Xcape Sydney Review

Company: Xcape PTY Ltd.
Website: http://xcapes.com.au
Rooms: Akame and Prison Break
Address: 18 Queen Street, Chippendale, Sydney, Australia

On the weekend of the 10th/11th of Feb, I did a number of various escape rooms in Sydney. I woke up at 3am in Auckland New Zealand, flew to Sydney and spend all weekend doing rooms and flew back to Auckland on Sunday Evening. I did these rooms with some strangers and some other people who I have done rooms with before.

Xcape is a new Chinese run/based Sydney based company in Chippendale, Sydney, Australia. They opened a few months ago and have done a lot of advertising on the back on buses and adverts in papers around Sydney. I went with two others who have done a fair number of other rooms in the past and I have played with them before.

We expected a lot but the nightmare of this place started before we even got into the first room. I say nightmare as everything which could go wrong.. did go wrong...

The place is licenced for 60 people and 5 staff but how you would fit this many people into this place (including people doing rooms) I have no idea as the reception was standing only and the only place we could wait was besides the single toilet which had a line of people to it a lot of the time.  

I was about 10 mins late (due to traffic) but we still had to wait quite a while (10-15 mins maybe) before we could play out first game which was Akame. We got escorted (after they found us in the jumble of people in the reception) to the room and then got told the story and what to expect .. but .. ... it wasn't really an escape room as advertised but a series of short jump scare rooms with a few puzzles in it (Which didn’t make sense).  So they started the timer and we continued. What I can describe was one of the worst experiences I have ever been thru.

Really cheap props and not scary at all. A lot of the rooms all you could do is laugh as they were so badly done. Jump scares with mannequins popping up and fake looking blood/coloured lights and sounds effects. Don’t get me talking about the NPC’s.

We got 1/2 way thru and we found we were stuck (in a Cage).  No way forward, no way back. From there on all the automation started breaking and things wouldn't trigger in the rooms until we waited and the next door opened.  This was really a health and safety issue. Imagine a fire or someone starting to panic. There was no way to easily get out unless I presume we destroyed multiple doors. No safety procedures were explained on what to do if we wanted to get out.

I found 1 "puzzle" in the entire group of rooms but it was basically a guessing game and not a skill or process based at all.

We got out very disappointed, paid (reluctantly) and left. No offer of pictures taken or thanks/come again.  This room is not wheelchair friendly or accessible to people with mobility issues.

We thought things could not be worse but we came back about an hour and we were completely wrong (again). Our journey playing their next room Prison Break didn't go well.

We got into the room and they chained us up. 2 in one room with a carabiner which I thought was for safety and another person who was chained without any safetys . This person asked for the staff to change this so they could actually get out if anything went wrong. (Another H&S issue).

Getting out of the chains was the first issue as you usually find a key very near you but there was literally nothing close to us we could use. (We could see a key in another room but it was impossible to get to due to being chained). No spoilers but the way we were told to get out after asking for a clue would be unheard of in all the other rooms I have done.

The Prison has moving wall which sounds fun until you try and traverse thru them. It is a huge safety issue as fingers/hands and bodies can be crushed quite easily. A few shouts of stop were heard quite loudly when we were doing this part as we had to move all the rooms a lot to progress.

One puzzle was not reset correctly which wasted our time and staff had to throw in a missing clue when they realised it after having to come in. Some written instructions for another part where wrong. It looked like they replaced something in the room and didn’t change these instructions as the part was quite different.

As far as I could tell we needed outside knowledge for another puzzle which we got stuck on as well and the end game was just there to look impressive as failing it allowed you to continue anyway. (I saw no point in it).

Walkie Talkies where useless as the gain was turned up too high and adding in the accents of the staff made the understanding of any instructions useless. They had to come to the window or come into the rooms to help us.

We finished and got out ..  and .. nothing.  We walk back down the corridor to the crowded reception and tried to explain how bad the room was to the couple of staff who seriously thought their rooms where the best in Sydney (But hadn’t done any others )  but “they only worked there” and could only give us a small percentage discount.

Maybe we had chosen the worst rooms they had but generally, I would suggest people NOT go to this company unless they want some laughable entertainment especially in Akame.

From talking to some others who had done the other rooms, safety issues where prevalent in some of the other rooms as well and they really should be fixed before someone gets hurt.

Also to note. They are using fake reviews. Compare http://xcapes.com.au/#testimonials with
http://www.thekeyjo.com/#testimonials  . This is a bought template https://themeforest.net/item/questroom-creative-escape-room-quest-room-html-template/19745995?s_rank=1 and they have specifically put names/dates/put #xcaperoom so it's not a mistake but on purpose.