Escapologist — Local services in Upper Harbour

Compared to other escape rooms my partner and I have done, the prohibition era escape room was quite expensive yet at the same time not very atmospheric or cohesive. To illustrate, we have done two other escape rooms, and both were intricately decorated as well as fitted with speakers playing the right kind of sounds/noise you would expect. There were also other small rooms within the rooms, creating a more complex and interesting experience. Our Escapologist room felt very simple - some decorations appropriate to the era, but lit under bright, fluorescent white lights and with absolute silence. In a room intended to look and feel like a speakeasy, wouldn't warmer, dimmer lighting, a few flameless LED candles (or lamps), along with the background noise of speakeasy jazz music make sense? Personally, we also felt like the clues and storyline weren't well connected - in other escape rooms, when we entered, there would be an obvious place to start, even if it was hard to solve and if later clues were harder, and the clues would lead to the next, so on and so forth. With this one, we're not sure if it was on purpose, but the staff member obstructed/distracted us away from the first thing we needed (hopefully not giving much away). One or two clues gave us a hint as to what we should pay attention to or look for next, while most didn't. Our past escape rooms were like experiencing a story - unraveling what happened, when and where, one step at a time, just like reading a book or watching a movie. This one felt disjointed. Overall, it felt like there were lots of good ideas, though unfortunately not ones that connected to or flowed on from each other. Great concept but very...

I've played at all escape room venues in Auckland at least once and the Prohibition room at Escapologist is well below par while also being the most expensive. Considering it's one of the newest room in town, it's very disappointing. 1 - We couldn't pay by card and had to do a bank transfer on site (quite unprofessional in my view) 2 - Staff wasn't very welcoming. No briefing except from asking us not to break anything. She literally took us to the room and lock the door behind us. 3 - The room didn't have any storyline whatsoever. 4 - The decor was basic. 5 - It was only 1 room when every other games in town consist of at least 2 or more physical rooms to unlock and explore. 6 - Very few puzzles to solve before escaping which we did in 30 minutes. 7 - Puzzles were of very average in term of intricacy and design. No wow factor in any of them. 8 - The final door opens in the staff kitchenette. We actually thought we were accessing another part of the game but then realized we were done. What a poor feeling ending up in the staff room! Very unprofessional. 9 - No team photo was offered.

In short, I won't recommend this place to anyone. There are plenty of much better escape rooms...

The room was really cool! the mechanisms and puzzles were unique. But I do work in an escape room and have completed over 30 rooms and we only made it half way because the clue system was really not great. We were confused as to how a puzzle worked because it was different to what we were used too, and there was no way to ask for a clue. We were waving at the camera and asking for help but to no avail. Perhaps a walkie talkie or a trigger word for the worker to listen out for would be very benificial. Even when we were given help (after 40mins of completing no puzzles), the audio was almost unintelligible and we were given the same clue over and over which was not helpful for us. Once we finally figured out how to work it, we flew through, if we had gotten help when we needed it, it would have made the experience so much better. Also bummed that we weren’t offered a photo, perhaps cause we didn’t finish?The worker was very lovely and the room was really good, but it was a huge let down to not be able to...