Room Escape Artist

It’s The Room… but real life

Location: at Sherlocked in Amsterdam

Date Played: February 18, 2024

Team size: 2-4; we recommend 2

Duration: about 2 hours

Price: €249 per team

REA Reaction

In the months before I found escape rooms, I was playing The Room on iOS. All that I wanted was a real-life version of it.

Over the years we have played many escape rooms that were clearly influenced by The Room, but Sherlocked took that inspiration and made it real with The Lost Cabinet.

The Lost Cabinet was, on its own, a work of art. It was beautiful to look at and touch, and that was before we opened it up and started unraveling its secrets and its magic.

While it was played on a table, it was not a traditional tabletop escape room. It was a full, real-life escape room… that just happens to be small.

I don’t know how much money was invested in its creation, but I would bet Sherlocked spent more money developing this game than has been spent on many of the traditional escape rooms we’ve played over the years. That said, The Lost Cabinet was not high tech; it was high detail. In fact, it was an aggressively analog experience. It was tactile. It was real.

The Lost Cabinet is expensive to play and it is not for everyone. The experience is ideal for 2 – maybe 3 – players and it is not easy. If you are looking at these photos, you will know whether it’s singing to you. This was the close-up magic of escape rooms. It was not the grand illusion of The Alchemist. It was intimate, intricate, and impressive, but not bombastic. If you appreciate nuance, this might be your perfect onboarding into The Alchemist.

Who is this for?

• Story seekers
• Puzzle lovers
• Craftsmanship appreciators
• Mechanical puzzle solvers & puzzle box lovers
• Fans of The Room video game series
• Players who are gentle with delicate, bespoke objects
• Players with at least some experience

Why play?

• Beautiful, intricate artwork
• Exquisite construction
• An intimate story
• Moments of discovery

Story

With the night’s rare cosmic alignment, Lady Mary Sidney would attempt the ritual of Ascension, and we had a role to play.

Setup

The Lost Cabinet is offered a premium add-on to The Alchemist. The price above is in addition to tickets to The Alchemist. Players will first play The Lost Cabinet, and then transition seamlessly into The Alchemist.

We arrived at Sherlocked and were presented with a wooden box. It was up to us to unravel its secrets.

Gameplay

Sherlocked’s The Lost Cabinet was a “crate” experience. This describes an escape room that is contained in a crate, trunk, chest, or box that is too big to be reasonably shipped, so it isn’t quite a standard tabletop escape game. Similarly to tabletop games, the gameplay emerges from within the container, and is largely experienced upon a table.

Core gameplay revolved around searching, observing, making connections, solving puzzles, and maneuvering components of the box.

Analysis

➕ The Lost Cabinet was contained in a beautiful wooden box that unfolded as we solved. The design was intricate. The woodwork and metal work were spectacular.

➕ The character building started before we received the box. Throughout the experience, we became more invested in the character as we learned more about her and her plight. It was light touch, but meaningful.

➕ The painted artwork was exceptional too. These components were on weighty paper that fit the style of the experience.

➕ There was a runbook (which we generally frown upon), but in The Lost Cabinet, we savored it. The art was beautiful and it felt like an artifact that belonged in this box. Given the size and scale of the experience, we could naturally regard a booklet upon the table, alongside the props.

➕ The Lost Cabinet illuminated our way through different props that we uncovered, which then became the keys to impressive reveals.

➖ This may have been a fluke in our game, but the box didn’t provide enough tools. We didn’t have what we needed to engage with one prop (some players surely would, but we did not), and needing to ask for it undermined an otherwise wonderful aha. The finale puzzle would also be quite challenging without a pen and paper. (Lisa did have these items on her, but others will likely be stalled asking for this just as the intensity ramps up.)

➖ The results of one puzzle were not distinct enough for us to be confident in our solution. We saw a rainbow of choice. It worked conceptually, but not practically.

➕ The highlights of any box-based escape game are the moments of discovery. In The Lost Cabinet we continually experienced these eureka moments as we opened up more of the experience.

➕ In the finale we constructed an impressive mechanical device, from which we derived essential information. The puzzle that relied on this prop was challenging (in a “patting your head and rubbing your belly” way) but satisfying. We felt accomplished when we solved this, and the momentum carried into the seamless transition between The Lost Cabinet and The Alchemist.

Book your experience with Sherlocked’s The Lost Cabinet, and tell them that the Room Escape Artist sent you.

To book, email lostcabinet@sherlocked.nl and write in your email that you read this review. Seriously. This isn’t an experience you can just book. You need to know to ask for it.

Disclosure: Sherlocked comped our experience.

Reality Escape Pod

Be sure to listen to our conversation with Sherlocked founders, Francine Boon and Victor van Doorn during Season 8, Episode 12 of the Reality Escape Pod.

If you enjoyed this review, read our interview with Barry Meade, founding member of Fireproof Studios and one of the co-creators of The Room.