https://sherlockedhomes.gr/en/
Sherlocked Maze (Game duration 60 minutes)
Fury team: Ivan Minchev, Tsveta Dancheva, Alla Danabasheva, Vladislav Kubatev, Nadezhda Danabasheva
Date: September 8, 2018
Our time: 49:00 minutes
As I mentioned before, Sherlock Holmes is one of my favorite characters from books, and the ones who dare to work on an escape room theme like that have a tough challenge upon themselves. So far, I haven’t played a really impressive room about Sherlock, and this room, unfortunately, is no exception.
Most of the rooms in Athens are scary, and because of that reason, they are not on my playlist. From all the rooms we visited, and we have been in like 10 of them so far, I have an impression they all are first-generation rooms, with almost no mechanical puzzles and no electronics; all of them rely on familiar, and I would say hated padlocks, UV lights, and overused inventory.
In this room and in a couple of Athens rooms, the introduction to the room begins with an overwhelming explanation of 6 types of padlocks and how you operate and open them. This one is with letters. This one is with numbers, and this one has directions on what to do to reset the sequence… This almost all the time ruins the atmosphere, and if there is a need for the game masters to explain how something works, then something else did go horribly wrong.
Sherlock Maze is no different; most of the puzzles are relatively old school. I left with the impression most of the inventory was really old and used. There was no surprise, no grand finale. There was just a string of puzzles, which we solved in a decent time. The final puzzle was cool, but there was no way for all of us to participate in solving it, which also robbed us of the experience.
I wouldn’t say I’ll remember this room as something epic or unseen. If you have an hour to spend without challenging yourself a lot, this room is maybe for you.
I have to mention that the owners were great, very friendly and kind. The lobby in their complex is very welcoming and cold (which is a big bonus in Athens in September) and done with many details. When I saw the chandelier, it just took my breath away …
It would have been awesome if such a precise detail had been incorporated into the design of the room, but in general, the Greeks are betting on the vision and the theater, not so much the challenge or the experience.
