusively housed in granny flats at the bottom of everyone's mother's backyard. Well, this one certainly is. We show up at a house in Flemington, New Jersey, with more than a little trepidation, but to our relief, puzzle master and psychologist Owen Spear is there to greet us.
He shows us around his mom's house and takes us to the back of the garden. After falling in love with the concept of escape rooms on a trip to Budapest, he and his girlfriend (also a doctor of psychology) decided to turn the room into one. After wishing us well and assuring us that he will be monitoring our every move "the whole time," he hands us each a walkie-talkie and gestures towards the exit.
The lights are out, and eerie music driven by cellos emanates from somewhere in the room. In the beam of a torch, we can see the contents of a dusty book, a birdcage full of feathers, or a locked trunk.
On a vintage table, a crumpled letter waits. It's from our uncle, who's left us a series of puzzles to solve before we can get back to the real world.
All of the answers are hidden in plain sight. Nothing seems out of place, but clues are tucked away in paintings and other artefacts that help us unravel the mystery, much like enraptured children who become oblivious to the passing of time as they pace and whisper about the events unfolding before their eyes.
Even though the puzzles are difficult, they are all ultimately solvable through hard work and careful consideration (plus one or two prompts over the walkie-talkie). The experience isn't based on shock value or complicated math; rather, it's rooted in a genuine interest in the psychology of its players. When we get out, we'll be holding each other's arms and blinking in the bright sunlight. Owen gives us his congratulations and then looks at our shocked faces. This is a reaction he's seen before, and one he's likely to see again and again.
Mine Escape
Owen Spear and Ali Cheetham, who in 2014 opened Melbourne's first escape room in Flemington, moved on to open a second one in South Melbourne, housed in a converted factory. The couple's inner-suburban location provides them with yet another opportunity to legally imprison eager thrill-seekers, set the timer for 70 minutes, and then watch as teams use all their wits to solve their carefully crafted puzzles.
When team Time Out arrives in a quiet South Melbourne alley, we are greeted by Spear and Cheetham, who usher us into a converted factory and down a dim hallway. We come to a halt at a seemingly unremarkable door, holding flashlights and a two-way radio (if we need clues). Take a deep breath, because here we go again.
After the door closes behind us, we find ourselves suddenly in the mine's command centre. A typed note on a desk is illuminated by soft, yellow light. A bottleneck has formed deep within the mine. It's possible that your friends are waiting for you inside. Determine where the problem is coming from, or else. We are acutely aware that the stakes are higher now.
Our group of three sometimes works on problems independently, but more often we huddle over a rock, a jar, or a map, waiting for the moment when one, two, or all three of us suddenly have the solution. It's incredible how many different ways there are to approach these puzzles.
In addition to the ambient noise and country guitar licks, there are numerous inexplicable symbols, physical obstacles, and audio clues. The key is to experiment with a variety of mental threads and see what clicks. We never imagined, for instance, that someone would say something like, "These rocks are trying to speak to me."
At the end of the day, we need one last code to save the mine. Then, our palms start to sweat as we type in the numbers for the third time... and we've accomplished it! We are now completely secure, and our puppet masters enter the room, beaming. It's not nearly as weird as it sounds to think that these guys are having fun watching us as much as we are having fun solving their puzzles.