The clock is ticking backward from sixty minutes, the game has begun! You and your friends sift through various objects, looking for some sort of clue. One of the people in your group sees something. “Look,” she exclaims, “I think these letters mean something!”
If this scenario sounds familiar, you’ve likely been to an escape room. The first escape room in the U.S. opened just five years ago. Called “Real Escape Game” (and later, “Real Escape Room”), Kazuya Iwata started it in San Francisco as a branch of his friend Takao Kato’s escape game company in Japan. At first, Kazuya only ran real escape games — large group puzzle-solving events that didn’t involve escaping from a room. “Escape from the Mysterious Room,” which opened December 2012, was their first actual escape room.
Teams of up to twelve people , consisting of friends or strangers , were locked in a room and given 60 minutes to escape and asked to complete three basic tasks : scour the room for clues , arrange the clues into puzzles , and solve those puzzles . The ultimate solution of all the puzzles opened the door out of the room.
Since that time, the growth of escape rooms has been nothing short of revolutionary. There are now escape rooms in all 50 states , and according to RoomEscapeArtist.com, there are over 1 ,700 in the U.S. alone (with thousands more worldwide) .
The first U.S. -based escape room company, Puzzle Break, was founded in Seattle in August 2013 by Nate Mart in and Dr. Lindsay Morse . For their first room, “Escape from Studio D,” Morse designed all the puzzles . “At the time, there were no other escape rooms in the country except ‘Escape from the Mysterious Room’ in San Francisco, which Lindsay and I had already played,” Mart in reminisces . “I wanted to play another escape room.”
In their four-year history, Puzzle Break has brought innovation to the escape room industry. From magical boxes with custom built technology, to an escape room on a cruise ship and a team escape competition, Puzzle Break has been able to continually thrill and surprise their customers .
This story is from the Summer 2017 edition of Casual Game Insider.
Start your 7-day Magzter GOLD free trial to access thousands of curated premium stories, and 8,500+ magazines and newspapers.
Already a subscriber ? Sign In
This story is from the Summer 2017 edition of Casual Game Insider.
Start your 7-day Magzter GOLD free trial to access thousands of curated premium stories, and 8,500+ magazines and newspapers.
Already a subscriber? Sign In
GAME REVIEWS
This little card game takes only a couple of minutes to teach, but is surprisingly engaging and full of fun.
Fun Is No Mystery with: Scorpion masqué
Scorpion Masqué is a Montreal-based board game publisher founded in 2006 by former literature teacher and game enthusiast Christian Lemay
PAGE TURNERS: Games Unfurl Their Majestic Pages
Have you picked up a good book lately? Perhaps you've struggled to find inspirational reading material
Josh Cappel: A Man of Many Hats
The name Josh Cappel is synonymous with variety. If you have a shelf of board games, it's likely that at least one of them has been touched by Cappel
PLAY FUNKOVERSE LIKE A PRO
Have you ever heard about the Funkoverse board game series? If not, then you are in for a real treat
PASSPORT TO FUN: This Summer's Sizzling New Casual Games
From a quaint festival in Portugal to impending doom in ancient China, or from the peaceful tranquility of a Japanese garden to the tarmac of the Montréal airport, the new casual board games of the summer of 2023 read like a captivating travel brochure
Scram! CRITTERS VS. CAMPERS
One team faces another in Bezier Games' latest card-shedding gam
Hand-to-Hand Wombat is Major Fun!
The Concept - No one knows why wombats enjoy architecture. A desire to build towers is buried deep in their bones. But there are exceptions: wicked wombats, born to make trouble.
A Part-Time Venture Creating Full-Time Fun
hawn Stankewich, along with co-founders Robb Melvin and Molly Johnson, started Seattle-based Flatout Games in 2017. Robb and Shawn lived in the same dorm in college and developed a friendship through playing board games. Molly was already into games when she met Shawn and Robb in 2013. After four years of friendship and playing games, they decided to design their own.
THE KULTURE OF GAMES:
How Board Games Continue to Reflect Growing & Emergent Communities