My Escape Room Adventure
The soft clinks of metal fill the ears of myself and my teammates’, Ashley Stiepler and Zack Barnabae, as we are all locked into our separate puzzles. The young couple sat across from one another, locked to chairs with chains around the girl’s left ankle and the boy’s belt loop. It looked simple for them, however, for me it was not.
I was locked alone in a cage, looking out at the bound couple and the mastermind behind it all: Dee Steeb.
When we were all secured and ready to start, Steeb called for our attention.
“Alright, so we have a few rules,” she said, looking directly at Stiepler and Barnabae, “I have to tell you both this, but don’t leave Kirsten locked up in the cage. In order to get a key that she has, you have to let her out.”
In an instant, her attention would shift to me.
“Kirsten, if you get through the puzzles in your cage before they have a chance to free you, do not give them your keys. Also remember that all of you can shout a code you found or something to us to see if it’s right or not. We want you to have fun and not get stuck. Got it?”
“Yes ma’ams” would resonate against the concrete walls before Steeb would switch gears and start the game.
Welcome to Escape Room Fort Myers LLC, a Fort Myers based escape room company. In June of 2018, Dee Steeb and Sue Svistak bought this company from prior escape room owners and, while small, the two escape rooms they feature bring nothing but joy to the guests who take part.
I found these guys while trying to do a search for horror-themed escape rooms within the Fort Myers area. I would browse the web, coming across a escape room website, World of Escapes, which documents companies within the area of your choosing. That was when I found it: The Game Master.
Its description caught my attention immediately.
“You have awakened to find that the sick mastermind has drugged you, chained you up and locked you up in his bathroom,” it read. “You are the new game pawns in his sick twisted game, and you have the face the ultimate test. You have 60 minutes to prove that your life is worth more than those sacrifices before you. You have no choice, you must escape!”
The rundown from the website would be repeated to us through Steeb, taking on the role of one of the many “escapees” of The Game Master.
“Look, you guys got an hour before he comes back with his knives,” Steeb warned the three of us. “Good luck, all of you.”
The moment Steeb left the room and the door shut behind her, immediately Barnabae called out to Stiepler, “OK, babe, what does your lock deal with? Letters or numbers?”
“Numbers, what about yours?”
I would only tune in for a moment before attending to the first puzzle that awaited me in my own trap: three math questions, each getting increasingly tedious as they went on. First one? Easy-peasy! Second one? OK, just a bit tricky, but okay! Third? Oh my God, what does P.E.M.D.A.S. stand for again?
I got the first two answers without a problem, but apparently, I had been stuck on this problem for a while, as the couple managed to free themselves from their confines and were already onto their next puzzle.
I began to quietly panic as I stared at this piece of paper, managing to presumably solve the last problem. Immediately, I’d rush to my first lock and put in the supposed code.
No luck.
I’d shout out, asking if my code was correct, wondering if Steeb could really hear me and she wasn’t just messing with us. I’d hear a ding and I’d look to the lone television screen sitting in our room, sporting our countdown timer and writing.
“Last number is wrong. First two are right.”
Great.
I’d try one more crack at it, but I’d hear a scream come from my end and the slam of metal. It was Stiepler, finding another clue and even a key. They had moved onto the next clue, only making me grumble in annoyance. I needed to solve this puzzle and I needed help.
“Hey, uh.. Zack, Ashley, is one of you good with math?”
Stiepler was quick to answer, “Zack is.”
Immediately, I began feeding the paper out of my trap to Barnabae.
Minutes had passed and my equation was solved. Immediately, I went to the first lock. It worked! A remember smiling widely and immediately unlocked the box, only to see a new piece of paper standing in my way.
I remember my smile dropping. We were really doing this, weren’t we? I looked to the two remaining boxes and realized that more paper puzzles would be standing before me the moment I unlocked them.
This was going to be a long hour.
While I tended to my own puzzles, Barnabae and Stiepler would focus on their own to help us all. As they fired off numbers at one another, I would write them down on the back of one of our papers, just to help them keep track.
Whenever the two would need something, I’d shout it out to them, even trying to solve the rest of my problems. I managed to get through three of my boxes in total before I heard a combination from Barnabae and Stiepler.
“Guys, what was that?”
They repeated the combination to me. I would remain silent for a second before it clicked with me.
“Try that on my cage lock.”
Immediately, Stiepler moved towards the gate of my prison and with enough fiddling from both myself and her, we managed to free me from the hell that was my prison.
It felt so much nicer to help the two out in a physical ray now. We were both able to power through the escape room now that I was free and we had more hands to do everything.
However, we kind of remained silent while we solved the remaining puzzles in the room, only helping one another when needed. We were focused and asked for help from Steeb only twice.
There was even a small moment when she had to stop the timer and come in to help us with one of the locks since it wouldn’t click.
“Our locks are super sensitive. They need to be on the number exactly,” I remember her saying.
Soon enough, we were putting in the last combination to free us from the entire room. The moment we heard a click, Sue Svistak, the other owner of the company, stood on the other side of the door.
“Congratulations, you guys!” she’d exclaim.
The three of us cheered immediately, high-fiving one another for a job well done. This was my first escape room and it was on a team with strangers. Who knew that I could have so much fun with it?
Stiepler and Barnabae were amazing teammates and I was so happy I got to be a part of something with them.
All-in-all, my first escape room was really fun. I hope to go back to this company at one point because of the experience I have and I hope that I could try this entire room again in order to beat my time!
I’m coming for you, Dee. Get ready!
