Elude Escape Rooms - Review of Perpetual Motion room

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 Hi all

I learned on a Facebook escape room enthusiasts group that a new escape room had opened up in Galston.  For those who don’t know where the heck Galston is (I confess I hadn’t heard of it either), it’s not far from Dural, which is about 30-40 minutes north west from the CBD.

I got in contact with the owners, Julia and Darren, and they kindly invited my team to come and try out their room.  Julia and Darren are situated on acreage and they are in the process of converting a long row of bricked garages into escape rooms.  They have just the one room open for now, but they have already started construction on rooms 2 and 3.  

Their first room is entitled “Perpetual Motion”.  The room summary from their website is as follows:

A revolutionary breakthrough is set to change the course of history following claims than an engineer has modified a petrol engine to run on water.  Oil industries have publicly ridiculed the concept.  However, following the sudden disappearance of the engineer, the police believe that he was kidnaped to obtain the secret of his invention.  The only chance of saving him is to recover the Capacitor, but time is running out.

This was our 51^st escape room in Sydney and our 64^th escape room in Australia.

Here’s what we really liked about Perpetual Motion:

·         now I will start off by saying that there is a major element to this room that is off the charts, frickin’ awesome.  It is unlike anything that has been done in Australia (to my knowledge) – it is beyond brilliant and brings a smile to my face now just thinking about it;

·         after having done almost 70 rooms at the time of writing this review, I can honestly say that there aren’t too many new rooms that we have tried that have brought something truly new to the escape room market.  I am uber happy to report that Elude have designed a room that is truly unique.  I really am dying to say more but I can’t;

·         when I heard that Elude had made an escape room from their home, my initial thought was that it might be average or less professional than a more traditional escape room (ie a room set in a commercial office building).  I was very wrong – this room is as well-designed and contains puzzles that are as clever and challenging as any of the best escape rooms in the city;

·         the room is very family-friendly – there is nothing scary or dark at all about the room.  The room itself is very large and could accommodate larger teams of maybe 6 or so (although as always, my personal view is that all escape rooms I have tried have been best suited to a team of 4 – this room is no different);

·         I would describe Elude as more of a low-tech experience, but I think low tech really suits this particular room and the spaces within it.  The room flow is really well considered – it’s a non-linear room with points of convergence.  Our team was able to work separately on different puzzles and then come back together for certain key puzzles in the room;

·         in addition to the uber  awesome aspect of the room that I can’t talk about, there were a number of other puzzles in the room that were unlike anything we have seen in other Sydney rooms.  I love seeing new puzzles and new ideas in escape rooms;

·         as always, my measure of a room is how much fun  we had . I am really pleased to report that I truly loved this room. 

Julia and Darren are true escape room enthusiasts.  They have travelled through Europe and have tried about as many rooms as I have tried here, so they bring a large amount of experience and new ideas to the Sydney market.  We spent a lot of time afterwards sitting with Julia and Darren discussing their room and escape rooms generally.

Julia and Darren are currently constructing their second and third rooms which will open next year.  Darren tells me that he has loads of puzzle ideas ready for the next 2 rooms!

I have nothing to report on the negative side at all.  Elude have designed a cracker of a room – it’s unique, cleverly designed, challenging and most important of all, fun.

Where:                   11e Mid Dural Road, Galston, NSW

Duration:               60 minutes

Themes:                 1 (but 2 others currently under construction)

Cost:                       $45pp for a team of 4 (but we played at the kind invitation of the owners)

Overall Rating:       A truly unique and clever room - go and check it out!

More details:          http://www.eludegames.com/