Escape from the Room: Chamber of Champions | Review

Chamber of Champions Review | The King of the 8 Realms of Kandala has died and by the rules of the Continent, a new ruler must be selected. Long gone are the days when this would be decided by swords on the battlefield and now it has become the custom that the next ruler would be decided by a contest of wit and guile.

Date Played: February 2025
Time Taken: ~50 minutes
Number of Players: 2
Difficulty: Medium-Hard

Recently I found myself with a few hours to kill in High Wycombe, so naturally I went hunting for Escape Rooms. I was happily surprised to see the “Escape from the room” company had a High Wycombe branch, as two of their rooms have been on my wishlist for a while! 

I booked “Chamber of Champions” and “Enigma Express” to do with my mum – we are both big scaredy cats, so I wasn’t about to book one of the scary rooms! Added to this that “Chamber of Champions” is TERPECA nominated and within the top 50 rooms on “Escape the review”, and I was excited!

Enter the Chamber of Champions

Chamber of Champions does an incredible amount within a very small space. I think there were something like 24 individual puzzles that could be solved completely independently of each other, split into 8 groups of three, with each group having an easy, middle and hard puzzle. 

The aim of the room is to solve at least one of each group (the 8 realms of the kingdom) and a final puzzle to take your place as the rightful heir to the kingdom. Of course, you can attempt to complete all 25 puzzles to really show your worth!

I admit I don’t always pay close attention to the story when it comes to Escape Rooms, but for Chamber of Champions I thought the story and theming were at the perfect level to give you enough of a motive without being intrusive. It’s also one of the better rooms I’ve seen in terms of the theme carrying through the room – each ‘realm’ had a clear style of puzzle and story, and I really felt I could tell the characteristic of the realm’s people through them – for example, the first Realm was very pious, with three puzzles based around their belief system. This was in stark contrast to the second realm, a band of assassins (although taking a deeper look at their targets suggested they were at least lawfully evil). That was another thing I appreciated – while you could play this room at a surface level, little pieces here and there hinted at a larger narrative, and a multi dimensional kingdom.

Again, this was a very small room – the width just about fit a chest of drawers with space to stand in front of, and depth wise was only a few bookcases long. A couple of these pieces of furniture were reused, but never the same details in the same way. I also found the mechanics of the room really appealed to me – the puzzles were essentially laid out on the wall in front of you, with (mostly) padlocks to unlock each code as it was solved. For the most part it was easy to tell what related to each puzzle, and there was no confusion regarding whether you had solved a puzzle or not. I also thought it was really neat how you solved the final puzzle (and I’m a sucker for a literal crown).

We ultimately completed the room in around 47 mins, but as no one was booked after us we were allowed to continue playing to complete the room in its entirety (as we were only a duo!), which took us another 20 minutes.

Any drawbridges?

I’ve spoken a lot about what I liked, but what about what I didn’t?

I wasn’t a huge fan of the hint system in this room, which was effectively a book you could flick through to see hints for each puzzle, again at varying levels. While I liked the freedom it did also feel like being handed the answers, and I can imagine it may be frustrating if you are competing against another team who are relying heavily on this book while you aren’t.

I haven’t mentioned it yet, but this room is set up to allow you to compete head-to-head, which I absolutely love. We didn’t do this, for obvious reasons, but it’s great that it’s an option. However, I’m on the fence about whether the set up would work – you essentially are in mirror images of the room, with a wire fence between you, meaning you can see and hear everything the other team is doing. I think the fact you can potentially see how the others are getting on and their progress may urge you on, I can also imagine it getting quite noisy and overwhelming, and very easy to cheat and copy each other!

A final note on the room was that it was looking and feeling a little tired – some of the padlocks were quite stiff, some puzzles needed to be jiggled a bit to trigger the result, and there was something I think we unlocked before we should have done. However, all these things are easy to fix!

Accessibility and Content Notes

As mentioned, the room isn’t the biggest, and there are no places to sit, so do reach out to the venue if you have any access needs. There is at least one puzzle that will require a teammate to be able to crouch on the floor, and the ‘completion’ criteria for each group requires a teammate to reach up above their head to insert something. There were no colour, sound, smell or taste based puzzles.

Chamber of Champions | The Verdict

I loved this room. It was everything I enjoy in a room – lots and lots of simultaneous puzzles which can be done in any order, clear signposting, a range of difficulties, and quite manual inputs (I am not a fan of the magnalock). However, I know this wouldn’t be everyone’s cup of tea – I’d steer clear if you’re a padlock hater, or want to exclusively work as a team. Whatever you decide, I’ll just be here, wearing my crown.

If you’re interested in playing Chamber of Champions at Escape from the Room you can find out more about this room and book online here.