Escape from the Blue Room

A challenging room with extremely well crafted and clever puzzles.

It’s usually the sets and effects that blow my mind in escape rooms, but this is the first time my mind was blown purely because of the puzzles. The puzzles in Escape from the Red Room were already super impressive, yet this long-awaited sequel somehow took it to another level with insane creativity and ingenuity, requiring the kind of layered, out-of-the-box thinking that no Western escape room we’ve played to date has tapped into. The 50-minute duration and “no hint” mechanism (your GM might voluntarily offer a clarification or pointer but they won’t help you just because you ask) make escape basically impossible if you get stuck on any puzzle for more than a few minutes, but that’s the way it has been designed — for you to fail! We ran out of time on what we thought was the final puzzle but there were actually a couple more, which the GM went through with us after the game. That said, it was most satisfying failure we’ve ever experienced in an escape room. Instead of the usual feelings of dejection and frustration, we could only tip our hats to the room designers in admiration. Note: The puzzles are language agnostic but you will need to book a group ticket (ie. book out the entire game) if you can’t speak Japanese so you don’t end up mixed with Japanese players. At the time of our visit, they offered printed English instructions but the GM (who was in the room with us most of the time) spoke very limited English.

Escape from the Blue Room is very similar in scope and scale to the Red Room. Tough puzzles, large tactile set pieces, and no language required. To book in English though, you must book out the whole room. Game is playable in any language. We were provided an explanation paper in English. The game itself is tough. Bring your A game, and ideally with more than 2 people 😅. Puzzles were fun to solve, making connections and moving pieces. It’s a different type of experience if you’re used to western style games, but a very good choice for anyone looking for a challenge.

Housekeeping: you don't need to know Japanese to play. Booking tickets is kind of weird, but basically buy a group ticket to make the room private. If even one ticket is already sold, you can't buy a group ticket. This is an actual room you enter (as opposed to hall style or stadium style games from scrap) Overall this room is amazing. Many innovative aspects I've never seen in a room, despite the room being relatively low tech. I'd say of all the puzzles, I really only felt that one early on may have been a bit unclear. As with most scrap games, the host is in the room and will ensure your experience is on track. Let her do her thing. Though the puzzles are fairly linear, I was glad to have more than less this time. This room can get kind of mind bending sometimes.

Fun room! Though I preferred the red room in comparison for sure, but the blue room was pretty fun too. It could do with a few less puzzles though. Some puzzles weren’t that clear, and really needed the staff assistance at some points. Still worth playing!

Definitely not for beginners. Staff mentioned there was about a 15% escape rate. With 4 people we kept feeling strapped for time and ended up needing hints for every single puzzle. Every puzzle was interesting and unique so I'm glad to have done the room, but I wish there were half as many puzzles or twice as much time so we could actually try more than one idea before receiving a hint. The puzzles are challenging enough that I feel like more people is better, but the design is also fairly linear which means you'll be crowding around the same puzzle often

A decent room and probably my preferred between this and the Red Room. A LOT of puzzles. Some good. Some less so. It honestly starts off pretty fun, definitely tricky, but not impossibly so. Somewhere towards the middle however, it really starts to drop and then goes right off a cliff in terms of logic towards the end. A fair chunk of puzzles that utilised big wood boxes, fun for maybe the first puzzle or two and then the eight after that felt significantly more arduous and annoying. The flow leaves a bit to be desired and sometimes it’s just genuinely unclear of what to do. We ended up having to have the final puzzle explained to us and even then still struggled to implement the instructions. I think this was trying to capture the sort of “wow moment” found in Red Room but instead ended up with a puzzle that just doesn’t make sense. Not one I’d recommend but some fun moments.

- Room is not private. I paid $150 USD total to make it private for me and my partner. - Employees said they cater to Japanese guests first but they can guide us/ translate if we reserved the whole room. - The room literally is not in the Japanese language at all. They have more English aspects. It’s more just using your eyes to see and brain to put it together. They did an intro with a paper in English explaining the rules. - Our guide was in the room with us 95% of the time.

Even more fun and interesting than the Red Room. Unique and fun puzzles. Some puzzles are difficult and maybe not the most intuitive to more beginner players. Open to English speakers. Highly recommend and the best room we’ve played in Tokyo. We played with 2 people but may be easier with 3+.

This is peak puzzle design. One of the most incredible progressions of layered tactile puzzle of any escape room I've seen globally, and an insidiously challenging but mind-blowingly cool final sequence (which is still cool even if you fail to get it all!) 10/10.