ELUDE Escape Rooms - Beat the Box Review

Hi all

My team returned to Elude in June 2018, having previously escaped from their Perpetual Motion room in December 2017.  You can read my review of Perpetual Motion here.

Julia and Darren had invited my team back to try their new room, Framed.  Separately, Elude had recently run an event at Relay for Life, to raise money for The Cancer Council.  The event was a Beat the Box challenge, where Elude had set up a number of large chests which were full of puzzles, with the aim being for players to break into and retrieve an item from the box.

I thought it might be a nice idea for our team to try to Beat the Box as a warm up before trying our hand at Framed.  Julia and Darren were kind enough to let our team try to Beat The Box.  They suggested that we try 2 teams of 2 people (one box per team), but I thought it would be fun for us all to split up and try separate boxes each. 

Beat the Box was our 96^th escape room experience in Australia and our 66^th escape room experience in Sydney.  As always, I'll start off with what I liked most about Beat the Box:

·         the box is very cleverly designed.  It contains a number of separate sections.  I was genuinely surprised at how many puzzles were crammed into the box;

·         the craftsmanship of the elements of the box is really impressive;

·         as you would expect, the Beat the Box is a linear experience.  I was genuinely impressed with the quality of puzzles, most of which were really unique;

·         I was really impressed with the adaptability of the Beat the Box.  Julia and Darren explained that they had recently run the Beat the Box challenge for a corporate team and they had tailored aspects of the box to suit the particular corporate team;

·         I think the Beat the Box is the future of escape room corporate team building events.  Elude has a heap of Beat the Box boxes, which would allow them to come to a corporate team building day and host groups of 50 or more employees.  I am often asked for recommendations for corporate team building events.  Currently, there are VERY few rooms that I can recommend for corporate team building in Sydney.  Most corporates seem to go to Escape Hunt Sydney, which in my view is a below average outfit and should be avoided.  I really like the idea of the escape room coming to you – it makes logistics so much easier for corporates; 

·         although I was off to a strong start, I ultimately got caught on one puzzle (being a puzzle type that was not my wheelhouse (and which ordinarily I would pass to one of my other team members)).  So I ultimately came in fourth place (of 4).  Impressive I know.  Whose idea was it to play individually rather than in teams of 2 anyway…. ;-)

Beat the Box was was a really enjoyable escape room experience.  We used it as a warm up before we tried our hands at Framed – it was a great way of getting our brains into gear.

I highly recommend Beat the Box to any corporate teams who would like to try an escape room experience, but who would like the escape room to come to them. 

Where:                   11e Mid Dural Road, Galston, NSW

Duration:               15-30 minutes

Themes:                 2 traditional rooms so far (as well as this Beat the Box experience)

Cost:                       TBA (but we provided a donation to the Cancer Council)

Overall Rating:       A great escape room in a box – perfect for corporate events!

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