Escape Room Reflection
Last Thursday, I went with a few members of my game design class to play an Escape Room. It was a very interesting experience, and we had a lot of fun, which is exactly what I aim to analyze.
We started the adventure when we were led into a curtained-off area and shown a short video detailing the premise of the Escape Room we were about to enter. The one we played was called The Joker’s Asylum, themed around the life of an insane criminal who had locked two hostages in a hospital and was threatening the four person rescue team sent to free them. The entire Escape Room was themed in this way, from the red and black card-themed wallpaper to the large paintings of the Joker providing us subtle, clever hints on the shelves. The entire time, we felt like we were chasing down the history of the Joker, trying to discover why he behaved the way he did in the hopes that this discovery would grant us our freedom. The way that the clues to the puzzles were intertwined with the clues about the Joker made me feel like I was getting to know him better and better, and that escape would be equivalent to getting to know the Joker. At the end, I thought that the reason the Joker pulled this hostage stunt was just some elaborate call for help.
The two hostages were members of our group, myself and Danny, and the rescue team contained the rest of the group. This, of course, required that our two groups be separated at the beginning of the Escape Room, our only form of connection a landline phone in the corner of our room. The rest of the team was trapped in a different room, and we had to coordinate between us in order to solve the first few puzzles and bridge the gap. The first contact we were allowed was through a metal grate, followed by allowing us through a secret passage to meet up with the rescue team.
The room masters allowed us one hint per room, and we ended up using a few of them to deal with some issues we were having. One of the puzzles didn’t seem to be working, for example, so we confirmed our strategy with the game masters. I was worried that doing so would break immersion, but it didn’t really feel like that while playing. The game managers had given us a walkie talkie with which to communicate with them if need be, and asking for a hint felt more like we were a rescue team talking to police HQ rather than players asking for a hint.
Playing in real life as opposed to on a board or computer created an interesting dynamic between the players and the game world, and between the players themselves. Games generally feel like closed systems; there are only a certain number of states that can be reached on a board game, there are world boundaries in video games, and there are only so many outcomes in interactive fiction. The Escape Room, contrary to my expectations, actually felt the same way. I expected it to be a lot like D&D, in which anything can be attempted and any crazy idea can be accommodated, but in the Escape Room, every chest, lock, and key felt like collectible items, and every wall painting, prop, or other hint felt like the same kind of immutable scenery you’d find in a video game. This created a fascinating dynamic in that we felt like the world we were in had extremely well-defined borders and limitations, which is true to some extent in our daily lives, but was much more pronounced during our adventure.
All in all, the Escape Room was an excellent way to try out a game in which we ourselves were pieces on the board, and the board was wrapped around us to create a fun and immersive experience. I’d love to try out more escape rooms in the future, and maybe get good enough to actually finish next time!
