Escape rooms have increasingly been making headlines around the globe as people of all ages and from all walks of life pit their personal smarts against a tiny windowless room.
Why all the fuss? At their most fundamental, getting locked inside an escape room shouldn’t sound like a good time (unless you also think going to jail sounds like a good time).
But there are some key differences. How many jails let you get locked up with your besties? Plus, no jail worth its bars ever promises inmates a way out if they are smart enough to find it!
In 2014, the escape room headcount hovered around 22 rooms. By 2018, more than 2,000 escape games had sprung up across the country. Individuals, couples, families, work teams, whole groups take advantage of the fun bonding experience that is the escape room experience.
After all, why settle for the silver screen or even virtual reality when you can have real reality for an entire day or night? Read on to learn why visiting an escape room should be on your bucket list!
What Exactly IS an “Escape Room?”
We are glad you asked! If you have ever watched any of the “Indiana Jones” movies, you already have a pretty good idea. An escape room is a small space that you have to try to get out of.
That is it in a nutshell.
Some escape rooms allow as few as two players while other larger rooms may require four, six, or eight players. But the number of players will always be somewhat limited because most rooms are, well, room-sized. So only a certain number of players will fit at one time.
Each escape room will have its own process to find clues that lead to the escape route. That is the fun of an escape room!
How Do Escape Games Work?
Escape games work on a team-based approach to solving a puzzle. They require your brain power, not brawn power.
Everyone has something to contribute, and everyone has to solve the puzzle before the team gets out of the room.
Most escape games are designed to last about one hour unless it specifically states otherwise.
While each escape room will set its own unique policies, escape games are generally costume-friendly and welcoming to anyone ages 12 and older.
Themed Escape Games Let You Be the Star
For many visitors, what makes escape rooms so fun, special, and worth many repeat visits are the themes.
Take Indiana Jones, for example. Some escape rooms operate on an Indiana Jones theme where you and your team become Indy and his team trying to sleuth out an escape route.
Are you a Sherlock Holmes or Harry Potter fan? How fun would it be to pretend you are your favorite characters and team up to find a way to escape?
From local legends to actual historical events, futuristic scenarios to literary or filmography tales, escape rooms offer all the same excitement as watching a movie or playing a video game, but you get to play the leading role.
Escape Games Are Great for Work Team-Building
Whether your work team is a tight-knit family or a collection of diehard separatists, an escape room experience is guaranteed to enhance your future collaborations.
Quite simply, you have to work together to find a way out of the room. There are no “Lone Rangers” in escape rooms. There is only the team and whether each person chooses to work with their teammates to find a way out or not.
The goal of the team is to find clues. These clues are often hidden in puzzles. By sharing thoughts, ideas, and strategies, the team solves each puzzle, puts the clues together, and locates the exit point.
Escape Games Bring Fantasy to Life
In the wake of popularity explosions for live events such as Comic-Con and cosplay role-playing, it is really no wonder escape rooms have also become wildly popular.
You can choose and own your own character in a real-life setting where you get to see the experience through from start to finish. You can even dress up in full character to further immerse yourself in the experience of working through the puzzles.
Because you don’t know how the story will end (except that you will eventually exit the room), every moment is a surprise where your own smarts have a great deal to do with the final result.
Escape rooms are great memory-makers, which is why so many families are now trading in one of their regularly scheduled board game nights or movie nights for a fun, family-friendly outing to an escape room together.
Escape Games Open Your Mind to New Possibilities
There is no escaping the fact that so much of daily life is simply more of the same. At its most extreme, sometimes the daily monotony of life itself can seem like an escape room from which there is no escape!
When you enter an escape room, everything becomes new again. Familiar objects and situations take on new dimensions. People you know well surprise you with fresh ideas and innovative insights.
On one level, the escape room experience is a fantasy for sure. But on another level, it is your daily life brought to life in a way that ensures absolutely none of it will feel ordinary or mundane.
In this way, you can view escape games as a way to exercise your brain instead of your body. During your escape game, you will be pitting your brainpower against the puzzle at hand. But don’t be surprised if, like so many escape game players, your brain later starts generating all kinds of fresh creative ideas in other areas of your life as well.
A well-exercised brain is a happy brain, and the endorphins generated by successfully solving the puzzle and finding your way out of the room will be your proof that your brain got a great workout!
Should you consider visiting an escape room? After reading about these benefits of playing escape games, a better question might be, “is there any reason why you shouldn’t visit an escape room,” says Number One escape games Las Vegas.
Your brain will love it, and so will your relationships. In any context and within any group, it will bring out your creative side and change the way you see your daily life and regular daily activities.
Best of all, escape games are really fun! If you like amusement parks, video games, movies, television shows, Halloween or a good mystery, you will love escape games!
