Apr

Meet the Challenge: Escape Rooms of the World

by Meredith Mullins on April 9, 2018

Detective with magnifying glass, part of the new trend of escape rooms around the world which enable cultural encounters and teach life lessons. (Image © demaerre/iStock.)

Everyone loves a challenge.
© demaerre/iStock

Cultural Encounters, Adrenaline, and Life Lessons—All in a Day’s Fun

I couldn’t help but get excited. Maybe a little nervous. I’d heard about it. I’d read about it. People had described the experience in a way that was seductive and sense-heightening. It was time to go for it. To see for myself.

Of course, I’m talking about escape rooms—the newest game phenomenon taking root around the world and offering cultural encounters of the mind-challenging kind.

Escape rooms are more than just a game, though. They’re theatre, mystery, teamwork, logic, puzzle solving, deciphering, intellectual sport, and, most of all, real-life fun.

Sherlock Holmes violin in the Exodus Escape Room in Monterey, California, one of the escape rooms around the world that offers cultural encounters and life lessons. (Image © Richard Green/Exodus Escape Room.)

Sherlock’s violin sets the stage.
© Richard Green/Exodus Escape Room

You’re Sherlock Holmes, Harry Houdini, Indiana Jones, Nancy Drew, Inspectors Poirot and Clouseau, Columbo, Harry Potter, and Jessica Fletcher all rolled into one.

And, if your main purpose is fun, you are also a child again.

Ladder to an escape opening, not typical of escape rooms around the world where cultural encounters and life lessons abound. (Image © Peshkov/iStock.)

Escape is not this easy in the escape rooms of the world.
© Peshkov/iStock

For those of us who spend too much time in front of a screen of one kind or another, when we step into a world of make believe that actually has tangible elements and human teamwork, it’s a welcome treat. Add to that the challenge of the hunt, and we’re in game heaven.

I was ready. I had trained watching quiz shows like Jeopardy and reality shows like Survivor. I had scored 800 on my math SATs (albeit many years ago). I was a daily sudoku player who was also immersed in a second language (brain activity . . . check!). And I reveled in detective mysteries.

Bring it on.

Sherlock Holmes study at the Exodus Escape Room in Monterey, California, one of the escape rooms around the world, where cultural encounters and life lessons abound. (Image © Richard Green.)

Sherlock’s Study—the setting for a race against time to escape
© Richard Green/Exodus Escape Room

What is an Escape Room?

An escape room is a kind of physical adventure game where a team of people are locked in a room and have to figure out how to escape within a certain amount of time.

The players must work individually and as a team to discover clues, find hidden objects, solve problems and puzzles, answer riddles, unlock locked safes and boxes, and think creatively and strategically as a team.

Sherlock Holmes items on a desk in the Exodus escape room in Monterey, California, one of the escape rooms around the world that offers cultural encounters and life lessons. (Image © Richard Green/Exodus Escape Room.)

Which of these items has a hidden clue? Perhaps all of them?
© Richard Green/Exodus Escape Room

Since there are more than 3000 escape rooms in the world, they can take many forms. You can escape from a room set in specific time period (Sherlock Holmes, Roaring 20s), or you can escape from a prison or a dungeon or a space station.

You can rob a bank, find a missing person, solve a murder, be an adventurer, defuse a bomb, or capture (or be) a spy. The themes are creative and endless, and, more often than not, fit within the culture of the country.

Casino setting at The Game in Paris, France, one of the escape rooms around the world that offers cultural encounters and life lessons. (Image © The Game/Paris.)

It’s time to rob the Royal Casino. Can you make the heist in the one-hour time limit?
Photo courtesy of The Game/Paris

Cultural Encounters While Escaping

Escape rooms around the world all have different themes—settings and characters that have meaning to the particular country and culture—for example, a metro car, a casino heist, a haunted house, an espionage center, or the catacombs.

Metro car in Paris, one of the escape rooms around the world, where cultural encounters and life lessons abound. (Image © The Game, Paris.)

In Paris, one of the escape rooms is a metro car.
Photo courtesy of The Game/Paris.

In Berlin, you escape to the other side of the wall, and send a message to tear the wall down. In Ontario, Canada, you participate in the Ontario Gold Rush of 1866. In a replica of 18^thcentury Zagreb, you find a passage so you can save an innocent woman accused of witchcraft from burning at the stake. There’s even an escape igloo at a ski resort in Slovenia.

Other cultural adjustments also exist. In the U.S., you can be teamed with strangers. In some other cultures, working with strangers would never be forced.

In all cases, the gamemaster explains the problem to be solved, and what may and may not be touched, lifted, or moved during the experience. (Everything not mentioned is fair game.) The door is locked (well, not in all cases, due to legal liabilities, but you get the idea). And the adrenaline rush begins. The clock is ticking. It’s a race against time.

Catacombs, one of The Game escape rooms in Paris, France, one of the escape rooms around the world that offers cultural encounters and life lessons. (Image © The Game, Paris.)

The Catacombs Escape Room: Dark, dangerous, gloomy and captivating. Enter at your own risk.
Photo courtesy of The Game/Paris

Five Escape Room Life Lessons

What happened to my team in my virgin escape room experience? We had to find a murderer in the era of Sherlock Holmes.

We were a bit timid at first (since we didn’t all know each other and we hadn’t yet figured out how to work as a team), but we fell into the rhythm, used our individual talents wisely, and escaped the room with 15 minutes to spare.

The exhilaration of solving the final clue and finding the key to escape was a proud victory, especially since only 50% of the teams working our room had actually escaped within the time limit. We weren’t on the leader board, but we were in the top 50%.

Can we reveal any secrets? No. Escape room ethics dictate, “What happens in the escape room, stays in the escape room.”

Bookshelf in the Exodus Escape Room in Monterey, California, one of the escape rooms around the world that offers cultural encounters and life lessons. (Image © Richard Green/Exodus Escape Room.)

Aside from having a fun adventure, my real “Oh, I see” moment came when I realized that the five things I learned from the escape room experience were also good life lessons.

Appreciate that everyone has unique skills. A great team works well together but also thinks differently, finds unique paths, reaches conclusions in different ways, and thinks outside the box.
Divide and conquer, but keep clear lines of communication. Use everyone’s specific skills to benefit of the team and to make effective use of time, but, while working independently, let the team know what clues have been found and what puzzles have been solved.
Don’t be afraid to ask for help. (In the escape-room world, the gamemaster is watching and can provide hints if needed to keep the team from getting stuck or frustrated.)

Narrow room with violin case in the Exodus Escape Room, one of the escape rooms around the world that offers cultural encounters and life lessons. (Image © Richard Green/Exodus Escape Room.)

Don’t stop searching. (Look everywhere for clues. Crawl under things, turn things over, look behind things, empty drawers and pockets. Check and double check.)
Enjoy the experience. You don’t have to “win.” (But it would be nice not to be locked in the room forever.)

Am I now an escape room addict (diplomatically called “enthusiast”)? Possibly.

I can imagine a road trip with cultural encounters in Estonia, Hungary, Romania, Cyprus, Japan, Australia, and the Netherlands . . . and all the other countries with growing escape room opportunties.

And, even if I stay home, the escape room life lessons are worth living.