Near the end of 2019, Freeing SG said on Facebook that their last day of operations would be Jan 1, 2020. I passed by on Jan 3 and saw that part of their Poseidon room appeared to have been dismantled. On Jan 5, however, Freeing SG announced (again, on Facebook) that they were “here to stay”. I have no idea what condition the rooms are currently in. If you’ve played their rooms recently, please get in touch!
Freeing SG
Room review: Freeing SG: Old Changi Hospital
Freeing SG’s Plaza Singapura branch announced its closure at the end of 2019… then, a few days later, said it was here to stay. I’m not sure if the rooms remain in good condition. If you’ve played this room lately, do get in touch!
Their description: The infamous Old Changi Hospital, occupied by lingering souls since the Second World War. Legend has it that it was used as a lab for conducting heinous experiments on the prisoners of war. What lies within are research that’s capable of creating super soldiers, said to be invincible in times of war. As terrorism rises around the world, it could spell disaster if landed in the wrong hands. You’re tasked to retrieve research within an hour. Complete the mission before the “residents” lay their hands on you…
Old Changi Hospital is not one of Freeing SG’s strongest offerings. Its main flaw is simply that it’s over too fast (in our case, under 20 minutes), as it has a small number of puzzles and none is particularly challenging.
Still, at least the puzzles are fair and rigorous (apart from one late puzzle which I’m still not 100% sure how we solved). As for non-puzzle aspects, the room gets off to a strong start with a cool moment of discovery, and there’s a sustained effort to create a creepy atmosphere. But the experience is less extensive than I’d have liked, it isn’t actually that scary (could be a plus or a minus, depending on your tastes) and the finale felt slightly random.
That having been said, there’s nothing actively bad about the room, making it WORTH A TRY for beginners or experienced teams who don’t mind a brief experience.
Puzzle difficulty: 1.5/5
Puzzle logic: 4/5
Multimedia aspect of puzzles: 1.5/5
Atmosphere and setting: 3.5/5
Exciting flourishes, use of technology or physical aspects: 3/5
Storyline integration: 2/5
Their suggested number of players: 6
My suggested number of players: 2 to 3
Room review: Freeing SG: The Enchanted Wardrobe
Freeing SG’s Plaza Singapura branch announced its closure at the end of 2019… then, a few days later, said it was here to stay. I’m not sure if the rooms remain in good condition. If you’ve played this room lately, do get in touch!
Their description: Your good friend Jack has gone missing! You are very worried and you look for him everywhere. When you search his home, you come across a suspicious wardrobe and a mysterious letter on the table. Both these items seem to be clues to his whereabouts…
The Enchanted Wardrobe shares many similarities with another Freeing room, Poseidon: an emphasis on fun, a reliance on narrative flavourtext, various special effects, and — unfortunately and accordingly — a high risk of technical malfunction.
But if you had to pick one of the two, The Enchanted Wardrobe is probably a better experience. The puzzles are more varied, the sense of adventure is stronger, the cool moments are cooler, and the narrative is more coherent and maintained.
The room doesn’t get off to a great start, with a dubious early puzzle that’s easily over-thought. But the room’s first surprise sets the mood for the rest of the experience, and I found myself repeatedly charmed or amused by what lay in store.
It’s not a perfect room — apart from aforementioned early puzzle, there’s a tedious mid-game task that I really disliked. The high-tech wizardry isn’t incorporated that smoothly into the setting, either (there’s something incongruous about clearly electrical components in a fantasy world).
If you can forgive those flaws, and if you’re prepared for possible technical malfunctions, The Enchanted Wardrobe is RECOMMENDED for players who enjoy a sense of wonder and adventure. (Dec 2019 edit: I’ve been informed that this room has deteriorated somewhat, in sadly standard Freeing style. As such, I can’t recommend it in good conscience.) If you’re focused on puzzles and not impressed by such frills, this is probably not the room for you.
Unfortunately, this room is not for players with mobility issues.
Puzzle difficulty: 2/5
Puzzle logic: 3/5
Multimedia aspect of puzzles: 1.5/5
Atmosphere and setting: 4/5
Exciting flourishes, use of technology or physical aspects: 4.5/5
Storyline integration: 4/5
Their suggested number of players: 6
My suggested number of players: 2 to 3. Any more and it’ll start getting crowded.
Room review: Freeing SG: Back to the Future
Freeing SG’s Plaza Singapura branch announced its closure at the end of 2019… then, a few days later, said it was here to stay. I’m not sure if the rooms remain in good condition. If you’ve played this room lately, do get in touch!
This room was attempted in collaboration with Escapist X from Singapore Escape Room Reviews.
Check out his review of the room too!
Their description: After Benson’s grandpa passed away, his father has been obssessed with finding out the truth about his birth. Benson’s father left a letter saying he found something leading to the truth and left home.
It’s been more than 2 months since he went missing. Benson gathered his group of friends who are geniuses in their own field to assist him.
His dad mentioned that FreeingSG has a way to help him peep into the past…
Back to the Future is a fascinatingly atypical Freeing room. It plays to the company’s main strength of creating a sense of fun and adventure, but is also unusually (for Freeing) challenging and features a much deeper engagement with the narrative than usual.
The room leans satisfyingly into its story, with a strong sense of setting and a clear thread running through the puzzles. To say too much would be to spoil the room’s surprises — and there are quite a few — but suffice it to say that Back to the Future provides a comprehensive, well-rounded experience. There are puzzles which are clever, rigorous, and/or original. There are non-trivial hands-on tasks. Perhaps most satisfyingly, the room rewards exploration — not least in its thrilling endgame, which allowed me to experience a real sense of wonder.
That’s not to say that the room is perfect — one early puzzle suffers from questionable flavourtext, and another midstage puzzle is great in concept but falters in execution. Yet these flaws don’t compromise the overall experience.
The room is HIGHLY RECOMMENDED. Don’t be afraid to ask for help if you’re stuck at an early stage — it’s really worth getting to the excellent finale. Sadly, this adventure is not suitable for players with mobility issues.
Puzzle difficulty: 3.5/5
Puzzle logic: 3.5/5
Multimedia aspect of puzzles: 2/5
Atmosphere and setting: 4/5
Exciting flourishes, use of technology or physical aspects: 4/5
Storyline integration: 3.5/5
Their suggested number of players: 6
My suggested number of players: 3 to 5
Room review: Freeing SG: Jurassic
Freeing SG’s Plaza Singapura branch announced its closure at the end of 2019… then, a few days later, said it was here to stay. I’m not sure if the rooms remain in good condition. If you’ve played this room lately, do get in touch!
Their description: A power outage has occurred in the Jurassic Research Facility! As a researcher in the facility, it is your duty to protect a unique dinosaur egg which originated from a rarely seen mutated species. This egg has enormous research value and may hold the genetic code to cure cancer.
Dinosaurs in the facility have breached the perimeter of their captivity, find the unique dinosaur egg and escape before you become a prey!
Even by Freeing’s standards, Jurassic is a very brief room. There aren’t many puzzles, and only one of them posed a challenge (for the wrong reasons).
To the room’s credit, quite some effort was put into creating an industrial lab feel, and various technological tricks and flourishes help to spice up the generally logical puzzles. The game also has a dramatic climax which I found both original and amusing.
Jurassic is WORTH A TRY for beginners, especially if they slow down and enjoy the setting. Experienced teams may be disappointed, and this room is NOT RECOMMENDED for experienced teams who want at least half-an-hour’s worth of fun. (Our team of three escaped in about 15 minutes.)
Puzzle difficulty: 1/5
Puzzle logic: 4/5
Multimedia aspect of puzzles: 2/5
Atmosphere and setting: 3.5/5
Exciting flourishes, use of technology or physical aspects: 3.5/5
Storyline integration: 2/5
Their suggested number of players: 6
My suggested number of players: 2
Room review: Freeing SG: Twilight
Freeing SG’s Plaza Singapura branch announced its closure at the end of 2019… then, a few days later, said it was here to stay. I’m not sure if the rooms remain in good condition. If you’ve played this room lately, do get in touch!
Their description: A girl from your tribe has been kidnapped by an immortal being. Werewolves attempt to save her but failed miserably due to an unexpected lunar eclipse during the battle with the immortal. You, one of the werewolves, are chained up in the immortal’s courtyard. How would you escape? Nightfall is approaching. You’ll need to call on the moon by howling to gain back your immense strength.
For a relatively brief room, Twilight ticks quite a few escape room boxes, for better or worse. There’s the start-of-room handcuffs, the thematic first task, some hands-on stuff and trigger mechanisms, a dash of logic, an (unfortunately easily ignored) attempt at narrative, and some surprises along the way.
Unfortunately, its ‘main’ puzzle (or what seemed like the main puzzle to me, anyway) is somewhat unsatisfying, despite some twists which I appreciate in theory. And because this room is so brief, experienced teams might be underwhelmed.
I’d say it’s WORTH A TRY for beginners or those who (like me) just want to play more rooms — just adjust your expectations.
This room is not for players with mobility issues.
Puzzle difficulty: 2/5
Puzzle logic: 3/5
Multimedia aspect of puzzles: 2/5
Atmosphere and setting: 3/5
Exciting flourishes, use of technology or physical aspects: 3/5
Storyline integration: 3/5
Their suggested number of players: 6
My suggested number of players: 2 to 4
Room review: Freeing SG: White House
Freeing SG’s Plaza Singapura branch announced its closure at the end of 2019… then, a few days later, said it was here to stay. I’m not sure if the rooms remain in good condition. If you’ve played this room lately, do get in touch!
Their description: As a top notched [sic] agent, you’re tasked to infiltrate The White House to retrieve confidential documents and nuclear activation code. Your organization has provided you with a tablet for communication, but the signal seems to be jammed. You’ll have to get out in 60 minutes before the mission is compromised.
Will you be able to complete the Mission?
The most interesting aspect of White House is probably the use of a tablet as a central device for progressing through the room. Some other rooms have made good — arguably even better — use of digital devices, but not in the same sustained manner. In the White House, the tablet provides and justifies a linear structure, strengthens the theme and narrative, and simply provides an alternative to regular locks.
White House also has the fun technological flourishes you can expect from a Freeing room, and a finale that’s very cool and narratively strong… in theory. As it happened, my team ended up skipping it by mistake, which was a shame. (But it’s also a shame that the room’s construction allows that to happen.)
That’s the good stuff. Unfortunately, White House gets off to a shaky start, with an early puzzle that’s cool in theory but frustrating in practice. The puzzles do get smoother, but some questionable phrasing (and unintentional red herrings) midway through might hamper your progress.
Still, I do consider the room WORTH A TRY — just don’t be afraid to ask for help in the early stages if you’re stuck, and keep moving towards the latter half of the game, where the payoff is better.
Puzzle difficulty: 3.5/5
Puzzle logic: 3/5
Multimedia aspect of puzzles: 3/5
Atmosphere and setting: 2.5/5
Exciting flourishes, use of technology or physical aspects: 3/5
Storyline integration: 3.5/5
Their suggested number of players: 6
My suggested number of players: 2 to 4
Room review: Freeing SG: Poseidon
Freeing SG’s Plaza Singapura branch announced its closure at the end of 2019… then, a few days later, said it was here to stay. I’m not sure if the rooms remain in good condition. If you’ve played this room lately, do get in touch!
Their description: The gods are furious with mermaid princess Ariel’s relationship with the prince. Her father Poseidon, God of the Sea, refused to give them his blessings and sealed the Pearl of the Seas in his palace. Legend has it that this magical Pearl will allow mermaids to live on Land.
Touched by their true love, you decided to sneak into Poseidon’s palace and steal the Pearl of the Seas for Ariel…
So it turns out that the U Escape unit at Plaza Singapura was bought over by Freeing SG a while ago, and all their rooms have been replaced. Good news for us — better an untested Freeing room than a U Escape room which you can rely upon to be tedious.
I’ve only tried one room at the new outlet so far, but it seems to be classic Freeing: lots of physical/electronic frills, a smallish number of generally-okay-but-sometimes-a-bit-dubious puzzles.
Credit where it’s due: this room has the most distinctive and surprising beginning of any room I’ve played (though some might find it questionable). The use of technology is generally storyline-motivated, particularly at one fun moment in the endgame stretch. And there are some dramatic things in store. (January 2019 edit: I’ve been informed by someone who played this room recently that the endgame has changed, perhaps due to general room wear-and-tear, and is less satisfying as a result.)
Weak points include some red herrings and a slightly rough-around-the-edges feel to the set. Sadly, this room is completely unplayable if you have mobility issues.
Nothing groundbreaking puzzle-wise, but WORTH A TRY if you care about fun frills.
Puzzle difficulty: 2.5/5
Puzzle logic: 3.5/5
Multimedia aspect of puzzles: 3/5
Atmosphere and setting: 3/5
Exciting flourishes, use of technology or physical aspects: 4/5
Storyline integration: 3/5
Their suggested number of players: 6
My suggested number of players: 2 to 4
Room review: Freeing SG: Rise to the Challenge: Biohazard
This was a pop-up escape room that was only around for about a week (19 to 27 Jan 2017), which is why I’m not posting the actual review here. But it was a great and groundbreaking (for Singapore) room, and I’d love to see more like it.
You can find the review over on my escape event blog, escaped.sg, instead:
Freeing SG – Rise to the Challenge: Biohazard
Room review: Freeing SG: Funeral: The Mourning Widow
FREEING SG’S CATHAY BRANCH IS NOW CLOSED.
This review is left here merely as a record.
Their description: In one’s lifetime, a visit to the funeral palour is inevitable. One day, you receive a letter from your friend’s wife, informing you of your friend’s death. Successively, mutual friends receive similar letters. Tonight is the setting up of the wake. Following the address stated in the letter, you make your way to attend the wake. As you enter the mourning hall, you feel a strange sense of discomfort. You decide to call your friend’s wife but there is no response. With no alternative, you make your way in alone, wanting to pay your last respects to your dear friend. The room where your deceased friend’s body lie, it is locked! What is going on??
The selling point of this Freeing SG room is its unprecedented (in Singapore) use of VR technology — but that also makes this a hard room to assess.
So let’s set aside the VR component for now. The room isn’t bad. The atmosphere is appropriately creepy and the setting evokes a traditional Chinese funeral convincingly. It’s not cripplingly terrifying, so even cowards like myself can give it a fair shot. There are some cool mechanisms used, and the initial flow of the room is very much in line with the storyline.
On the puzzle side of things, the room does sag a bit. The puzzles are generally logical, but the wording of clues isn’t perfect, there’s one throwaway puzzle (so throwaway that it’s easy to dismiss the solution as surely not being correct), and none of the puzzles are that exciting as puzzles (although the mechanisms compensate for this).
But for me, at least, none of that was really the point. I wanted to play this room to see how the VR headset would be used — and I think it was used to good effect. The actual puzzle it facilitated wasn’t impressive, but the execution was pretty cool; it’s hard to explain further without getting spoilery.
One big problem, though, was that my team experienced some technical difficulties. Which is a shame, because if the VR headset had worked perfectly, I think we’d have had a more satisfying experience in the room and come away with a better impression of it. As it was, I’m personally willing to overlook a lot of flaws if a room is ambitious and different — but my teammates were much less forgiving.
If you’re interested in seeing how VR can be used in escape rooms, then this room is definitely worth playing purely for the experience. Is it a fun room in its own right? It can be, particularly if the technology is working. On the whole I’d say it’s WORTH A TRY — unless you really can’t bear any technical malfunction or are completely uninterested in the VR aspect, in which case this is NOT RECOMMENDED for you.
Do note that a knowledge of Chinese is basically required for one puzzle and very helpful (though not technically necessary) for another one.
Puzzle difficulty: 3/5
Puzzle logic: 3.5/5
Multimedia aspect of puzzles: 3.5/5
Atmosphere and setting: 4/5
Exciting flourishes, use of technology or physical aspects: 4.5/5
Storyline integration: 2/5
Their suggested number of players: 6
My suggested number of players: 3 to 4
escaping.sg 