Reflection (escape rooms): Let Us Lock You Up for an Hour for Fun

is the essence of escape rooms. Imagine the first people to have played escape rooms:

A: “Hey, let me lock you up in this room.”

B: “Wait, what? Why? What did I do?”

A: “Nothing. It’s just for fun :)”

B: “But wait wha…” [gets locked up]

A: “Good luck!” [tosses key away]

Ian Bogost would have said that the mechanics/system inherent in escape rooms are fun, and the rules surrounding escape room systems are just fencing, or a subset, of the prison system. The fun was already there; the rules just brought it out. I agree with this sentiment, but I don’t think the account above would make a very compelling game. Yet our games were fun: we were completely immersed in the room before we knew anything specific about the room. Standing outside in the lobby, we eyed the top scorers and already had set a mental note that we wanted to beat 29 minutes (1st place) or 34 minutes (the highest time on the leaderboard). I was ready (to pretend that I’m smart.)

Because we were in this “adrenalized” state, everyone was on the same page: we will finish, and we will finish it fast. This goal/feeling pushed us throughout the 42 minutes we were stuck in the rooms.

After we were done, however, I did feel a little disappointed at the design of our specific room. The room was very linear, and the clues were presented to us one at a time. This definitely helped Kesler, who never felt he was working on the wrong puzzle. Although presenting a lot of puzzles at once would overwhelm and frustrate the players, I would have liked to see more parallel puzzles that could be solved at once. That way, we would always work on the right puzzle while still having the freedom of choosing what to solve first. I also didn’t enjoy the theme; the previous escape I was at created a narrative arc as we solved puzzles, or at certain time intervals. In this specific room, I lost track of why I needed to leave.

I’d like to think of escape rooms as cooperative Inform7 (interactive fiction) games. I love puzzle solving, and escape rooms are (IMHO) the superior version of IF games. They allow the players to be immersed in all senses to the experience, while adding a social factor to the experience (whether or not that’s worth the money is a different story.) I think the puzzles are diverse enough, and makes the experience better as everyone in the group got to contribute to escaping.

Overall, I actually had a great time. I enjoyed the time with the people I spent it with, and I think that that’s the actual fun of the game: to learn about the people you’re stuck with, in a way that can’t be done with just words.