Escape Rooms

[Clodfobble]

Have you guys heard of this wildly popular new form of entertainment? Basically you and a handful of other people get locked in a room with lots of props and a fanciful backstory, and you have to find the clues to solve the puzzles and escape before your 60 minutes are up. It's the live-action version of classic Sierra adventure games.

We did our first one tonight (truth be told, the minute I found out such a thing existed I told Mr. Clod "Oh my God we are going how could I not want to do this??") and it was, indeed, balls-out fun. We ended up in the hardest room our place offered, mostly because we scheduled it on short notice and it was the one that still had spots left for the evening run. We literally started out in handcuffs, and escaped with 2 minutes 41 seconds to spare. (Okay, we got a few hints along the way. They start you out with a walkie-talkie you can use to ask the game coordinator a set number of hints.)

And now we're going to do every single one in Austin.

[Griff]

We have two rooms running at work for fundraising porpoises. I guess we're the first in the area. Lil Pete did one with her friends so Philly must have at least one.

[glatt]

Awesome!

And how was the group dynamic? You were with strangers. were there some people who just stood there quietly and did nothing? We everyone talking at once? Was there a strong intelligent person who assumed the leader role, or a dumb loudmouth who did the same? I would think the group dynamic would be the key.

[Clodfobble]

Yeah, they recommend reserving the whole room with a group of your friends, if you can. Our group was decent, though.

Suburban middle-aged couple and their young 20-ish son: the couple were helpful and eager but weren't intuitive about standard puzzle game tropes, like if there's a block of random letters painted on the wall that's probably going to be a clue. Both were calm and communicative though. The dad especially seemed to maybe have a blue-collar foreman kind of job where you are aware of your own limitations and good at getting people to rise to their own tasks. Their son was the gamer, and a bit of a loudmouth like you described, but there was so much going on (multiple puzzles had to be solved by people shouting information across the room at each other) that it wasn't really possible for any one person to take over, and he was hip with the kinds of clues that were obviously clues.

Then a young couple in the 19-21 range. The guy was good but not a leader, excellent right-hand-man-type; the girl sweet but minimal initiative. She had the notepad to write things down on, and mostly did whatever anyone told her to do.

Leadership was mostly taken up by Mr. Clod and the foreman jointly, which you could tell the 20-something son was a little irritated about. Meanwhile I would go over, figure out a puzzle by myself, and report back to them that it had been solved. There were a few where Mr. Clod and the foreman would take stock of the situation, with "Okay, we still have the chest, the computer password--" and I'd be like, "no, I opened the chest, that's where I got the key I gave you." "How did you get the chest open?" "Doesn't matter, I'll tell you later."

Group cohesion completely broke at the end, though. The final lock had three numbers, and a clue that indicated that each number in the code was the total number of three different items spread across the entire three-room set. We had six minutes left and the panicking started. The initial count we all agreed on for the items didn't work, and suddenly everyone was running between multiple rooms yelling numbers and not trusting anyone else's count. Turns out one item was hidden underneath a shelf, and the puzzle creators also counted the name of an item that was written in one location instead of the item itself.

Plus, there were a few red herrings that never got used. Even a group of seasoned gamers who knew each other well would have a hard time getting out in time without some hints. In an hour and a half, it could be done. But with just an hour, you had to be solving a puzzle and opening a lock every 4 and a half minutes. I guess there's a reason they call it their hardest room, though.

[xoxoxoBruce]

Kill and eat the others then use their bones to make weapons to kill the jailers when they open the door.

[Pamela]

Sounds like great fun. I must see if Dallas has this.

[classicman]

Very cool.

[limey]

Sounds like my personal idea of hell. But each to their own ...

[monster]

^wss

[sexobon]

Maybe they can develop it into SERE-S (Survival, Evasion, Resistance and Escape - Suburbanite level). It'll be the recreational version of military SERE (levels A, B, and C) training.