A Pleasant Surprise
Enter a post-apocalyptic world where a devastating virus has devastated humanity. You and your team are one of the few remaining survivors and you all have the same goal: to escape the planet before it’s too late! But be careful… Because you’re not the only ones and you’re not alone either.
Time is running against you, every minute counts and every step will be crucial to test your survival skills. The Exodus project is not waiting for anyone.
Often when we go abroad for escape room trips we will book games that have already been ranked on the TERPECA awards, but we also like to try and find newer games that are yet to be ranked, but are growing in popularity. One such game from our Barcelona trip of 2025 was Exodus, by Elements Escape Room.
Exodus was a game we knew nothing about, except that it was post-apocalyptic and definitely not a ‘run for your lives’ horror – which sounded good to me! When we arrived, first impressions were good, with some cool styling even outside the venue and a note saying that a light would change colour when it was time to enter.
At our time, a character appeared (in character) and we were rushed into the game and to a ‘safe room’. It was here that we received a mission briefing sort of, but immersion was key and nothing in this game broke that. Once our GM left us, we were on our own to try and escape the planet!
IMMERSION/ROOM DESIGN
Exodus is one of those games where I’d love to go back and play again, just to experience some of the sets again. This game was, for lack of a better word, vast. The journey we went on made it feel like we played many different escape rooms all rolled into one, and I’d love to see a floorplan for the game just so I could see where we actually went.
This game had a little of everything and to talk about the spaces we encountered would give away the fun, but there was on space that I, being a child of the 80/90s really loved – the only negative was that the time we spent there was just a little too short.
Getting between the spaces was not always as straight-forward as simply walking through a door, so expect to be crawling and climbing in many places. Definitely not the most accessible of rooms and I can’t see how one could have a work around. So if your accessibility is limited then you may want to contact the venue in advance to see if they can help you out.
PUZZLES
The best thing about games the size of Exodus is that there is plenty of space for puzzles, all the puzzles! Ok there was one particular room that I wished had more puzzles just so we could spend more time there. But, on the whole, the puzzles felt balanced and diegetic to the space in which we encountered them.
The puzzles were varied, with some quick wins and others that were ‘deeper’ and often resulted in codes for padlocks or tech triggering. Generally I believe they would generally be classed as; observation, searching, teamwork, communication, audio, pattern recognition and a little logic.
We enjoyed nearly all the puzzles in Exodus, with probably the exception of one which felt a bit weaker than the rest. It’s a shame as the rest of the game was so strong, and at times we were able to split up (mostly in two’s) and work on different puzzles simultaneously. At one point we encountered a puzzle that felt like it involved outside knowledge, albeit quite common, but I have a feeling that if you didn’t know it, then there was another way to solve it – fortunately we knew what we needed to do so had no issues.
GM/CLUE SYSTEM
I forgot the name of our GM (Max) at the start of the game, but fortunately at the end of our experience he reappeared, with his colleague Janira. It seems like they were both keeping an eye on our game and making sure we had a great time (which we did). Everything felt seamless and if there was ever any need for us to need help, it came in a way that felt like it was part of the game and didn’t feel out of place at all.
In our short time in Spain we had many experiences where the GM/hosts were front and center and Exodus was the same. I’m not sure if Spain has an abundance of actors lying around but many of the games felt like they were trained actors running our sessions. Max clearly knew what he was doing and was comfortable with his role, even in a language that wasn’t native to him.
ANYTHING ELSE
I need to sit down and properly think about what my favourite games were in Barcelona, but I am 100% sure that Exodus will be among them. An expansive set, solid puzzles, great hosting, and a fun/epic ending – Exodus is likely to be making an appearance in the TERPECA 2025 awards, I’m sure of that.
Exodus was a blast from start to end and I’m not sure we’ve played any (or many) games that could match it in terms of not only the number of rooms but also the variety of rooms. The ending probably shouldn’t have been a surprise considering the theme of the game, but as I’m terrible at story, it still surprised me and made for a cracking ending!
Success / Failure
Final Rating:
| Operation | |
| Puzzles | |
| Room Design | |
| GM/Clues | |
| Excitement |
Team: 4 players
Address: Passatge de Toledo, 6, 8, Distrito de Sants-Montjuïc, 08014 Barcelona, Spain
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