Room of One Hundred Puzzles is a brand-new escape-room-style experience from Rogue Productions, the brainchild of escape room industry veteran Dean Rodgers (who also happens to be the newly hired Creative Director at Secret Cinema at the time of writing). I casually stumbled upon a LinkedIn post Dean had made about its soft launch; the accompanying graphic boasted “100 puzzles in a room,” so, of course, my interest was piqued. I mean, ten puzzles in a room excite me enough, but ten times that? And on my birthday? Say no more.
Photo by Room of 100 Puzzles
Dean had booked out Hackney Brewery’s High Hill Taproom for the evening. As always, I arrived unnecessarily early – so early that I was the only person there for about 40 minutes. Whoops. All good though, I befriended Christos the barman and bored him senseless whilst I drank my delicious free beer. Eventually Dean arrived and saved Christos, followed by the slow drip of fellow solvers.
There wasn’t a huge turnout for the event, but that was to be expected – the announcement was pretty low-key, and I believe Dean wanted to keep it fairly casual anyway. It was more of a chance to share his new project with some industry affiliates/pals and enjoy a delicious pint or two (did I say it was delicious yet?). I’m thankful for that too – what turned out to be around ten people in total made for an evening of very satisfying puzzle-solving in the company of some equally pleasant puzzle enthusiasts – my favorite kind of people.
Photo by Room of 100 Puzzles
When I first saw Dean’s post a few weeks prior, my mind boggled at the idea. Having experience in the “puzzle-solving for large groups” sector, I had some notion as to what it might entail, but everything I pondered just ended in logistical nightmare. With my mind stuck on how we used to do it at Bewilder Box with The Box of Bewilderment, I kept thinking about the horrors of resetting 100 puzzles in a reasonable time frame. As it turns out, though, I was way off the mark – the format is much simpler than I was expecting, and much smarter for it.
Room of One Hundred Puzzles literally does what it says on the tin: participants are presented with one hundred paper-based puzzles, and those puzzles are in, you’ve guessed it – a room. Oh, and I say literally because solving each puzzle gives you access to the contents of one of one hundred tins (locked with a 3 digit code). Once all tins are opened, the experience culminates in one final giant meta (jigsaw) puzzle. Wait a minute, does that mean there were only 99 tins? Or are there in fact 101 puzzles? Ehhh, who’s counting?
Photo by Room of 100 Puzzles
The ability to cater to very large numbers of people simultaneously is something that escape room companies tend to struggle with, making it tough to secure bookings from the much-sought-after corporate sector. Owing to its format, RoOHP manages this not only from a numbers perspective but also from a content perspective. You see, one of the main issues with corporate events is that participants often don’t pay for the experience, nor do they have a choice in what they’re doing, which means you often get people who either aren’t very good at puzzles – or, even worse, don’t actually like them. (Yeah, what the hell, right?)
The neat thing is that RoOHP provides a wide variety of puzzle types and difficulties, ensuring that there’s something for everyone. The puzzles range from classic “easy wins” to some much trickier ones. Some tasks involve host interactions, while others require some real out-the-tin thinking. The format also allows participants the freedom to work however they want – fancy working solo? Sure. Buddying up? Totally. Flitting between groups? Absolutely. The non-linear nature of the puzzles makes it easy to move around and not get frustrated by being stuck on one thing. And even if you are one of those people who hates puzzles, there’s always the giant jigsaw puzzle to complete – nobody hates those, right?
Escape room enthusiasts are not necessarily the target audience for this experience, but I had a blast nonetheless – and I’m confident I can speak for the rest of the group. Despite there being a handful of puzzle types that I personally don’t enjoy, the sheer amount and variety meant that I hardly noticed. No single puzzle took more than a couple of minutes, so it was just an endless flurry of dopamine hits.
Photo by Room of 100 Puzzles
Before we began, Dean told us that Google had sent 80 people earlier that week, and they completed the game in 45 minutes. For comparison, I think the ten of us completed it in around an hour or so.
If you’re interested in booking and playing The Room of 100 Puzzles, send enquiries to dean@rogueimmersive.com
Note: Since this isn’t a “traditional” experience, nor publicly available to play at the time of writing, we’re not giving it the regular star rating.
