The Frozen Palace 2
Minus 13 degrees Celsius, snow overalls, boots, helmets, knee and arm pads: not every escape room starts like this. The only thing missing was an ice axe, which would have come in handy at a few points during our expedition. Outside, it was still around 32 degrees Celsius and humid at 8 pm in Shanghai, a difference of roughly 45 degrees. With The Frozen Palace II (also known as Ice Kingdom 2), E+ has built a completely frozen indoor world. You’d rather not think about what it costs in energy to run a room like this. The story is a love story between an immortal and a mortal in the Kunlun Mountains. Unlike most of the rooms we played in Shanghai, this one also offers a fair amount of actual puzzling.
Getting dressed took a while until everyone had found an outfit that fit. At some point I wondered whether all of this was really necessary. It was: it was freezing cold, and I was glad to have the pads.
The deeper we ventured into the ice temple, the more physically demanding it became. We crawled through narrow passages, climbed icy slopes and slid back down on ice slides. In between, we mostly worked on mechanical puzzles, and on a grand scale. Large scale puzzle solving in the literal sense: some of the tasks were so big that we all had to pitch in together.
The set design is particularly strong: large, walkable scenes, ice and snow everywhere, ice sculptures and a temple in the middle of this winter world. Because it’s genuinely freezing, you can see your breath with every exhale, which creates a great atmosphere without any actors and without any scares. The game is played in Chinese. Apart from one puzzle near the end, though, we could have managed without a translator, so it wouldn’t take much to make it fully playable in English. At 328¥ (about €42) per person it isn’t cheap, but given the effort of keeping the place that cold and of providing and cleaning the clothing, the price is understandable.
All in all, The Frozen Palace II is an experience you don’t come across often: real cold, a huge ice world and puzzles that need the whole team. If you can handle the cold, are reasonably fit and like working together, you get one of Shanghai’s most extraordinary rooms. If ice and narrow passages aren’t your thing, you’re better off elsewhere.
