The Panic Room: Wizard Of Oz (Gravesend)

Plenty of heart in this room to make it a winner!

It’s time for a magic-filled adventure like no other! Fly away on a whirlwind of excitement and visit the incredible land of Oz!

The Wonderful Wizard has gone on vacation and he’s left The Tinman, The Scarecrow and the Lion in charge of running the Emerald City. This isn’t as easy of a job as he makes it look however; they could use a bit of help!

Follow the yellow brick road, make your way into the Emerald City and step into the Wizard’s shoes! You’ll be sure to make some friends along the way, so work together to fix your hot air balloon before time runs out! Are you ready for the flight of a lifetime?

We were a bit hesitant to do this room as it seemed like it was only orientated towards families with young kids; we couldn’t have been more wrong.

Greeted by our GM who had donned lion ears and tail, she gave us the story of what we were there to do and just a bit of health and safety then we boarded the hot-air balloon basket (yes, really) and we were ‘transported’ to Oz for our adventure to begin.

The first room we blitzed in no time at all and were feeling pretty smug with ourselves, but then we hit the second and third rooms and things slowed down a lot, and we may have needed a nudge or two to get us back on track.

A really good mix of puzzles and puzzle difficulty threw us as we assumed it was going to be a very easy room, it wasn’t. There was one point in the game where we had the tools to solve one puzzle (damned monkeys) but for some reason I completely ignored it and ‘hacked’ a solution which lead to the GM telling me to apologise to the monkeys, whoops. I felt like this was some good and logical thinking on my part, of course I should have remembered that in most rooms you will only use an item once.

The ending for this room was really satisfying and tied everything together nicely. Once we knew what we had to do a big smile appeared on our faces and we did what had to be done. This is a really fun room that has space for big groups and is ideal for families. We did it as a team of two and we escaped Oz in 43:15.

PUZZLES

Some of the puzzles in the room were on the easier side but then because of the target demographic that is to be expected, but there were also puzzles which were harder. This room has puzzles for all ages and abilities and some of them are much easier than they initially seem, you just need to take a step back and look at the problem logically.

We did struggle to see one puzzle as we just assumed it was set dressing and that we could ignore it – fail. Never assume anything in an escape room, especially ones of the quality at The Panic Room. Fortunately a kind nudge got us looking in the right direction.

There were padlocks, but that didn’t bother me in the slightest, and all of the puzzles felt like they fitted in the story well, nothing felt like it was thrown in for the sake of wasting time.

IMMERSION/ROOM DESIGN

I’ve said it before and I’ll say it again, what a beautiful room! Ok this game isn’t as beautiful as Old Father Time, I’m not sure anything is, but it is still just a lovely room. The attention to detail is really rather impressive and it does a great job of transporting you to Oz.

Considering that this room is probably played by a lot of families with small children we were particularly impressed that the room didn’t feel tired at all. Nothing was broken, nothing was worn, everything looked as good as new which means The Panic Room keep on top of room maintenance which is nice to see.

GM/CLUE SYSTEM

Our GM was great, we could see how kids would love her and really by into the fact that she was a lion from Oz (think furry ears and a tail). Clues were delivered via a screen in the rooms and were given when we requested them, although I believe they are limited to three clues. Nudges weren’t counted clues and they were delivered in the same system.

ANYTHING ELSE

A wonderfully family friendly room which immerses you in the world of Oz. Don’t be fooled by the theme, this room will give both families and enthusiasts entertainment, and is challenging enough for both.

Success / Failure

Final Rating:

Team: 2 people –  43:15 minutes

Address: 148-150 Milton Road, Gravesend, DA12 1DP

Website: https://www.thepanicroom.net