Deep Inside: The Full Experience (Paris)

Two Games in One!

The Full Experience offers to link our two Escape game rooms: You start with “The Magician of Paris” and you continue directly with “The Funhouse”. An exclusive and unique story links our two adventures so as not to leave the immersion and the action, the two rooms follow one another like a single adventure intensifying more and more before your return to the surface of Paris.

Your mission will take you 30 meters below Paris, in the City of Martyrs. Infiltrate the Magician of Paris’ apartment to steal the disappearing powder. Be careful not to get lost: the abandoned Funhouse is nearby. If you venture there by mistake, be careful. Mr. Lune, a blind clown, lurks there. Stay focused, because magic and danger await you at every step.

A visit to Paris has been in the cards for a little while now, but the 2025 TERPECA winners revealed a nice little cluster of games to make a proper escape weekend out of it. One of the main attractions for us were the games at Deep Inside. Of course, The Taxidermist was on the list, but in fact, all of the games at Deep Inside have been recognised in the TERPECA rankings. The two hour Full Experience arrived on the TERPECA scene in 2022, receiving the  impressive ranking of 20 in its first year. Since then, The Full Experience has dropped slightly, but 2025 still saw the game achieving 72nd place.

Our trip to Paris was a leisurely one, with only a handful of games planned, and The Full Experience was slated to be our final game of the trip, starting bright and early at 9am on our final day. The façade of Deep Inside is beautifully decorated to look like a bookstore. It’s so well done, in fact, I wouldn’t be surprised if they occasionally have to deter people that are actually looking for books. Thanks to our visit to The Taxidermist the previous day, we knew exactly where to go, as well as which book we would be asking for when the time came. We arrived the requisite five minutes early, and at exactly 9 am, the doors opened, and the experience began.

The inside of the bookstore, before heading down to the “city” below, is just as beautiful on the inside as it is from the outside, and we were given a few moments to stow our belongings in the trunk, and use the toilets before heading into an experience that would last at least two hours. The briefing is just as much a part of the experience as the game itself, with some fantastic little moments, before it was finally time to head below the streets of Paris to the City of Martyrs.

IMMERSION/ROOM DESIGN

The Full Experience is a double feature, back-to-back play through of Deep Inside’s first two games: The Magician of Paris and The Funhouse (or Le Palais de l’Horreur depending on which bit of the website you look at). The Full Experience links the two games together with a slight modification to the story, but whether you play the two games separately, or choose to play as The Full Experience, the overarching narrative of the games and the City of Martyrs, as well as the games themselves, remains the same.

The world building at Deep Inside is, frankly, incredible. The stories  of the two games flow seamlessly from one to the other, and even intertwine with that of the Taxidermist, with elements of the overarching narrative being revealed with each of the stories of each of the individual games; like pulling a thread and unravelling a mystery.

The Full Experience is technically two games in one, and it is very much a game of two halves. However, the transition from the Magician of Paris into the Funhouse was so smooth that you would never guess that they could be played as separate experiences. But that transition dramatically shifted the tone. Where the first half is a suspenseful adventure, the second evolves into something much more akin to a true horror experience. But it works, allowing the story to unfold around us.

But that story is only part of the picture. The City of Martyrs itself is stunning, with intricate details that allow you to become fully immersed in your surroundings. It is worth noting that The Funhouse portion of the game is down a set of stairs, and requires some agility, so if mobility is a concern for you, you will likely want to skip the Funhouse, and book The Magician of Paris as a standalone since it is wheelchair accessible (with notice).

PUZZLES

The two halves of The Full Experience are not only different in tone, but also different in gameplay. The first half of the experience (The Magician of Paris) is full of beautifully crafted puzzles and challenges, that are, dare I say, magical. Occasionally complex, but beautifully telegraphed puzzles ensured the puzzles fit seamlessly within the narrative and their surroundings, making us feel not so much that we were solving, but rather we were uncovering a mystery. The puzzles drove the narrative, allowing the story to unfold around us, despite the fact that they could often be solved in no particular order.

The shift to The Funhouse was flawless, but the change in puzzle style was as dramatic as the shift in tone. With the shift to a full live-actor horror experience, it’s no surprise that the puzzles became somewhat simpler. But despite being slightly less complex, the challenges we encountered were still perfectly suited to their environment and were there for a purpose, as we tried to solve our way out of peril.

GM/CLUE SYSTEM

The Booksellers that guard the entrance to The City of Martyrs serve as your guides and hosts, although they do not travel to the city with you. Help is never far away, should you need it, and will come to you at just the right point.

But it is not just the Booksellers above ground that make this experience what it is – it is the inhabitants of the city. The performances were perfect, striking precisely the right note, no matter where we were in the experience, whether that was adding humour, tension, or even a bit of terror.

ANYTHING ELSE

The Full Experience is a varied, clever, engaging and yes, immersive, adventure that truly takes you on a journey. The Taxidermist may have been what prompted the trip to Paris, but The Full Experience was the highlight of the trip for me.

Success/Failed

Final Rating:

Team: 4 Players

Address: 7 Quai de la Seine, 75019 Paris, France

Website: https://deepinsideparis.fr