My Escape Room Experience
I have a new dream now. I’m going to own an escape room business. It’s the perfect fit for me! I like solving puzzles, but also reading and making stories. Also art. Also planning social experiences for people. Escape rooms have all of these.
Frankly, I was super tired going in to the escape room on Thursday. I was exhausted from 20+ job interviews I’ve had this quarter, as well as a week 9 midterm. I was literally sick and tired. I was skeptical about the escape room, too. What if we don’t get out in time? Wouldn’t that just add on to my feeling of depletion and defeated-ness?
Very luckily, I was part of a super smart team. Which made it highly rewarding and exhilarating to make it out all together. We talked about how this wouldn’t be as fun if it were between complete strangers, but maybe not that fun if it were between people too close with each other (I know that I’d spend 3/4 of the time arguing with my brothers if we tried to escape together). Classmates who have seen each other a lot but are not suuuper close. That was what we were and that was perfect for escape rooms.
I thought about what kind of funs were in this game. There was fellowship, for sure. (Would anyone do a escape room by him/herself?) There was the challenge of solving the puzzles. And there was the narrative aspect of the story of the room we were trying to escape. Also, there was the fantasy of being in an unknown world, trying to get out! Ohmygosh, so many funs.
After playing Dark Altar, I shared my experience with a friend who is crazy about VRs. Crazy as in, she would try to think of VR versions of everything. When I brought up that I want to own an escape room business, she LOLed. And then she suggested “what about VR escape rooms?”
“Wait, I think we just found a startup idea,” I said.
“Um actually no. They sound very uninteresting,” she replied.
I thought about it. What would a successful VR escape room be like? I think that has a lot of potential. It could be as beautiful as a movie yet aggressively economical, provided one has the right VR tools. I think the biggest hurdle in achieving this would be getting VR to a point where a user can be in it for an hour and not feel awkward or nauseous. But I also think VR escape rooms would take out fellowship from the fun. It would be hard to recreate the fellowship in a VR simulation setting, especially with strangers.
Oh, well. But whatever! Here’s to all the escape rooms around the world I will go to!!
