Escape rooms are all the rage, right?

YULU Toys‘ Operation: Escape game brings all the fun of an escape room experience to your home, with an exciting spy twist. This game combines strategy, skill, dexterity, and cooperation for players to work together to solve different puzzles and escape the room before time runs out.

Players have to work together to complete three tasks in order to set the captured player free of the master belt before the timer on that belt runs out. The first time kids play, the game requires a bit of assembly to set up all the challenges, but in subsequent play times after that, it’ll go much quicker.

Once all three challenges are set up, one player places the master belt around them with the timer set to 180 seconds, which gives players about a minute for each challenge. The first challenge is the Skill challenge, which requires kids to remove a key from a cage using two sticks, one of which has a hook on it. There’s a spinner on the top of the cage that lets players know through which wall of the cage kids have to remove the key. TBH, the first couple of times I tried this challenge, I failed every time. It challenges dexterity and fine motor skills, while also asking kids to strategically find the best and fastest way to remove the key from the cage.

The next challenge, the Strategy challenge: Kids have to solve three challenge cards in varying degrees of difficulty. Green cards are easy, yellow cards are medium, and red cards are the most difficult. (Pro tip: to make the game easier to start off with as a whole, you can only use the easy challenge cards, and then work your way up to #spystatus.) Kids enter the card number on the quiz master, then the scroll to the correct answer, and hit the button. When kids are correct, the key in the quizmaster pops one third of the way out—three correct answers in a row gives kids the key!

The final challenge—the Luck challenge—challenges kids put the key in the spinner and spin it. Then, they have three chances to correctly guess where the key is located. If they are unable to find the key, they have to reset the spinner and start over.

Players can set these challenges up all over the room in which they’re playing. It truly is open-ended play. The game features a lot of built-in variables that makes the game different each time kids play, even though the challenges remain the same. Play time is quick, so if kids don’t save the player strapped to the timer, they can try over and over again.

Hone your spy skills and escape the room a different way each time with YULU Toys’ Operation: Escape.

About the author

Ali Mierzejewski

Ali Mierzejewski

Ali Mierzejewski is the editor-in-chief at The Toy Insider and The Pop Insider. With more than a decade of industry experience, Ali is a trusted source for parents, gift-givers, manufacturers, retailers, and more on the latest trends and hottest products. Whether you’re shopping for the best toys for kids — or looking for the latest in geek culture and entertainment for yourself — Ali’s expertise has you covered. When she’s not building LEGO sets or unwinding with a puzzle, Ali is obsessing over the latest season of The Bachelor, scrolling through Gritty’s Twitter, or rewatching The West Wing (for the 100th time). She is also a self-proclaimed expert on the history and lore of the entire Bachelor franchise. Ali has been featured on TODAY, The Wendy Williams Show, Yahoo Finance, Fox & Friends, HLN, The Weather Channel, ABC World News Now, and more. You can follow her on Instagram @hashtagtrendy.

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