Hi everyone
My team first went to Elude in December 2017 soon after they first
opened. You can check out my reviews of their earlier rooms,
Perpetual Motion and Framed, here and here.
We returned to Elude in May 2019 to check out their third room, Yin
Yang.
The room summary from their website for Yin Yang is as follows:
Yin Yang
The principle of Yin and Yang is a fundamental
concept in Chinese philosophy and culture. All things exist as inseparable and
contradictory opposites. Everything has both yin and yang aspects. For example,
shadow cannot exist without light. This is a more tranquil adaptation of an
escape room but is still guaranteed to stretch your skills.
Yin Yang was our 121st escape room to date (worldwide) and
our 78th escape room in (or around) Sydney.
Here’s what we really liked about Yin Yang:
- a lot of thought has gone
into the puzzles and theming. Almost
all of the puzzles relate to elements of Chinese culture and they therefore
fit the theme completely;
- as with Perpetual Motion and
Framed, I would describe Elude as a more traditional, Hungarian-style escape
room. Whilst there are clever tech
elements in the room, the star element of both rooms is simply the room
design and the quality of the puzzles therein. There are still
Gen 1 style locks throughout all 3 rooms at Elude – they are not a
gimmicky outfit with nothing but electronic locks and high tech puzzles
(which more and more rooms seem to be in recent
times). Instead, with all 3 rooms at Elude, you get a really well-designed
space and a heap of clever and unique puzzles;
- as with Perpetual Motion and
Framed, Yin Yang is a family-friendly escape room – there is nothing scary
or dark at all about the room. I think the space is best suited
to a team of up to 4 people. I
would describe Yin Yang as a medium to difficult room, but newer players
can of course ask for some more help from the very experienced game
masters;
- there was a nice mix of
puzzles throughout the Yin Yang experience – both high and low tech, but
all were fun. As is the case with
all rooms we have tried to date at Elude, there were puzzle elements that
we had not seen before;
- the room is largely non-linear
(in that teams can break up and do different puzzles
separately). There are points of convergence where players have
to come together to progress to different stages and then again non-linear
aspects where players can split up again. This kind of
non-linear room really suits our team (and more experienced players
generally); and
- as always, my measure of a
room is how much fun my team had. I am really pleased to report that as with
Perpetual Motion and Framed, my team all really enjoyed Yin Yang.
Julia and Darren are true escape room enthusiasts. They have
travelled through Europe (more than once!) and have tried about as many rooms
as I have tried, so they bring enormous experience and new ideas to the Sydney
market. We again sat down with Julia and Darren afterwards and spent
a lot of time discussing their room, providing our feedback and chatting about escape
rooms generally.
Julia and Darren have already begun constructing their fourth room,
Torquay. At the time that we met up with
Julia and Darren, they were also about to open up a pop-up 20 minute escape
room at Rhodes Waterside Shopping Centre during the July school holidays. My wife and I took our daughters there and
spoiler alert – it was fantastic. My
separate review of that pop-up room, called Magician’s Lair, will be up soon.
At the time of writing this review of Yin Yang, I have now been to 3
full length rooms, a 20 minute pop-up room and a “Beat the Box” corporate-style
experience designed and constructed by Elude.
I am happy to confirm that Elude is one of the best escape room outfits
in Sydney – no gimmicks, just great quality puzzles and design.
As I have mentioned in my earlier reviews, don’t be put off by their
location – Galston is not that long a drive from the city. My tip is to make a day of it and if you
haven’t been to Elude before, do 2 or 3 rooms back to back and grab lunch or
dinner nearby (ask Julia and Darren for recommendations on where to eat nearby). Given the quality of their rooms, it is
ABSOLUTELY worth the time investment.
Where:
11e Mid Dural Road, Galston, NSW
Duration: 75
minutes
Themes: 3
rooms (plus corporate and pop up experiences)
Cost: $50pp
for a team of 4 (but we played at the kind invitation of the owners)
Overall Rating: Another
fun room from Elude - jam packed with interesting puzzles
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