Asylum

Escape This (Sydney, Australia)

Time limit: 60 minutes

Age limit: 18+

Player limit: 2-4

Difficulty: 8/10

Date visited: February 2026

My buddy V, with whom I played a bunch of rooms with in Geelong and Melbourne last year (including the transcendent Carnivorous), was in Sydney for a brief work/family visit in February. With only a couple of hours to spare in our busy schedules, we of course had to play an escape room!

Coming off the surprisingly solid Frankenstein Resurrection, Escape This was back in my good books again, so I thought we'd try Asylum, a replica of their 2025 Best of Morty-winning room from Perth. It was an 18+ room, so I knew I wasn't going to be able to play it with the kids. So how was it?

• We knew Asylum was going to be different right from the start, when we were each given a pair of free white socks and told to take off our shoes and change into them. Yes, you play this room entirely in socks. It makes sense because you start off in a padded room and it would get pretty gross and dirty if everyone's playing in their shoes. And you get to keep the socks!

• We started chained up on opposite sides of the padded room in complete darkness. And you stay in complete darkness for quite a while even after you manage to free yourself. To be honest, I wasn't the biggest fan of this. It felt rather gimmicky and was more frustrating than fun.

• Fortunately, not the entire game was played in the dark. We struggled so much in the early portion of the game because of our middle-aged eyes. I should also add an epilepsy warning because there was quite a lot of flickering and flashing lights.

• Due to the darkness, the theming wasn't anything to write home about. In terms of size and spaces, it was below average. However, the tech was solid and well-hidden, and there was even good use of audio and video technology.

• The puzzles were decent. There was a good mix that included observation, logical deduction, and tactile puzzles. That said, it didn't feel like there were that many puzzles to solve, again probably due to the added difficulty from the darkness that ate up a lot of playing time.

• A couple of the puzzles were actually tricky and required a second look or attempt. We did not specifically ask for clues but were automatically given a couple of pointers in the right direction through sound recordings.

• The final puzzle had a 5-minute timer which provided a sense of urgency. I assume you would get a different ending if you failed it — we luckily managed to figure it out with less than a minute to spare after a couple of failed attempts.

• I was surprised this was an 18+ room as it was not scary at all. I suppose you could say the pitch black darkness in the beginning was "scary", but apart from that there was just one jokey potential jump scare and that was it.

• Asylum was a fairly solid but unremarkable room that falls in the middle of the pack among my Escape This experiences to date. We still had a pretty good time, but nothing from the size of the room to the theming, puzzles, or tech really stood out.

Escape time: 54 minutes out of 60

Theming	Atmosphere	Puzzles	Creativity	Fun
B	B+	B	B	B-

Verdict: A solid insane asylum room that was decent in all respects without having any truly standout elements. Novices should enjoy this one a lot more than enthusiasts.

RANK: B-