Kids and teen birthdays, ages 10+
The birthday they will not stop talking about
Your group works together to crack puzzles, find clues and beat the clock. It is hands-on, it is exciting, and nobody is staring at a screen for an hour.
Weekend mornings and school holidays book out fast. Lock in your date early.
Why Rush
One of the best birthday activities going around
Looking for something more memorable than another party at home? An escape room birthday is a guaranteed talking point. Pick a theme your group will love and we handle the rest.
Made for their age
Our rooms suit ages 10 and up. For younger groups we steer you to Cluemanji and Monsterz, which are playful and have no scares.
Everyone is involved
No sitting around and no phones. The whole group is hunting clues and solving puzzles together for the full hour.
Bigger groups, no stress
Each room fits up to 6. If the guest list is bigger, we run several rooms at once so the whole party plays together.
Grown-ups covered
When players are under 14, an adult aged 18 or over joins them in the room. If there are 5 or 6 children, that adult plays free and is not counted towards your numbers.
Rooms we would pick
Rooms that work for kids and teens
For younger players, Cluemanji and Monsterz are the easy picks. Older kids and teens who want more of a challenge love the adventure and spy rooms.
CluemanjiSouth YarraJungle adventure, creative puzzles, no scares.
MonsterzSouth YarraPlayful and colourful, made with younger players in mind.
Treasure IslandSt KildaA ghost-ship treasure hunt, and the easiest room here for a mixed-age party.
The Nine-NineHawthornA light, funny cop caper for mixed groups.
Game of the DragonSouth YarraA fantasy quest with room for a bigger group, so more of the party plays together.
Secret Agent ManSouth YarraA spy mission built so every child in the room has something to do.
Plan your group
How many children are we planning for?
Most kids and teen parties pay our child rate. Enter your headcount for a quick estimate, and remember supervising adults play free.
Estimate at the child rate of $42 per player for ages 9 to 13, with supervising adults free. Players 14 and over pay adult rates. Final price is confirmed at booking.
Book your roomGood to know
The practical bits
Do parents need to play?
There must be an adult aged 18 or over in each room when players are under 14. If there are 5 or 6 children in a room, that adult goes in for free and is not counted towards room occupancy.
What ages are suitable?
With some guidance from an adult, groups as young as 10 have an awesome time playing and solving our puzzles. Our rooms vary in difficulty, and some are darker or horror themed. Check out our rooms for options, or contact us if you are unsure which to pick.
Ready to lock in the date?
Tell us the birthday date and rough numbers and we will set up the right rooms for your group.
Pick the room off the age, not off the theme
Almost every disappointing children's escape room booking comes from the same mistake. An adult picks the room that sounds most exciting, and the child it was booked for spends fifty minutes watching grown-ups solve things above their head.
The theme barely matters at eleven. What matters is whether the puzzles sit where the birthday child can reach them, because a room that is one notch too hard turns the guest of honour into a spectator at their own party.
The ladder, by age
Every room carries a published difficulty rating and a published fright rating, and they move independently. This is how they line up against a birthday group.
Eight to ten
Monsterz, Cluemanji, Treasure Island, The Nine-NineAll rated three out of five and none of them frightening. Physical, colourful and full of things to find rather than things to calculate. This is the band where children genuinely lead and the adults are there to reach high shelves.
Eleven to thirteen
Add Game of the Dragon, Alice in Wonderland, Strangest ThingLonger puzzle chains and a step up in reading and reasoning. Alice and Strangest Thing are rated spooky rather than scary, which most of this age group treats as the best part and a few do not. If yours is one of the few, stay on the four above.
Fourteen to fifteen
Secret Agent Man, HackSaw: Chapter 2, The Last of ThemRated for teenagers and up. Tense and cinematic without being horror, and the right answer for a group that finds the family rooms beneath them, which happens abruptly somewhere around thirteen.
The puzzle-obsessed child of any age
Da Vinci Down Under, Mission: PossibleBoth rated five out of five and neither has any fright element. They take four players rather than six. For a child who does chess, Rubik's cubes or Lego Technic for fun, this is a far better birthday than anything easier, even though they probably will not finish.
Our four horror rooms are restricted to sixteen and over and are not a birthday party option below that, regardless of how much anyone insists. Every rating sits on the scare scale.
Why an hour is the right length
Children's venues tend to sell two or three hour blocks, and by the middle of one, a good proportion of the room has stopped participating. Sixty minutes of continuous problem-solving is close to the ceiling for this age group, and it ends while everybody still wishes it had not.
Budget about ninety minutes at the venue in total. The briefing takes a few minutes longer with children than adults, and the photo at the end takes considerably longer with children than adults.
Splitting a birthday group
Above six children you are taking more than one room, and how you divide them decides how the party goes.
- Put the birthday child with their closest friends and let the rest sort itself out. This is the one occasion where fairness matters less than the guest of honour enjoying it.
- Split by age, not by friendship, where there is a spread. Two eight-year-olds in a room of thirteen-year-olds will disappear.
- Put an adult in each room. Not to solve anything, but so nobody is stuck and nobody is frightened without someone to look at.
- Same start time for every room, so the whole party comes out together and compares times, which is reliably the loudest and best two minutes of the afternoon.
Parents dropping off rather than staying is fine, but keep the adult count per room in mind before everyone leaves the car park.
The cake, and the part parents need to hear early
We do not have a party room. No function space, no food storage, no cutlery, at any of the four venues. A cake in the foyer before or after the session is occasionally workable when the day is quiet, and on a weekend or public holiday it usually is not, because the foyer belongs to the groups either side of you.
Ask before you plan around it. The version that always works is the game first, then somewhere nearby with tables, plates and staff to carry them.
Presents are the same problem in miniature. There is nowhere to leave a pile of them safely, so they are better opened wherever the food is happening.
What a children's party costs
Children are priced separately from adults. The rate for ages 9 to 13 is $42 per child, sitting on top of whatever the accompanying adults pay.
School holidays do not change the weekday rate. Across Monday to Thursday, all day, adults are $50 each once 3 are playing, and that runs straight through the school breaks.
Weekends, when most parties happen. Adults from $74 down to $70 as a room fills.
Full rates are on prices and deals. For a party across three or more rooms, email us instead of booking them one by one.
What parents ask
My child is seven. Too young?
There is no minimum age, but seven-year-olds enjoy the searching and the physical mechanisms far more than the codes. Take one of the gentlest rooms, expect the adults to carry the logic, and it works well.
Half the invitations have not come back.
Book for the number you expect at the high end. You are charged for who plays, so an optimistic estimate costs nothing and a pessimistic one costs you rooms that have gone.
What if they do not get out in time?
Common, and not the disaster adults expect. The game master walks the group through the ending, and children remember the bit where the wall opened, not the clock.
One of them will be scared of the dark.
Tell us before you book. Several rooms are brightly lit throughout, and we would rather steer you than have a child spend an hour miserable.
Is it worth it for a school-holiday birthday?
Yes, and it is our busiest family window, so book earlier than you would in term time. School holiday activities has the dates and how availability shifts.