Upsidedown

Upsidedown has a sharp hook: an arcade lock-in in Hawkins, with flickering power, faulty compasses and a creeping sci-fi threat hanging over the whole experience. It leans into nostalgia and suspense rather than outright horror, which suits the premise well. If you want a room with a clear identity and a strong sense of place, this one earns attention quickly.

The setting should work best for a small, engaged team that likes to search carefully, keep talking and piece together clues as a group. The likely mix is visual, thematic and investigative, with Dungeons and Dragons flavour adding a little extra texture. It sounds like the sort of game where shared observation matters more than brute-force logic or physical effort.

The stand-out strength is the build. One especially fair comment summed it up as, “The custom props really pop, even when the route through feels untidy.” That feels about right: there is a good room hiding here, with some real charm in the set dressing and bespoke pieces, even if the design may not always guide you cleanly from one step to the next.

The caveat is flow. The room appears to have a messy progression and weaker signposting than the theme deserves, so confident teams may occasionally feel held at arm’s length by the structure. This is less a precision-engineered puzzle box than an atmospheric adventure that depends on your group staying organised and willing to push through uncertainty.

Taken as a whole, Upsidedown looks most appealing to fans of Stranger Things-style worlds, retro arcade flavour and mild tension over full-on scares. It should suit mixed-experience teams who value atmosphere and visual creativity, but experienced escape-room players may want to temper expectations if they prefer crisp, tightly directed solving.