The Hideaway

Another great room that delivers a clever mixture of hi-tech and low-tech puzzles that require you to think outside the box. Despite this being technically their “hardest” room, we found it easier than their “easier” rooms, finishing in around 38 minutes, though we did get tripped up on the final puzzle and wasted a fair bit of time because we missed something right in front of us!

8/10

Another banger from Riddle Room, the Hideaway really made us pay attention to the finer details. Story-wise, this one felt like the most ambitious across all their experiences as there were so many details that needed to be implemented correctly to really sell the police hostage narrative, but with each clue and piece of evidence we discovered, a very well thought out picture began to emerge. Nicely done. The puzzles were definitely on the trickier side with a couple moments leaving us confused before we realised how easy it is to overlook certain details. Everything from the set to the props to the cracks in the bricks were immaculate and well-maintained, it’s clear from the word go just how much love and care is put into all of Riddle Room’s experiences. Loved it.

A bit of a tone shift compared to our previous two rooms at RRC but not one that was in any way negative. Hideaway lived up to its name with numerous puzzles taking a double, triple and sometimes quadruple check before we noticed key details we were missing on a rushed first glance. This did adjust our playing style a little bit but did also assist us into leaning into the detective themeing of the room. Some interesting puzzles and a fun use of tech but not one of my favourite rooms we played here. Still a very entertaining room and one I'd definitely recommend.

Today we did the Hideaway. It felt immersive right away. They showed us hints on the display, So that we weren't led astray. The story was to find the cop, And had a lot of locks to pop. A mix of puzzles new and traditional, To find the one finding the criminal. At one point we broke linearity (Afterwards the GM gave clarity) A challenging room and a fun ride Don't forget to check both sides.

We did two other escape rooms on the same day (with a group 4) before doing hideaway. This room was our least favourite of the three. It was more padlock heavy and had a lot of of puzzles, definitely the hardest of the three rooms. I think my brain was also a bit fried by the time we did this room so that made it more challenging. We also made some silly mistakes when we found stuff that distracted us from having a thorough look after solving certain puzzles. In addition, we apparently accidentally broke the linearity of the room, which confused us for a bit, but managed to eventually get ourselves back on track. It was nice that the staff came in and explained how we performed on different puzzles and gave us insight into how other groups generally performed.

Completed a few rooms as a group of 4 at Riddle Room in one day - The Hideaway was our 3rd and last of the day. It had a mix of traditional number locks and some more unique puzzles. I really enjoyed the puzzles but we got stuck a couple of times because of things we didn’t notice and were given a few hints to help us out. There was one puzzle which needed a bit of trial and error which we wasted a bit of time on, and we were broke the linearity of the room because we did something from a “clue” that we weren’t supposed to discover until later. Overall, a really fun room but the hardest one of the 3 we tried. We made it out with only a few seconds to spare. The GM was great, he was really enthusiastic about escape rooms and explained our stats and how we did afterwards.

The Hideaway was our third room at Riddle Room and my 38th room completed overall. Spending the entire day tackling four out of five of Riddle Room's escapes, we consistently encountered the same friendly and exceptional staff. They were very welcoming, highly attentive, and spot-on as our Gamesmasters. Riddle Room uses a unique method of communication for Gamesmastering, utilizing a version of the "Voice of God" system. Responses to our questions are displayed on a monitor that also keeps track of our time. I quite liked this approach as it minimized miscommunication. However, the only drawback is that in a multi-room escape, you have to make your way back to the first room to see the monitor. The Hideaway is a reasonably sized escape room with lots of puzzles to solve, offering varying levels of difficulty. *Fun Fact*: We were told that it has the same number of puzzles to complete as The Dungeon. Unfortunately for us, we weren't met with the same outcome, as we failed to escape within the allotted 60 minutes, taking about 64 minutes to escape from memory. Hideaway is really well-themed. It's clear that a lot of hard work has gone into the presentation of the room and the props. There is also a strong storyline that continues throughout the experience. Unlike some other rooms, there are no dark areas or scary elements in Hideaway at all, making it a more accessible and less intimidating experience. My team found Hideaway to be probably the most challenging of all the rooms we played at Riddle Room. This was due to our inability to see what was right in front of us and partly because some of the puzzles were quite challenging.

I really liked the concept, and especially the set design in the first part, but gosh it was a hard room!

Well built room with good storyline and great props. About half the puzzles still result in a padlock needing to be opened but the set and design was immersive enough to make up for that 👍🏻