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Riddle City #7 – "Tales of the North City" Outdoor Escape Game Spoiler-Free Review
“Tales of the North City” is an outdoor escape game designed by Riddle City, set against the backdrop of the Taiwan Republic, taking place around the old Taipei city area. This post will give a quick intro to how the game works and some tips to keep in mind, plus share my honest impressions from actually playing.
Other escape games and ARGs I’ve played:
The Next Victim — The Victims’ Game Outdoor Escape Game Spoiler-Free Review
Devotion ARG (1) Light a lantern and step into the world of Cigu Guanyin
Devotion ARG (2) What to do with the 3.5” floppy disk, and the Lu Xin Gratitude Association
Devotion ARG (3) The ending of Guang Xi Zi De
Table of Contents
What is an outdoor escape game?
An outdoor escape game means leaving behind the internet, computers, and gaming consoles, and going into the real world to solve puzzles. It’s a bit like escape rooms, but the space is much larger — you’re outside.
Also, most outdoor escape games I’ve encountered rely heavily on your phone and mobile data. Your phone is your connection to the story, so everyone needs to make sure their battery is charged.
About “Tales of the North City”
Location: Old Taipei city area, starting from Xiaonanmen MRT Station
Time restrictions: Not recommended on Mondays (some locations are inaccessible); Stages 2–4: 09:30–17:00, rest: 05:30–23:59
Playtime: Approximately 4–6 hours (we took over 8 hours…)
Player count: 2–8 players
The goal is a treasure hunt — you’re looking for the presidential seal of the Taiwan Republic. For more details, check the Riddle City official website.
Image from the Riddle City official website
Tips
We played this as a company team-building outing, split into five teams. We started at around 10:20 AM on 2022/01/07, took a lunch break, and finished somewhere between 6 and 7 PM. It’s a genuinely long game. The max team size is 8 — our team was made up of: UX researcher, engineer, graphic designer, PM (what a useless way to introduce ourselves XD).
- Make sure your phone is charged: this game absolutely drains your battery. The final stage especially needs a lot of power, so bring a power bank if you’re worried;
- Confirm headcount ahead of time — it’s unclear whether players can drop out mid-game;
- Bring your EasyCard or iPASS, because you’ll be hopping on the MRT or buses quite a bit. Some checkpoints also cost money, so bring some cash (under NTD 100), and bring your student ID if you have one;
- The game tells you at the start that the answers you enter in the app are location names — but in practice, many of them aren’t. You really have to solve the puzzle before you can get the answer;
- Pay attention to the different types of “wrong answer” messages. A flat wrong is just wrong, but if it says “think again,” you might be getting closer;
- Wear comfortable walking shoes — you’ll be covering a wide area. The weather was pretty nice for us, but it’s not hard to imagine summer being absolutely brutal…;
- If you want to go for a time record, make strategic use of the time freeze feature. We froze time during one stage and finished it over lunch XD;
- Even after completing a stage, keep all the props from that stage with you;
- Start early so you’re not playing in the dark by the end and wanting to give up;
- Logic helps but psychic intuition is better.
Impressions
This is probably the most frustrating escape game I’ve ever played. My teammates were all sharp and capable, and while the locations were a bit of a pain, that was manageable. What really killed it was the mid-to-late puzzles — they had basically no logical grounding. I also really wouldn’t recommend bringing first-timers, because they’ll come away thinking: “Is outdoor escape gaming really this illogical?” (Though apparently their other games are pretty good!)
So my main takeaway for anyone considering this one:
Logic helps but psychic intuition is better.
The earlier puzzles are solid — you can actually reason through them using logic, and they make good use of the local environment and story context. The orange stage in particular was excellent, loved it!!!
But the green stage (if I’m remembering correctly) left everyone absolutely dumbfounded. We had no choice but to look at the hints before we could figure it out. And it wasn’t just our team — the other groups that day had the exact same reaction.
Reading the scroll text was completely useless, because the key was just a keyword with no relationship to the surrounding context. Everyone eventually gave up on context entirely and just went straight to the hints. A lot of the later puzzles were the same, which probably explains why it’s also gotten plenty of “these puzzles make no sense” reviews on Escapebar XD
It basically forced us to use hints — and even though hints are free, looking at them somehow made us feel even worse. Even our escape room pro teammate said: “I figured out the last part through pure psychic intuition…”
The game also runs way too long (over six hours). Even with a strong story concept, there was no way to actually stay immersed in it — by the end we just wanted to hit the hint button without even trying to solve anything. (Especially the final stage, ugh.)
The writing also has issues: the classical Chinese sections don’t feel properly classical, and the story doesn’t pull you in or make you feel like part of it. Some people mentioned it integrating local historical sites, but if you’re playing until dark, you’ll genuinely want to quit everything XD.
Overall, I can’t really recommend this one. The stages are hard — but not because you’re not smart enough, it’s because you’re not psychic enough. If you want to actually enjoy the experience of puzzle-solving, I’d personally suggest picking a different game :P
Thanks for reading :D
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