Pitch-dark escape room in Hongdae, Seoul: Cube Escape Monkey House
In short
Cube Escape Hongdae Branch is an escape room café on the 4th floor of the Mugwang Building in Mapo, Seoul, a 6-minute walk from Exit 9 of Hongik University Station. Three college students played Monkey House, a horror thriller theme officially rated easy, for 22,500 won per person, solved the puzzles smoothly, then stopped at a pitch-black passage to the next section and used the intercom to ask staff to open the door. At Cube Escape Hongdae Branch, the real gate in Monkey House is the darkness and immersion, not the puzzle difficulty.
Good to know
- Theme
- Monkey House (horror thriller set in a psychiatric hospital, official difficulty: Easy)
- Price
- 22,500 won per person at the 2-person rate; 45,000 won total paid for 3 people
- Time limit
- 60 minutes
- Location
- 4th floor, Mugwang Building, 15 Yanghwa-ro 16-gil, Mapo-gu, Seoul
- Getting there
- 402 m from Exit 9 of Hongik University Station, about a 6-minute walk
- How it works
- Store belongings in a locker, put on a blindfold, and enter with staff guiding you
- Price reference
- ₩20,000 ≈ $15 · ₩22,500 ≈ $16.5 · ₩45,000 ≈ $33.5 (2026-09-15)
as written by the visitor on Aug 14, 2026
Paying ₩20,000 per person to walk into an escape room café isn't just casual fun. It's a battle for your pride — pouring every ounce of your intellect and quick thinking into escaping a sealed space within a strict 60 minutes.
On a Friday evening, three college students exhausted from classes and editing work made their way to the 4th floor of the Mugwang Building in the middle of Hongdae — driven by exactly this sense of a massive challenge ahead.
We were already veterans of countless escape rooms, and we were arrogantly confident we'd clean up today's mission too.
Where is Cube Escape Hongdae Branch and how do you get there?
Cube Escape Hongdae Branch sits on the 4th floor of the Mugwang Building, 402m — about a 6-minute walk — from Exit 9 of Hongik University Station. We came out of Exit 9 and pushed through the crowds for exactly 402m. Stepping off the elevator on the 4th floor, a peculiar tension already hung over the whole hallway.
Monkey House price and difficulty rating
At the counter of Cube Escape Hongdae Branch, we gave our headcount and paid the 2-person rate of ₩22,500 per person, ₩45,000 total. We chose the theme 'Monkey House'. It was a horror thriller concept set in a mental hospital, but since the official difficulty was listed as 'Easy', we scoffed a little. We could already picture ourselves cleverly escaping within 30 minutes on easy mode.
We put all our belongings into a locker, put on blindfolds, and were led down a dark corridor by staff. When we took the blindfolds off after hearing the door lock, we came face to face with a surprisingly elaborate set.
The puzzles were easy: clearing the first section
True to its 'Easy' rating, the puzzles inside Monkey House weren't particularly complicated. Intuitive codes and clear hints jumped out at us, and we calmly worked through the quizzes, moving forward smoothly. The puzzles inside the room weren't scary at all. The atmosphere was eerie, but our heads stayed cool, and it looked like escaping was just a matter of time.
The real horror at Monkey House: total darkness in the next section
But the real problem showed up when we least expected it. After solving every puzzle in the room and reaching the passage to the next section, we opened the door to find pitch-black darkness with not a single ray of light. Facing that black void like a scene straight out of a thriller movie, all the composure we'd kept inside the room shattered instantly.
A powerful gut feeling struck us — that someone was hiding in that darkness, ready to jump out. We couldn't take a single step forward. All the courage we'd calculated in our heads evaporated, and the overwhelming fear of the dark crushed us.
Calling Cube Escape staff on the intercom to open the door
In the end, we swallowed our pride and picked up the intercom on the wall. As soon as we heard it connect to the front desk, we honestly explained the situation — we were too scared to open the door and cross over, and we needed help. A moment later, like a saving light in the dark, a staff member walked calmly toward us.
That staff member, as if they ruled over this darkness, closed the door to the next section and reopened it safely for us with an utterly unbothered expression. Their confident, reassuring back looked, in that moment, bigger than anyone else in the world.
Our unexpected standoff with the door cost us some time, but thanks to the staff's kind help, we were finally able to move on to the next stage. Once you get past the fear of the dark, the theme's overall design and story logic were excellent.
Who is Monkey House at Cube Escape Hongdae right for?
The immersion the space created was so good that even a small detail put every nerve on edge, as if we'd been dropped in the middle of the real Gonjiam mental hospital. We've been to countless escape rooms, but this was the first time we were so overwhelmed by atmosphere that we called staff to open a door for us.
That brief, intense chill we felt in the dark was exactly the jolt we needed in our numbing daily routine. The puzzle difficulty was reasonable enough for beginners or first-timers to solve, and the tension of the thriller theme stood out among the countless escape room cafés around Hongdae.
We shrank to nothing in front of that darkness, but even that has become an unforgettable memory now that time has passed.
The real horror wasn't the difficulty of the puzzles — it was the pitch-black darkness laid out right in front of us.
Where it is
4th floor, Mugwang Building, 15 Yanghwa-ro 16-gil, Mapo-gu, Seoul, South Korea서울특별시 마포구 양화로16길 15 무광빌딩 4층
