Horror escape room in Hongdae, Seoul: Monkey House at Cube Escape

Trying to figure out what to do with my boyfriend on a Friday night, we decided to do an escape room in Hongdae for the first time in forever. There are so many options, so I looked around for a good one, and Cube Escape Hongdae Branch seemed to have a lot of reviews and good feedback, so that's the one we picked.

Where is Cube Escape Hongdae Branch, and what are its hours?

• 📍 Location: 4F, Mugwang Building, 15 Yanghwa-ro 16-gil, Mapo-gu, Seoul, South Korea
• ⏰ Hours: Weekdays 12:00–22:40 / Saturday 10:00–24:00 / Sunday 10:00–22:40
• 🚗 Parking: No parking available

You head into the building and go up to reach Cube Escape Hongdae Branch, and once inside, the space was bigger than I expected.

There were quite a lot of tables too, so we could sit comfortably while waiting before the escape room started.

Horror props and the waiting area right as you walk in

The interior is on the darker side, and there are horror-themed props scattered around, so just walking into the store already gave me the feeling that the escape room had kind of started. Us total newbies started getting nervous-excited, haha.

Looking at the wall by the counter, there were tons of signatures posted up. Made me wonder if a lot of famous people have come through here.

Why a beginner couple picked the Monkey House theme

Ah, for reference, you need to book which theme you're doing in advance, and since neither of us are very experienced with escape rooms, we figured if we picked something too hard from the start, we'd just end up stuck on one puzzle the whole time.

So we looked for a theme that wasn't too difficult, and on my strong recommendation, we went with a horror theme. Since we were doing this anyway, I wanted to try something scary...

So the one we chose was Monkey House. Before going into the theme proper, we got a simple briefing on our phones.

We checked things to watch out for during the game and how it all works, and there was time to solve a few practice questions — we got the practice question right and earned an extra hint.

How hard is Monkey House? From early panic to escaping with 20 minutes left

And then while we were playing around with the props, finally the team ahead of us finished and it was our turn. (Sudden nerves.)

Monkey House is a horror theme based on a drug experiment storyline, and it was more fun than I expected. When we first walked into the room, we were both a little disoriented. We didn't know what we were supposed to be looking for... couldn't tell if something was a clue or just a prop... just generally clueless.

Since we haven't done many escape rooms in Hongdae, we spent a bit of time getting adjusted at the start. But once we got the hang of it, we felt like we started solving things pretty steadily. We each searched on our own sometimes, and other times we'd think through something one of us found together. I solved a bit more than my boyfriend, heh. We escaped with almost 20 minutes left out of the 60.

We used exactly 1 hint. There was one prop I hesitated over whether to look into closer and ended up skipping — turned out that was actually a clue (darn it). Anyway, since neither of us had done many escape rooms and it was a horror theme, I was a little worried, but I was pleasantly surprised at how quickly we escaped.

After we escaped successfully and came out, they gave each of us a yakgwa (Korean honey cookie) as a memento. We also got a coupon, which we're planning to use next time we come back.

Is an escape room a good offbeat date in Hongdae?

Since we haven't done many escape rooms, I was worried at first that it might be too hard, but it ended up being just the right level for us and a lot of fun. What I liked about Cube Escape Hongdae Branch is that they have multiple themes at different difficulty levels, so you can pick one that fits your own level.

If you're looking for something different to do on a date in Hongdae besides just eating and going to a café, an escape room seems like a pretty good option. Above all, spending an hour together using our brains, getting a little heated debating things, and finally escaping successfully felt like we'd actually done something together, more so than just watching a movie.

Since we came out with as much as 20 minutes to spare this time, I'm thinking about trying a slightly harder theme next time. Maybe I should go for a 4-star difficulty one.