Review: Full Experience, Magician of Paris and Fun House, Deep Inside, Paris, France
Fun Factor 9
Full Experience, Magician of Paris and Fun House
Deep Inside
7 quai de la seine 75019 Paris, France
Date we played: October 17, 2024
Booking size 2 to 6; We recommend 3 to 4
Game time: 120 minutes
Objective: Descend “deep inside” the Paris catacombs and enter the “City of Martyrs,” where you will seek out the home of a magician and find a retrieve a certain item before they return…”
Difficulty: Advanced
Deep Inside has two experiences. The Magician of Paris and Fun House – each can be played individually…or for a special experience, you can book them both in a coordinated back-to-back experience. This review and rating is of the full-experience.
The games are fully playable in English – and Deep Inside’s website has an “English/French” flag toggle on the top of its webpage to help make this a more welcoming experience for English-speakers.
I had heard that individually, each was a fun experience, but together, they were next level.
We Highly Recommend the Full Experience and are giving it a Fun Factor of 9 – because the set is expansive and authentically and richly decorated, the actors organically add to the content and puzzles, and the combined two-hour experience is deftly orchestrated as a singular mega-escape room with several cinematic moments. We prefer to relish the experience created for us in an escape room rather than rush through for a top time - we found the two-hour experience created by Deep Inside allowed us to be present in the moment and savor the journey.
In my view each room by itself is worth the visit – but Deep Inside made the ending of the first room (The Magician of Paris) meld organically into the second room (Fun House). I have played other back-to-back rooms, and it is absolutely essential that the game designer makes the transition from one room to the other make sense in keeping with the world they have created – so that it is not simply booking two escape rooms back-to-back. Deep Inside did just that – we really felt that we were playing one gigantic two-hour experience.
The immersion starts when you arrive at what looks to be a Parisian bookstore. But your advance communication instructs you to ask the proprietor that you are looking for a certain book. The book you ask for is the code word for your reservation! My group of six really enjoyed that immersive touch – when escape rooms start in this fashion, it really feels more special than showing up at a desk in the lobby and telling the person that you have a 6 pm booking.
From the street it looks to be a bookstore.
These rooms can be played by two to six people – and Deep Inside recommends four as the ideal number. I would tend to agree - but our group of six which included mostly new players had a great time…there will be times that larger groups will be quite close together. But our friendly group of six had a blast.
First thing to keep in mind – is that both rooms have actors that you will interact with.
The Magician of Paris – While you will interact with live actors, we did not find the interaction scary. Ultimately if you play your cards right you may meet the magician and be treated to a magic show. We previously played this room as a stand-alone gave it a fun factor of 7 – the set is immersive and lush. There are several cinematic “magical” moments. The puzzling is a fairly standard combination of scavenging and making connections. Much of what you need to do is explained in written material you will find. I am not a fan of instruction-book-led puzzles – but Deep Inside created reading material that felt organic to the setting and was not overly burdensome. But what makes this room sing are the magical moments that come alive when certain puzzles are solved!
Our only technical issue was that sometimes we had difficulty understanding what was being said to us in the character voices of the actors. So we needed to ask for information to be repeated – which they did without fail. We always felt that Deep Inside was fully on top of what we were doing and that they all were doing their best to maximize our fun.
In keeping with the magic show theme – there will be times when a volunteer is needed – and they will need to briefly separate from the group. The set was terrific and looked and felt like a magician’s studio – the props were all in good shape and well-maintained. We also recommend the room as the puzzles were well-designed to fit the magical theme.
Photo: From Deep Inside webpage
You will get one of two endings depending on whether you are only playing The Magician of Paris or whether you will immediately move on to Fun House.
Fun House – This room is marketed as a horror room. And that is legit. And I have to laugh at Deep Inside’s translation of Le Palais de L'horreur – the French name to simply “Fun House” when presented in English on its website. I can’t be the only one to see whats going on here.
You will be in what seems like an authentic reproduction of an old-fashioned Fun House in an abandoned amusement park… and then, to round out a nightmare…you will encounter a not-so-friendly clown. Here again – we felt that Deep Inside created a scenario and built puzzles that were true to the scenario and, for the most part - felt organic and immersive. Most horror-themed rooms are more about the experience and less about the puzzles…but Deep Inside did a good job leaning into iconic elements of fun houses to create several puzzles that, on their own, stood out well.
Photo: From Deep Inside webpage
If you choose to do the back-to-back experience, your fun house experience will continue and emerge from the ending of The Magician of Paris. This room is also for 2 to 6 players – and Deep Inside also recommends a team of 4 as ideal. Our team of 6 did have some confined spaces – but this did not seem to reduce our fun or significantly interfere with our gaming.
