Who here has done one of these ‘Escape Room’ type experiences? Was it fun? How challenging was it? What sort of problem-solving is required (all mental, some physical, etc)?
What’s the optimal number of people to do it with?
I really like the idea of this, but I wonder if the actual experience might be underwhelming.
I’d love to do one with a little more to it than just ‘escape from this room’. Like where you have to figure something else out, a bit more of a plot (who’s the murderer? or the like).
I was briefly on an old-fashioned cruise ship and all I could think of was what a perfect set-up it was for a live-action ‘Death on the Nile’ game.
I did one for a friend’s birthday. It was really fun. We didn’t complete it, we were one puzzle short from getting out. I’d do it again, but I’d make sure we had a full group. We got paired up with a group of three, which included two teenagers. They definitely slowed us down (especially because we weren’t going to be dicks about things and let them participate fully).
We’ve had a few threads about this already, so I think a lot of your questions could be answered there.
IMO most of the puzzles seem to be visual and logic based. Gather these 6 dice, each die has one side colored yellow, there is a yellow box that needs 6 numbers, and a sheet of paper has a math equation written in yellow. Put them all together and you have the lock. It’s mostly stuff like that.
I love them, have done a good 6 or 7 and would do them every day if I could.
How many people? Honestly it depends on the room and the people. I’ve had as few as three and as many as a dozen. The dozen utilized big rooms and ended up pretty OK, most times the 3 or 4 work out best. Although you question shouldn’t be “How many people” it should be “is the room public or private”. Private rooms are just you and your party. Public rooms can have random people off the street. The room with a dozen people used random people off the street who ended up literally costing us the game. But I just did a room with 3 people in it that could have used another 2 or so because the puzzles were complicated and huge.
If you can do it, do it! Find a private room and go to town!
The puzzles generally require a bit of getting used to; they’re, well, escape room puzzles. It’s a class of hint-and-next-step problem solving that really isn’t like anything else. Sometimes the next step is kind of cool, and sometimes it’s too easy, and sometimes it’s just absurd.
We have done one and where we went wrong from the beginning was thinking we had to escape only one room when actually it was a series of rooms. Had we know that we probably would have made it out.
I’ve had bookshelves open to reveal other rooms, and a friend of mine apparently did one in 'Sisco that involved removing a toilet and kinda-sorta climbing behind it.
But they can’t, like, literally lock you in a room. I’m pretty sure that’s illegal and against fire codes.
There are dozens of different types of rooms with challenges that are mental, physical, team building, and all variations of the above. Take a look on the 'net in your area for reviews and descriptions.
For my sister-in-law’s birthday we did two different experiences. The first was not an “escape room” but has some similarities. The only US instance of Boda Borg is a real hoot. There are 17 challenges that are physical, intellectual, or a combination. You are expected to fail multiple times since you have no knowledge going in, and have no idea what is expected of you. It takes anywhere from 10 seconds to 2 minutes to fail and we failed out a few of the challenges 10-15 times before succeeding. Some we never beat.
Then we went to a “traditional” escape room. They take up to 12 people, we had a group of 5 and 2 others joined us for a team of 7. A few more people would have been OK, not sure it would have been as much fun with 12. We had to escape from the room before a zombie attached to a steadily lengthening chain got us. In an hour the zombie can reach everywhere in the room so that is your deadline. We escaped with 3 minutes left. Lots of problem solving, some physical work, and the range of knowledge by the team helped. There were two workers in there helping us in subtle ways; we probably wouldn’t have solved it without them.
I don’t think I’d ever be able to do one of those real-life rooms, because I know that I’d go too lateral. A computer game can constrain you to a particular solution, but in the real world, there are just too many edge cases to cover. Maybe that funny-shaped piece of metal was meant to just be a clue to the combination lock on the wall safe, but it can also be used to loosen a particular bolt, thus skipping over the fifteen steps you were supposed to go through to find the wrench. And once someone realizes that, you can change the shape of the piece of metal so it doesn’t work any more, but maybe now it can be used to pry the cover off of that box instead, and so on.
They were very clear in the instructions for us and there was someone in the room to re-enforce the idea that you don’t need to force or dismantle anything. They quickly stopped you from going down that path. I can’t speak for all escape rooms, but that seemed pretty basic.
The one nearest us looks quite small. It promises that only 25% succeed. I’m wondering if the instructions being in our second language might wind up being a problem. Suppose I’ll have to find a native to go with us
They don’t really work that way. You are not allowed to dissemble anything, nor just break the glass on the bookcase to get to the clue.
One cool thing in a room I did was a tablet they gave you that you could hold up to various paintings and see animations in the tablet and sometimes get a clue.
Do the real-life ones actually use no tools at all, then, and it’s all just combination locks with funny symbols on them? Because as soon as you introduce tools of any sort, you introduce the possibility that a tool intended for one puzzle can also be improvised to replace the tool intended for a different puzzle. And I can think of nothing that would ruin the fun for me quicker than an employee saying “no, that’s not how you’re supposed to do it”.
They are also very direct in saying that each clue is used only once. So any tool that is being used will only have one application and then 'tis no more.
The one we were at had a similar published success rate. My guess is that the published numbers are much lower than the actual numbers - to make the room sound like more of a challenge and to give the guests an inflated sense of accomplishment when they succeed.
That looks awesome! I hope more locations are coming soon!
We took one of my Scout patrols to one last week. 7 boys (11-13) and 2 adults.
It was really fun but became really chaotic due to the difficulty, lack of organizational skills, and attentions spans. We eventually stepped in to help and were solving the last puzzle when time ran out.
I’d say the optimum group would be between 3-5 people who can work together. You can’t have any “lone wolfs” but you need someone to coordinate the group by focussing on the current puzzle and keeping track of clues and information.
