After struggling through the day at school or work, we cannot wait to finally choose how we spend our remaining hours. For just a short amount of time at the end of the day or a couple of days at the end of the week, we are in control of our own time and can spend it as we please.
What do you do for entertainment? Maybe you play video games or watch a movie. Maybe you hang out with your friends or pursue one of your hobbies.
Regardless of how you normally spend your time, I would like to suggest that you try something new-escape rooms.
What is an escape room, you ask? It's an interactive experience where you and your team work to accomplish a goal by solving puzzles and finding clues hidden throughout a room or set of rooms.
While the original escape rooms were oriented around finding a way out (hence the name), the new escape rooms have all sorts of goals but are definitely not limited to a simple escape!
Allow me to elaborate, first with some history and then with a story.
History of Escape Rooms
The idea of an escape room came from a video game created by Toshimitsu Takagi, called the "Crimson Room." It was a fairly simple game where players would solve puzzles and interact with their surroundings in order to escape and move on to the next level.
In 2007, SCRAP, a Japanese company, took this idea and turned it into a live activity for players, built by Takao Kato.
The live escape room was designed so that players would move around and interact with each other in order to combine the information they needed to solve the clues.
Over time, the concept spread outside of Japan and became popular throughout Asia. In 2011, Attila Gyurkovics developed his own escape room, called Parapark.
He wanted a way to help encourage team building among young people and used the dynamics of an escape room and the cooperative problem-solving involved to do so.
The concept became popular across Europe, moving steadily westward. However, at the same time, SCRAP branched out with its own escape room concepts from Japan to the US with the name "Real Escape Game."
By 2013, escape rooms had become a truly worldwide phenomenon, with rooms opening in France, Canada, and India.
As more rooms opened, they also diversified in their puzzles and structure. The first games were mostly logic puzzles that the players would solve with just a pen and paper.
Then padlocks were added to hide certain clues, with hidden keys and codes scattered throughout the room in order to make it harder to escape.
Now, technology, immersive decoration, and storylines are also included to make the games more interactive and create a sense of adventure for the players, adding a theatrical flair to the puzzles beyond just the process of solving them.
Story
It's ten minutes past three o'clock on a dull Monday afternoon. You have just been released from the state prison with a small bit of money in your pocket and are in need of a great deal more.
New place, thousands of people streaming by, but there isn't one familiar face. How, then, are you going to get your money?
You see a store nearby that you recognize and walk in.
There, after a few quiet words with the owner, you exchange your money for a small, bright object of questionable character. You place it in your lower pocket, button the coat over it, and walk out.
You walk a mile among these strangers and head into a different store, one with a much better reputation than the previous one. The store is swarming with customers. The manager steps forward, smiling.
"Looking for something, sir?" said the manager. "Yes," you say, unbuttoning your coat, "Cash." When you put your hand on the shiny object you'd purchased before, the manager sees a small yet lethal pistol, and his face falls.
"I want all the money in this joint, and I want it now."
"Right this way," says the manager as he leads you to the bulky cash register. "Miss Potts, give this man what he wants. And make sure not to alarm the other customers," he tells the cashier, whose eyes go wide with alarm.
The cashier hands you the $700 from the cash register, and you shove it hastily in your coat. Hurrying out of the store, onto the sidewalk, you collide with another man.
"Hey!" says the man. "Watch it!"
"My apologies, I'm in a hurry," you reply, pushing into the crowd in an attempt to get away. But the man grabs onto your arm and asks, "Have we met before?"
"I don't think so," you say, trying to cut this conversation short and disappear into oblivion before you can be caught.
Suddenly, you hear, "Hey! Stop that man!" You glance over your shoulder to see the manager and a policeman darting towards you.
What do you do? How are you going to escape before the officials catch up to you?
What if, instead, you were in the middle of a zombie apocalypse. Or a police detective, solving a murder?
What if I told you that you could have all these experiences at your fingertips?
Well, you can. Escape rooms give you the power to live whatever reality you want. Amazing, I know.
The Takeaway - What Happens in an Escape Room?
Now, you may wonder, 'what do you do in an escape room?' or 'what are escape rooms like?'
Escape games allow you to experience the thrill of a bank heist or the horror of being trapped in a museum while you solve puzzles in an attempt to escape from the room.
Each escape room is designed with different challenges, themes, and goals, with a time limit that creates a feeling of pressure as you work with your teammates to accomplish your mission, whatever that might be.
Some challenges involve working to steal a valuable painting that's locked in a room with sound and motion sensors.
You may be trying to save a pop star who is stuck in a time loop, with ten resets left before her death is stuck in stone.
Maybe you'll have to worry about an approaching horde of zombies or escape from the hideout of the people who kidnapped you.
In an escape room, you could face any of these challenges.
An escape room lets you and your team embody any character and scenario that the designers can come up with.
This is an incredible feeling. To become someone else, even just for a short time. To truly live in their shoes!
Escape rooms are the next generation of gaming and entertainment, especially as more technology is incorporated into the design and the puzzles become more elaborate.
They have already come a long way since the original game room designs that were mostly pen and paper puzzles to the multimedia interactive experiences that we can enjoy today.
As more rooms open around the world, each tries new techniques and challenges to stand out from the crowd, building on the successful ideas from already existing rooms.
With such variety, there is something for everyone in escape rooms. Some of the puzzles will involve solving mathematical equations, while others require reading through articles or matching objects.
There are also themed rooms, such as sports, pop culture, dinosaurs, zombies, and countless more. These are each exhilarating in their own rite.
Escape rooms stand head and shoulders above every other source of entertainment in the industry - just ask anyone who has been to one.
Are you ready?
It's simple to find an escape room near you. Just go to www.escaperoom.com and sign up with your Facebook or Google account. From there, you select your city, choose the escape room experience you want to enjoy, and just Escape!
And, hey! Don't forget to put your best outfit on!
Over the years, escape rooms have proven to be ideal places for first dates, and people have even started hosting birthday parties at escape rooms.
They not only cater to young adults and employees looking for a team-building activity - but they also have escape games designed especially for kids, families, and even seniors.
This article is intended to provide more information about escape rooms to all of the soon-to-be escapists out there.
That being said, we would greatly appreciate any and all pointers that our experienced escapists have to offer. As always, please share your thoughts in the comments.
You, as a team, get locked in a thematic room. You have a set time to escape the room by solving a series of clues, puzzles and nail-biting challenges. Can you?What is an Escape Room ? You, as a team, get locked in a thematic room. You have a set time to escape the room by solving a series of clues, puzzles and nail-biting challenges. Can you?
