No other country can boast as many escape rooms as our beautiful capital. That makes it hard for a Budapest escape room to come up with an original idea, because Budapest is the city of escape rooms. To be on top of the trends, it helps first to know the themes of the neighbouring, competing rooms. After all, who wants to escape from the twenty-third tired-cliché room? Not many people.
We tried to take that approach a step further by widening our field of view: rather than only looking at how escape rooms in our own country were building new games, we looked around the wider world too. Since three of our seven rooms are set in a wondrous, imaginative Magic World , it was an obvious choice to start by reviewing the most widespread and best-known wizard-and-witch rooms: the Harry Potter themed ones. In this field you couldn’t find better inspiration.
Here we present the ten most interesting of these rooms:
#1 Spain – Barcelona
Maximum Escape’s “Prisioneros de Alkaban” (Prisoners of Azkaban) delivers everything a player can expect from a new-generation escape room: fully automated locks and puzzles, refined and lifelike sets, interesting missions — and thanks to its makers, even a glimpse into the tricks of alchemy. According to the story, magic vanished from our world because every magic user was locked away in the dungeons of Azkaban. The team’s task is to free them, but there is only one way to get inside the prison walls: as a prisoner… (Players: 2–4, Difficulty: 5/10, Length: 60 minutes)
#2 Germany – Berlin
Exitroom Berlin’s Harry Potter room takes a more humorous tone: according to its story, the wizarding team played one prank too many with their wands, so one of the teachers confiscated them. Naturally the team won’t stand for it — they break into the strict teacher’s office and try to get their wands back. But they must hurry, because the teacher returns in an hour and will catch them red-handed. (Players: 3–6, Difficulty: 6/10, Length: 60 minutes)
#3 Latvia – Riga
The XRoom team assembled perhaps the neatest framing story of them all for their room, Harry Potter and the Locked Room, set in J.K. Rowling’s wizarding world. The story goes that the title character has an important Quidditch match coming up, but one of his ill-wishers has locked him in one of Hogwarts’ thousand secret chambers. The wizarding team must find and free him before the match starts, or Gryffindor will take the field at a serious disadvantage in a game beginning in 60 minutes — against Slytherin, of course. (Players: 2–4, Difficulty: 5/10, Length: 60 minutes)
#4 Scotland – Edinburgh
In Department of Magic’s room, the Ministry of Magic, a brave wizarding team must collect the prophecies and predictions hidden by the Dark Lord in order to defeat him at the end. What makes the venue special is that the escape room operates alongside a tavern specialising in potions, so it’s worth arriving early or staying on after your escape, so the team can mix and drink their own creation or one of the ready-made potions. (Players: 2–5, Difficulty: 7/10, Length: 50 minutes)
#5 Czech Republic – Prague
In Questerland’s room set in the world of Harry Potter, the team sits an exam as students of the Hogwarts School of Witchcraft and Wizardry. It is no ordinary exam: the school’s teachers have brought to life the challenges and trials of a long-past historical event. According to the story, the evil one we do not name created and hid three magical objects in some of the school’s secret chambers. Long ago a brave group of students had to track them down — and now, in the exam, that becomes the team’s task too. (Players: 2–5, Difficulty: 5/10, Length: 60 minutes)
#6 Spain – Barcelona
The Simulacre Vuit team paid attention to every small detail when building their room, named Andana 9¾ (Platform Nine and Three-Quarters), set in the wizarding world of Harry Potter. The players’ mission is to set off from platform nine and three-quarters and reach the Hogwarts School of Witchcraft and Wizardry as fast as possible, closing the magical portal opened by dark wizards before it is too late… (Players: 2–6, Difficulty: 5/10, Length: 60 minutes)
#7 England – Manchester
The Lucardo team took Harry Potter escape rooms to a higher level: here the wizarding team has to pass the entrance exam for the University of Witchcraft and Wizardry itself. Through a series of tests they must prove themselves — potion brewing, wand handling, and perhaps even a run-in with the dark arts… (Players: 2–6, Difficulty: 7/10, Length: 60 minutes)
#8 Ireland – Dublin
The Potter room by the 5 Quests team is perhaps the most unusual of the lot: for the duration of the game the players take on the role not of a wizarding team — as we have come to expect in most rooms — but of a thoroughly ordinary group of Muggles. According to the story, a group of Muggles (the players) managed to sneak inside the walls of the Hogwarts School of Witchcraft and Wizardry, but were spotted, and now every wizard charged with defending the school is on their trail. With Harry’s help they manage to lie low in a teacher’s office, where the young wizard says a Portkey is hidden. The team must hurry, because the teacher won’t be away for long and the Portkey looks like the only way out… (Players: 2–7, Difficulty: 7.5/10, Length: 60 minutes)
#9 France – Paris
Team-Break is an escape room chain with venues in several French cities. Their Harry Potter themed room, Wizard School, is available in three of them: the Paris version is the largest, taking up to 12 players, while in Bordeaux 8 and in Rouen 7 wizards can take on Peter Pettigrew. The stakes are nothing less than the fate of the world, because Pettigrew and his followers’ bid for power is darker than ever: their evil plan is to use Muggles as instruments and become masters of the known world. Only one capable wizarding team can stop them… (Players: 4–12 Paris, 4–8 Bordeaux, 4–7 Rouen; Difficulty: 4/10; Length: 60 minutes)
#10 England – London
The Enigma In Quests’ carefully and authentically furnished escape room, players slip into the roles of apprentice wizards — made all the more immersive by the robes handed out at the start. By the end of the Wizard School’s 60 minutes, the pupils must prove their aptitude by passing their exams and show they are worthy of becoming true wizards and witches. (Players: 3–5, Difficulty: 6/10, Length: 60 minutes)
