Room Escape Artist

Toying with our emotions

Location: Kloten, Switzerland

Date Played: August 15, 2025

Team Size: 2-6; we recommend 2-3

Duration: 90 minutes

Price:  230 CHF per team

Ticketing: Private

Accessibility Consideration: All players must crawl and climb stairs

Emergency Exit Rating: [A] Push To Exit

Physical Restraints: [A+] No Physical Restraints

https://youtube.com/shorts/DQ_ZkUNJY9c

REA Reaction

From its very first moments, Next Level Escape’s The Dark Memories of Elisa Doll pulled off an already impressive feat: making the classic “medical research facility” setting somehow feel fresh. While vaguely reminiscent of the opening act of THE ROOM’s Ghosthunter Brandon Darkmoor, the world of Elisa Doll was distinctly its own, defined by the details: a palette that permeated both lighting and screens, a particular angularity that instantly placed us in a cinematically surreal interpretation of the 1980s, and a soundtrack that set the mood and tied it all together.

The Dark Memories of Elisa Doll was more spooky than scary. It built suspense, tension, and trust through moments where we knew we’d be safe, and it never pushed the fear level too high, even when the idea of fear itself remained a central theme of the narrative. The experience also featured some wondrous effects and elements of more lighthearted play which helped to offset the pervasive creepiness.

While traveling to play escape rooms, I’ve increasingly come to appreciate what I call “nonliteral settings” which attempt to translate memories, dreams, hallucinations, and such into reality. These are not only fictional settings, but spaces that embody markedly different ways of thinking, feeling, or existing through their physical manifestation. The Dark Memories of Elisa Doll embraced this design language, concocting a twisted network of environments representing Elisa’s formative experiences and emotions. Of note, Next Level Escape innovated a number of elegant techniques which connected these spaces and story fragments with a high level of cohesion.

Across each of their experiences, Next Level Escape has stayed true to their name and leveled up time and time again — and The Dark Memories of Elisa Doll represents their most impressive step up in quality, experimentation, and ambition yet. I recommend playing any and all of their top-notch escape rooms in the order designed to best experience this progression.

Who is this for?

• Adventure seekers
• Story seekers
• Puzzle lovers
• Scenery snobs
• Best for players with at least some experience

Why play?

• Compelling storytelling
• Impressive and varied environments
• 1980s nostalgia

Story

Years ago, a young girl named Elisa Doll had mysteriously started to transform into a doll, and nobody could figure out why. We paid a visit to the Kloten Technical Health Center to enter Elisa’s memories and try to figure out the truth behind her strange condition.

Setting

The Dark Memories of Elisa Doll took us to an enigmatic 1980s medical research facility, where the young patient Elisa Doll was still held in stasis. Across this opening scene and a range of subsequent environments, the set design was vividly detailed and thoroughly cinematic.

Gameplay

Next Level Escape’s The Dark Memories of Eliza Doll was a standard escape room with a moderate level of difficulty.

Core gameplay revolved around solving puzzles and making connections.

Analysis

➕ The Dark Memories of Elisa Doll showcased ambitious storytelling techniques across a wide range of environments. Some of these scenes beautifully depicted highly stylized, real-world settings. Where things especially got interesting was when we delved into Elisa’s memories, and the scenery became more fragmented, dreamlike, and nonliteral. Even at its most experimental, the experience still maintained a consistent visual language and a coherent throughline.

❓ Despite the title and font of The Dark Memories of Elisa Doll, this was not a Stranger Things-themed game. It did, however, pull from some overlapping 1980s references and nostalgia.

➕ At its best, The Dark Memories of Elisa Doll felt like a lucid dream, descending into constantly contrasting spaces that felt hyperrealistic except for some fantastical element, and with a twisted yet consistent dream logic. But this wasn’t our dream, and the memory modulations helped bring a multi-dimensional character to life.

➕/ ➖ The gameplay was simple yet meaningful, directly reinforcing the story through our interactions. I especially loved some segments in which the puzzles led us to embody the title character’s emotions and actions. Much of the game was aggressively linear, especially in the first half, yet with some small changes, the experience could pretty easily be adapted to give more players something to do throughout.

➕ A hands-off input was super cool and strongly enhanced the retro-futuristic lab vibe.

➖ A transition between realms was solid in theory, yet in practice it would have benefited from player choreography that better guaranteed a certain level of movement and disorientation.

➕/➖ The Dark Memories of Elisa Doll included captions along with any spoken audio. This feature made the story easier to process for all players, and Next Level Escape consistently found creative ways of displaying the text that also fit the aesthetics of the scene. However, there were a couple of moments when the projection method or the surface being projected on made the text rather difficult to read.

➕ One scene featured a fascinating method of forming narrative connections. At once literal and metaphorical, this approach was a crucial pivot between different storytelling modalities, and I appreciated that it didn’t shy away from being quite direct for optimal clarity.

➕ Balancing fun and fear, a layered boss battle blended puzzles, actions, and emotions into an impressively nuanced culmination of the narrative.

Tips For Visiting

• There was a parking lot.

Book your session with Next Level Escape’s The Dark Memories of Elisa Doll, and tell them that the Room Escape Artist sent you.