In Escape Rooms, Video Games Meet Real Life(nytimes.com) |
In Escape Rooms, Video Games Meet Real Life(nytimes.com) |
I also did their Escape from the Bank (themed after the aftermath of a bank robbery), where I think my team was the only one to make it out. That event is possibly less awesome because you're seated at a table in a big hall with a lot of other teams around you, rather than exploring small room all by yourselves.
Now I'm looking forward to trying the games in New York City!
I'd like to do it again but would like to go with people who have actually have played escape games (esp. Japanese) before.
I think as our natural environment continues to become safer and more virtualized, these immersive adventures and ARGs will become more popular and mainstream.
It'd be interesting if they could be random enough that someone couldn't spoil it for others, and people could use AR or just wi-fi to research clues?
Otherwise someone could get the full experience by going in with the instructions written down and pull it out of their pocket in the last five minutes if they'd failed to escape.
I use it mostly as a 2nd/3rd date to find out how people handle stress/cooperate, but they're really fun too.
"Four mathematicians who do not know each other are invited by a mysterious host on the pretext of resolving a great enigma. The room in which they find themselves turns out to be a shrinking room..."
Here's the trailer (w/ subs) https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=f8fS74Y-qBs
Different organizations go to different lengths to make the activity feel more immersive, some are great, some are meh. Sometimes the group is so big, it can get very chaotic with everyone running around looking for clues.
The only downside is once they reveal the clues/answers, it can be frustrating if they were impossible to solve in the first place.
The puzzles are fairly challenging (no one in my session of 30 teams/180 people) finished with an entirely correct solution, so it's satisfying when your team solves certain parts.