Kanyu Escape – Lightning in a Bottle

Kanyu Escape – Lightning in a Bottle.
Location: Wetherby
Game Date: 28/12/2017.
Team: Amy & Ian

Kanyu Escape has become more commonly known as “The Secrets of South Lodge” – this is pertaining to the amazing building that the company is based at, on a roundabout on Junction 45 of the A1(M). I think South Lodge wins the award for the most unique address of an escape room, well at least that we’ve encountered! However, it is easily found and has ample free parking!
The Secrets of South Lodge is at the moment, a duo of interlinked stories which can be played in any order as they’re not chronological. However, we chose the harder room first, I would suggest playing “Follow in my Footsteps” first, as this will ease you into the story of Sir Henry Cunningham.

Theme:
“Sir Henry tried to re-create what he witnessed in Africa in his steam punk laboratory. He’s left a trail of clues to help you avoid the fate he suffered. Can you unpick them in one hour and learn another of the Secrets of South Lodge?”

“Wow. Wow. Wow!” Were the words coming out of our mouths all the way through this game, with movie quality sets that ooze quality.
Immersion was 360, with no stone left unturned, from the heavy isotopes to the dirty, worn out lighting there was not a corner of the room that was unthemed and the attention to detail was second to none. I was seriously impressed, it was like stepping into another world for an hour.
This goes without saying, that the picture above is INSIDE the room, all too often companies will put amazing cover photos on their website then you walk into the room and are sorely disappointed. Not at South Lodge, in fact, the picture does not do the room justice!
Story is well delivered throughout the game, although not as much as “Footsteps” – this room is more focused in on the puzzles (more on that in a minute) but you do get the feeling and impression (through the immersion) that Sir Henry really was up to no good within the lab, the whole game has an air of uncertainty about it!
The room is large, and keeps on going and there would be no worries about taking the maximum team size of 8 into this room, lighting was spot on and at no point were we struggling to see.
A beautiful room that has to be seen to be believed.

Game Play:
A game that started off open and became more linear as time went on. This fits with the theming and story and really puts the pressure on in the later stages of the game.
Puzzles covered all bases, logic, math, observation, aural, physical. The puzzles were not your typical escape room puzzles, they’re intelligent, cunning and at times quite tricky! There is no way to sugar coat this, but we found this game hard.
Not because it was illogical, quite the opposite, the game was excellent in its logic.
We just found the vast amount to do, with minimal guidance from the puzzles themselves (There is enough information to garner the answers, we just missed a lot of it! – thank goodness for the clue screen!) quite overwhelming!
That being said, this is not a game designed for 2 people. There are no flaws in the game design, and the ah-ha moments did arrive, and when they did it was incredibly satisfying.
The flow was good, we obviously hit a couple of sticky spots but these were our fault and not the games!
A challenging game, but for all the right reasons. Excellent logic, achievable puzzles but be prepared to flex the grey matter!
I would recommend enthusiasts playing this game in at least a 3 (we could have done with an extra brain!) Newbies, take on “Follow in my Footsteps” first to warm your team up!

Clue System:
Clues were delivered via a screen

Game Host:
Bob was our host and was very warm & welcoming, he ran our game really well (dealing with the minor tech problems very professionally and quickly) – he really helped us along with nudges and hints throughout the game

Did we escape?
Yes, due to some minor tech problems we went into a little bit of bonus time!

Website: http://www.kanyu.co.uk/
Price:
2 Players £40
3 Players £60
4 Players £80
5 Players £100
6 Players £120
7 Players £140
8 Players £160