As most parents of pre-teens and teenagers would know, kids of this age group crave mental stimulation that challenges them to think, while also allowing them to play and burn off energy and steam. Gone are the days of simple park playtime or play areas. At this age, kids need organised sports or activities that provide structure and joy. Enter Mystery Rooms – a unique concept that keeps groups of children occupied in a safe and age-appropriate environment.
My son and I recently visited Mystery Rooms in Rajouri Garden, Delhi for the birthday party of my son’s friend. It was my first visit to the place, and I would like to share a review of it, along with important information to keep in mind, in case you too plan to visit it.
Location:
Mystery Rooms is an international concept that works on a franchise basis. In India, one can access them at Delhi, Noida, Gurgaon, Mumbai, Pune, Bangalore, Hyderabad, Secunderabad, Chennai, Kolkata, Ahmedabad, Ludhiana, Jaipur, Lucknow, Chandigarh and Vishakhapatnam. In Delhi, you can choose from three locations – Rajouri Garden, Connaught Place and Ring Road.
I have only visited the Mystery Rooms in Rajouri Garden, Delhi, so I will share my thoughts on this location specifically.
What’s on Offer:
The Main Game / Concept:
The idea behind the Mystery Rooms challenge is to solve a mystery within a stipulated time, so that you can free yourself from behind a locked room. Don’t worry though – you are not going to be stuck alone. This is a team game for which you have 60 minutes to solve the mystery by using your logic, solving puzzles, looking for clues and escaping to freedom. Everything needed to escape is provided inside the room itself, so all you need are your sharp thinking skills and perhaps a good knowledge of your teammates so you can divide tasks as per individual strengths.
Based on the concept of Escape Rooms popular around the globe, the game has been reportedly played by over 10,000,000 participants in Japan, China, Hong Kong, Taiwan, Singapore, Europe and the United States. According to their website: “The concept is very unique and thrilling, but not dangerous. It requires no physical exertion and is suitable for all ages. It is an exciting team-building activity for corporates and a fulfilling fun experience for couples, friends and families.”
In the Rajouri Garden branch of Mystery Rooms, one can choose from the following rooms: ‘Inferno: The Last Show’, ‘The Silent Legacy: A Story Untold’, ‘Cabin in the Wood: The Murder Mystery’, and ‘Abduction: The Final Hour’.
Challenge Rooms for Children:
The game rooms are age-appropriate and divided as per age groups. Some themed Mystery Rooms can be scary for kids, so they can use the quick challenge rooms which require you to solve a mystery in a much shorter period of time – ranging from 30 seconds to 10 minutes. Designed to look somewhat like the multiple doors in the Hide and Seek challenge of Squid Games Season 3, the children are divided into teams and then encouraged to complete as many room challenges as they can in an hour to get maximum points.
Other Offerings:
The team behind Mystery Rooms also organises home-based activities like online escape games, print and play missions and live stream adventures. There are also Mystery Cubes for group offsite adventures as well as a city exploration game at the Mystery Rooms outlet in Connaught Place.
Dining Options:
To satiate your hunger after playing the games, you are welcome to explore the spacious café with a large selection of Indian and western dishes. The birthday party guests were allowed to choose anything from the menu. We tried pizzas, pastas, cold coffee and a few snacks like nachos. The food was decent.
Birthday Parties:
You can book birthday party packages online. It’s a good way of engaging children of different age groups (as long as they are older than five years) and adults. In our case, the kids were in the Mystery Rooms being supervised by the team while the parents sat and enjoyed the snacks at the café.
Ticket Prices and Opening Times:
Mystery Rooms, Rajouri Garden, Delhi opens at 11:30 a.m. and the games take place in slots, which have to be booked online as per availability. The prices of the larger mystery rooms are Rs 2200 for two adults, Rs 3000 for 3 adults and goes upwards from there. Children (ages 5-9) are priced at Rs 500 per child.
My Review of Mystery Rooms, Rajouri Garden, Delhi:
Before I begin my review of Mystery Rooms, Rajouri Garden, Delhi, I must make it clear that I didn’t actually play the games myself. I was certainly intrigued by the concept and would love to do it someday, either with my family or a group of friends. As of now, I’m only relating the experience of my son.
The concept of teams and multiple challenge rooms is great fun as it brought out the competitive spirit of the kids. They all ran around trying to outdo each other. Once they had figured out which rooms were easier to crack / brought them a higher score, they returned to them multiple times.
The main problem with the mystery rooms was safety. The children are encouraged to remove their shoes and run around in their socks or barefoot, which makes them prone to slipping. My son had a bad fall in an activity room known as ‘The Tilt’, which acts as a slide tilting at a very sharp angle. He slipped and scraped himself quite badly, and since there was no adult around, he had to sit in the corridor and wait till someone showed up (thankfully mom antenna / intuition led me to him soon enough!). Before this bad fall, he had also fallen in the corridor while colliding with another excited child. This led me to believe that though adult supervision was promised, there didn’t seem to be much actual supervision during the activities. At least not for the older kids.
As mentioned above, the food was decent – not spectacular by any means, but regular birthday party food. The hosts brought their own cake and were also allowed to bring ice cream cones in case the children preferred to eat the ice cream on the menu in cones instead of cups.
Overall, it was a fun excursion, and I feel it’s worthy of more exploration. The safety angle does need to be given more attention, but now that I know this, I will make sure that my son keeps his shoes on!
Have you been to Mystery Rooms, Rajouri Garden, Delhi or any other Mystery Room? What are your thoughts on it? Do share your experiences in the comments below!
_________
This blog post is part of ‘Blogaberry Dazzle’ hosted by Cindy D’Silva and Noor Anand Chawla in collaboration with Mads’ Cookhouse.
__________
*This is not a sponsored post.
**Copyright in pictures and content belongs to nooranandchawla.com and cannot be republished or repurposed without express permission of the author. As I am a copyright lawyer by profession, infringement of any kind will invite strict legal action.
__________