LOST Taiwan: Stolen

Game experience: GOOD
Immersion	Puzzles	Hosting

The difficulty  The variety of puzzles	The last puzzle  Noises from outside the room

Book here

On March 18, 1990, 13 works of art valued at 500 million of dollars were stolen from the Isabella Stewart Gardner Museum in Boston. Earlier, the guards had admitted two men posing as police officers responding to a disturbance call. Once inside, these men tied up the guards and over the next hour committed the largest-value recorded theft of private property in history. Despite efforts by the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) and multiple probes around the world, no arrests have been made and no work has been recovered.  Now, we would like you guys to team up, replay the scene, and see if you can solve the case… (adapted from LOST)

In 2013, LOST started offering escape rooms in Hong Kong, and expanded since throughout 8 countries. Finding myself in Taiwan, I was eager to test some of the ten rooms LOST set up in two locations of the capital, Taipei. Stolen was the second room I got to visit.

As mentioned in a previous article, the scenarios of the LOST rooms are presented on a piece of paper, an introduction offering less initial immersion than a verbal or video presentation would. Still, the room, albeit small, made for a convincing museum aisle—the art amateurs among you might end up wasting a few minutes simply contemplating the paintings and sculptures! During our escape, we could hear every now and then giggles coming either from the corridor or a neighbor room (the location offers five of them), which pulled us a bit out of our focus.

The game progression offers an appreciable balance between searching, solving and some manipulation. The puzzles themselves oscillate between an intermediate and difficult level, with at times interesting mechanisms at play—future players be better reminded of one of the golden rules of escape rooms: try everything! The last puzzle, however, turned out to be an unnecessary stumper, the kind of sudoku-style exercise one would rather do at home for its own sake, than find at the end of an escape room.

Welcome and debrief from the hosts were a tad timid, possibly because we were foreigners, although the whole game, gamemasters included, was completely bilingual. We communicated a couple of times with the gamemaster through an intercom within the room, receiving clear explanations on how to progress.

Because of the last puzzle mentioned above, we failed to escape in time, although, as is the policy at LOST, the gamemaster will let you play extra minutes to finish the game. That apart, the whole experience was thoroughly enjoyable, and I recommend the room for more experienced escapists looking for a challenge. Stay tuned for more reviews of the LOST rooms!

Game tested in December 2018 (photos: LOST)

Liked this post? Show your support by following our Facebook page here!

No other English review found (let us know if you reviewed this game, so that we can list you here!)