The Box - Escape Room - "The Box"

Updated: Apr 22

LOCATION:  Ghent, Belgium

Photo above is property of The Box - Escape Room

Photo above is property of ESCAPETHEROOMers

Date Played: November 11, 2021

Genre: Mystery

Difficulty (Based on 3 PPL): 8/10

Total # of Players: Up to 8 PPL

Length of Time: 90 Minutes

Price: €75/Team + €16/pp (€11/pp if student or child)

Booking Type: Private

Escaped? Yes (55 Minutes)

📖 THE STORY

You wake up in a room that you don’t recognize. You don't know where you are or how you ended up there - but soon things happen that fill the gaps in your memory… And then there's the box...Get ready for a multi-room quest full of surprising puzzles and technical gadgets.

🎯 HIT THE BULLSEYE

Great post signing, even though there is a lot of stuff in the room.
Excellent “growth” of the room the more you solve.
Some puzzles were unique in the sense that I actually haven’t seen certain things being done in other rooms.
A lot of interesting mechanical parts that keep you on your toes.
You get to see a graph after the game of how well you did in the room compared to the average and the top time.
Decor was on point and brand of the whole story

🧩 MISSED THE MARK

The story could use some polishing or could be expanded upon in certain parts of the room
The decor could use a little upgrade.

🏹 TAKE A SHOT?

Let me first start with saying, this room is made by ONE person! And it kicked so much ass. From the moment you “wake up” in the room until you discover how to open the box and how to exit the room. He keeps on surprising you with many twists and turns. There is a small parking nearby specifically for the escape room, but unfortunately, some people just park there when they go get their pizza at the local Pizza Hut. So be prepared to park somewhere in the streets. As we got inside, we were guided to a small room with two couches and the GM already sitting behind his PC. There are some drinks you can get before you enter the room and if you ask nicely, he’ll let you take your drink inside the room ;). You can buy some escape room boxes you can take home or a coffee mug with the ritual box printed on it :)

His explanation is pretty much straightforward from this point, and he even points to the door you’re supposed to come out. Which is kind of obvious once you enter the room, so not really a spoiler or a giveaway. You’re instructed to close your eyes and follow the GM by going in a conga line, and he instructs you to lie on a bed and wait for “the signal”. And when the signal is there…then the real fun begins.

What makes this room so unique? Well, the GM encourages you to really think outside of the box and solve the puzzles any way you like. Want to force break a lock? Sure, go ahead! Want to use one of the forks in the drawer? Why not? ANYTHING is possible! There are some exceptions, but the GM will let you know with the sound of a buzzer. This could be the moving of an object that could damage a puzzle, or something unnecessary that just wastes too much of your time. Either way, the freedom to try it your way is strangely liberating. Because you don’t have to follow one way to solve a puzzle, you’re not stuck looking for the ultimate object to solve the puzzle, thou you’re probably not using the most efficient item, but if it works, it works.

This kind of blew me away at how well it worked, I have been critiquing rooms and one of the things I usually preach it to not have too many red herrings or loose objects lying around as it could distract the players, but this GM made sure that we knew immediately what was usable and what was there to distract us if we just pay attention. There was a lot of stuff we could have used to solve the puzzles, and for some we didn’t even use the most efficient things, and yet still ended up with a time under the average with three people.

After the room is done, the GM also makes a lot of time to talk about the experience you just had and goes through the progress the group made through the room. You get to see how well you have done compared to the average time and the top time, and he elaborates about the ways you could have solved the puzzle and figure out the details of the story. Something I haven’t seen done in such detail with most of the rooms I have played. Though, I do question if this is manageable once he would make more rooms. But that is something I leave up to the GM.

Let me also iterate my “working points”. First let me remind you this is made by ONE person, so yes there will be faults, but it’s not with the puzzles or the technology. The story seems complete, but there are parts that are like side quests and not needed to solve and are not even part of the story. It would have tilted the whole story more if by finishing the puzzles that some new info about the story was revealed, unveiling a whole new layer to the whole room. Also, the décor fits really well since it should resemble a place where a student would live in. But the parts of the décor the GM made could use a bit more polishing in his next room. The use of modeling clay or certain décor foams and woods would do wonders finishing the certain parts.

But those small things are by far microbes compared to the giant lake of awesomeness this room is. If you’re even in Belgium and in Ghent, this is one of the rooms you have to have played. It has taken the concept and the almost rigid rules other GM’s have put on themselves and turned it on its head completely. Certainly, an interesting room for not only players but creators also to see and dissect to see why it works and how they can apply it to their room.

Take A Shot? HELL. YEAH!!!

Proost!

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Disclosure: We thank The Box - Escape Room for comping our tickets for this game. Although complimentary admission was generously provided, it does not impact our opinion on the review whatsoever.