Escape City - "The Ring"

Updated: Oct 28

LOCATION:  Zürich, Switzerland

Photo above is property of Escape City

Photos above are property of ESCAPETHEROOMers

📝 ETR DECODER

🔑 GAME: The Ring
📅 DATE PLAYED: April 23, 2024
🎬 GENRE: Horror 🧠 DIFFICULTY (Based on 2 ppl): 5/10
👥 TOTAL # OF PLAYERS: 2-6 ppl
🕒 LENGTH OF TIME: 60 Mins. 💰 PRICE: 99-210 CHF
☎️ BOOKING TYPE: Private
🔓 ESCAPED/ COMPLETED?: Yes [35:00]

📖 THE STORY

You are locked in an old house; caged and separated. Can you escape your torture devices and solve the mystery surrounding the death of Julia?

🎯 HIT THE BULLSEYE

Escape City has created a dark and eerie set using high quality materials, with the final room, which contains the well, being the most impressive. Despite there not being an actor or any special effects, the atmosphere was always tense, just the suspicion of something or someone lurking in the shadows was enough to keep us on edge, particularly in the last room… who knows what might be locked inside the well.
The first collection of puzzles was impressive and perhaps our favorite of any of the three games we played at Escape City this trip (also "Star Wars" and "Resident Evil"). This was because they were cooperative and had a good layer of depth to them. Both players had to perform actions and communicate to one another effectively to figure out the entire puzzle, whilst each being locked to a chair. Once the first player was freed, we had to continue working together on a separate puzzle in order to free the second person. Again, each of us could only see some of the puzzle. We appreciated that this required not only skill, but patience and perseverance to complete.
Although there is technically no actor involved in the game, our game master secretly entered to provide us with one brief jump scare at just the right moment. It was such a simple act, but provided a memorable and unexpected shock that had us both nervous on how to proceed.
Escape City offer a modern comfy lounge and fully stocked bar. A lot of thought and effort was clearly put into a team’s welcome experience. We also found the staff to be friendly and engaging.

🧩 MISSED THE MARK

"The Ring" fell short in a couple of big areas for us, namely, storytelling and the overall puzzle selection.
- Storytelling – It became quickly apparent to us that the connection between our game and the actual movie was minimal, at best. The room’s design correlates much closer to that of the movie Saw, and we wondered if this was what the room was initially built to be? In the movie The Ring, nobody is locked in cages or interacts with the kinds of props we came across, and although there are a couple of small tv screens that play a few seconds of the movie, the actual VHS tape that the story is based around plays no part in our game. There is definitely a strong and unfortunately obvious disconnect here.
Puzzles – The game gets off to such a good start with our cooperative challenges, but then the puzzles quickly dry up both physically and terms in creativity. We counted a total of six puzzles, eight if you include two very simple tasks which require little to no brain power. And, like with the room design, the puzzles have absolutely nothing to do with the movie and are again, more akin to those you’d find in a Saw themed room. Additionally, one of the ‘puzzles’ was supposed to have several special effects occur once an action was completed, however the machine is broken, resulting in a flat and confusing experience.

🏹 TAKE A SHOT?

For people looking to ease their way into the horror genre, this is an ideal room to begin with. The level of tension remains fairly high throughout due to the good use of light and décor. Likewise, for those who are not familiar with the movie (or for those who are not concerned by a lack of correlation), then this should provide an immersive experience.

Teams should remember that although there are several challenging and interesting puzzles to overcome, the actual number of puzzles appears more limited than you may typically expect.

ℹ️ ADDITIONAL INFO

Parking is available on site. Parking is available around the escape room.
The escape room is about a 10–15-minute walk from the train station, which is only one stop away from Zurich’s main station.
There is a lobby area with comfortable seating and both alcoholic and nonalcoholic beverages for sale.
There are no obstructions to wheelchairs. One of our team played whilst on crutches.

Photos above are property of ESCAPETHEROOMers

BOOK NOW

(If you do decide to try this game, give us a shoutout or tag us on social media so we know you heard it from "ESCAPETHEROOMers"!)

Disclosure: We thank Escape City for providing a media discount on the tickets for this game. Although discounted admission was generously provided, it does not impact our opinion of the review whatsoever.