Have you ever done an escape room? My two highly competitive, game-loving daughters took me to one last weekend and it was a blast.
I have to admit I was a bit leery. An escape room is a game where you and your team are literally locked in a room and must solve a variety of logic games, puzzles, and other clues to discover a way out. Wikipedia says that live action escape rooms were inspired by early first-person adventure video games where players clicked on-screen objects. The first live action escape room was built in Japan in 2007.
Escape room companies have sprung up around the world, and the best ones theme the room, so players could be working to recover an ancient artifact, escape from a haunted lighthouse, or get the crew of disabled space station to an escape pod before the oxygen runs out. Don’t worry, it’s all pretend.
The scenarios are pretend, but the excitement isn’t. Teams have one hour to escape the room and as soon as the door is locked behind you and the game master turns on the clock, the adrenaline starts pumping.
Our game was The Agency, a James Bond-esque adventure set in a room with a sixties, CIA theme. That’s all I can tell you. The gamemaster swore us to secrecy.
I can tell you that our team worked well together but still lost. I found a couple of clues and totally misinterpreted one. We fought valiantly, but missed getting out of the room by mere seconds as the room rang with the alarm of a sixties era nuclear-powered submarine.
I thought writing mysteries would give me a leg up in this adventure but no dice. However, reading them does: the mystery reader’s suspicion that EVERYTHING IS IMPORTANT AND MAY BE A CLUE is key. Logic, out of the box thinking, and sharing clues with the team are other escape room essentials.
As a mystery writer, I was impressed by the flow of the clues. The way one clue led to another made me think of plotting and outlining. How I wish I were an outliner! Sorry, I digress.
Only 21% of teams get out of The Agency, so I felt a bit better about our failure. So near, yet so far. That ultimate clue that the whole team missed? I can’t tell you what it was, but it, and its placement, were worthy of Dame Agatha herself.
Have you ever done an escape room? If not, would you try one?
