Major Reviews & Features

Room Escape Artist

The Alchemist

Room Escape Artist's David Spira declared The Alchemist as capturing his #1 spot after 1,200 escape rooms, calling it "a wonder factory filled with impossible moments" that made him "weep with joy during the finale."

The Alchemist won a Golden Lock Award.

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Room Escape Artist

The Vault

An early influential review that established our reputation internationally, praising our heist experience for its coherent narrative, immersive gamemastering, and use of the Beurs van Berlage's real vault spaces.
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The Vault won a Golden Lock Award.

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Room Escape Artist

The Vandermist Dossier

In-depth Hivemind review of The Vandermist Dossier, our first Home Mystery, co-produced with Diorama, highlighting its impressively layered narrative, polished puzzling, and the way story and evidence unfold through seemingly ordinary documents.

It was honored with a 2022 Golden Lock Award for tabletop games.

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Room Escape Artist

The Medusa Report

Review by Hivemind of The Medusa Report, a narrative tabletop sequel to The Vandermist Dossier, highlighting its challenging yet fair puzzles, remarkably authentic Cold War-era documents, and exceptional bonus puzzle arc.

The game later received a 2024 Golden Lock Awards honor in the tabletop category

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Room Escape Artist

The Lost Cabinet

Described as "the close-up magic of escape rooms," this review praised the tabletop experience as intimate, intricate, and impressive-comparing it to a real-life version of The Room with beautiful, exquisite construction.

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Room Escape Artist

The Architect

Review of Sherlocked's first room, highlighting the immersive cold-start approach and the massive office set inside the Beurs van Berlage that helped define Dutch escape room standards.

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Review the Room

The Alchemist

British enthusiast reviewers called The Alchemist "A Masterpiece" with stunning detail, technomagic, and a spectacular ending. They noted it as one of their most magical adventures yet.

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Review the Room

The Architect

Praised for its blend of tactile challenges and clever tech, with puzzles that maintained interest throughout and immersive onboarding that stayed in character.

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DutchReview

The Vault

Feature article describing how Sherlocked "took our breath away," focusing on The Vault's heist experience and the incredible use of the Beurs van Berlage location.

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The Logic Escapes Me

Sherlocked

International enthusiast review declaring both The Architect and The Vault as "two of the finest experiences" they'd had, praising the immersion and site-specific worldbuilding.

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Cultured Vultures

Sherlocked Feature

One of the earliest press reviews, published shortly after Sherlocked's 2014 launch. The review evaluated puzzles, atmosphere, and story, helping establish early buzz.

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Podcasts and Audio Interviews

Reality Escape Pod

The Wonder Factory

Victor and Francine discussing The Alchemist, their creative partnership, and Sherlocked's influence on the Dutch escape room scene through actors, cold starts, and historical building settings.

David Spira shared why The Alchemist became his #1 game.

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Phil Edwards / YouTube

The Secret Economics of Escape Rooms

Documentary episode by journalist Phil Edwards about the financial realities of high-end escape rooms. Victor and Francine discuss Sherlocked’s budgets, rising costs, near-bankruptcy moments while building The Alchemist, and the challenge of creating ambitious, art-driven experiences under financial pressure.

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MuseoSpace

Gamifying the Museum: How Play is Shaping the Future of Cultural Spaces

Podcast-style panel from MuseoSpace, featuring Francine Boon discussing how gamification and escape room storytelling can transform museum visits into interactive experiences. She shares examples from Sherlocked’s work for the Rijksmuseum, the Royal Palace Amsterdam, and the Het Spoorwegmuseum.

Panel Discussion

Imaginary Worlds Podcast

Unlocking the Door Between Escape Rooms and Immersive Theater

Featured Victor and Francine discussing authenticity in escape room design and how far creators can push immersive experiences, alongside other industry leaders.

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Future of Storytelling

How to Design an Escape Room

Victor presented design principles and methodology for creating compelling escape room experiences, drawing on Sherlocked's decade of work.

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The Art Engager Podcast

Engaging Museum Visitors

Francine discussed transforming museum engagement through immersive storytelling and game design, sharing insights from the Rijksmuseum Escape Game (10,000 participants, 9.4/10 rating) and Palace Mysteries project.

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Awe Academy

What Is Awe to a Mystery Maker?

Francine reflects on awe, play, and experience design through the lens of her work as Sherlocked’s co-director. She discusses how mystery-making can help people feel wonder, connect more deeply with stories and spaces, and engage with museums and immersive experiences in more human ways.

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Kamp Vuur Podcast

Als je zelf enthousiast bent, gaan anderen aan

Dutch-language podcast where Victor discusses how enthusiasm is contagious in experience design and shares how deliberately blurring the line between fiction and reality is at the heart of what makes Sherlocked's immersive experiences so memorable.

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LiveLife Indo

LiveLife Event Appearance

Indonesian creative collaboration platform event page documenting Francine Boon's participation in a session on experience design and gamification. She shared insights from Sherlocked's museum projects and immersive storytelling techniques with the local creative and event planning community.

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Conference Talks & Speaking

RECON Los Angeles

Building Impossible Machines

The co-directors presented practical lessons for managing contractors and building "impractical things" through their experience creating The Alchemist. The talk covered the business side of creative collaboration.

MuseumNext London

Unlocking Curiosity: Transforming the Rijksmuseum

Francine presented how Sherlocked partnered with the Rijksmuseum to create an escape game that attracted 10,000+ visitors in nine weeks, with a 9.4/10 rating. She shared eight key design tools for creating museum experiences.

TED x Haarlem

Making the World More Magical

Victor shared his personal story of "escaping" the school system as a teenager and how that creative hacker mindset led to founding Sherlocked. He discussed why people pay to be locked up and the power of wanting to break free.

Television Appearances

DWDD

First Escape Room Feature

Victor and Tristan introduced escape rooms to Dutch television, bringing a mobile escape room to the studio where presenter Evi Hanssen attempted to escape live on air. The appearance sparked massive interest, within four months, 200 new escape rooms opened in the Netherlands.

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DWDD

The Break-In Room

Two of Sherlocked’s founders returned to launch The Vault and its new "break-in room" concept-reversing escape room mechanics to have players break into a space rather than escape.

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Klokhuis

Escape Room - Sherlocked

Sherlocked hosted The Legendary Dutch Children's Show ‘t Klokhuis In their special episode dedicated to the concept of escape rooms. Not only did we introduce a young audience to our world of puzzles, games and adventure, we also showed how we develop our experiences.

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Magazine and Online Features

Het Parool

Een middagje de escaperoom in

Magazine feature following a team through The Alchemist, with interviews of our co‑directors about the Dutch escape‑room boom, “optimale frustratie” as a design principle, DWDD exposure, and the evolution from The Architect to The Vault and The Alchemist.​​

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MuseoSpace

Living in the Kaleidoscope

In-depth profile of Francine discussing her "kaleidoscope state" philosophy-embracing multiple roles and disciplines. Covers her sociology background, museum work, The Alchemist creation, and views on creativity and hormonal cycles' influence on work.

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Antroposofie Inspireert

De Escaperooms

Dutch spiritual/cultural magazine profile exploring Victor's philosophy of bringing magic and enchantment back to the world through extraordinary experiences. Victor discusses his journey from escaping the school system to creating escape rooms.

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Zoku

Escape Loft Collaboration

Feature on the partnership between Zoku hotel and Sherlocked to create an overnight escape room experience during pandemic restrictions, merging hospitality with gaming.

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