Curitiba, Nov 2023
Ninja Escape’s second room sticks with the Asian motif but shifts to a more modern and urban setting, replacing ninjas with yakuza. The premise is that you’re in the wrong tattoo parlour at the wrong time, and need to quickly gather evidence before the police arrive to convince them that you’re not the murderer.
This is an escape room not an Agatha Christie whodunnit experience; you don’t actually need to solve a murder as such, your aim is to solve the puzzles that will give you evidence items, and from them find a way to open the exit door. As with Mission Ninja, the puzzles mostly involve finding codes for padlocks. But where the other game had one puzzle at the end that was surprisingly complex, most of the puzzles here are that level of difficulty.
Physically it’s a small and compact room, with I think a smaller number of puzzles to solve, but greater challenge per puzzle, and the puzzles were just as smartly designed as in the previous room, or more so. For me that made for a satisfying game. Some escape room puzzle ideas are now so familiar that solving them feels like going through the motions; it was rewarding to be pushed to think a bit harder by puzzles that had a greater number of moving parts.
And while it’s small, the tattoo parlour theming is a cool twist on typical Oriental decor, exotic but grungy. I’d happily recommend either game at the venue, but if you’re a travelling enthusiast (which seems likely, if you’re reading this from Curitiba!) then likely Yakuza is the room to go for. 