Escape room

Real-life room escape games are a type of puzzle simulation games in which you are locked in a room with other participants and have to use elements of the room to solve a series of puzzles, find clues, and escape the room within a set time limit. These games are based off online video games such as Crimson Room and QP-Shot, created by TAKAGISM Inc. by Toshimitsu Takagi in 2005. in which the player is locked inside a room and must explore his or her surroundings in order to escape. Players must be observant and use their critical thinking skills to escape the room.

Real-life room escape games are becoming popular in the United States, Japan, Taiwan and mainland China. Each game integrates local concepts and themes to settings. For example, some games require you escape prison cells while others require you escape space stations or werewolf villages.

History

File:Real life escape(Japan).jpg

Room escape at Ajito of Scrap in Tokyo.

United Kingdom

Hinthunt has set up rooms in London, UK in 2012 and the second London based live escape the room game clueQuest opened in 2013 which offers a secret agent themed scenario and is also run by Hungarians. In Spain, Parapark offer escape the room games.

United States

The earliest real-life room escape, Original Piece, was created in Silicon Valley by a group of system programmers in 2006. The mysteries and challenges in the game were inspired by the works of Agatha Christie. Original Piece became one of the attractions of Silicon Valley. Only 23 people have escaped from the room successfully. Puzzle Break has rooms in Seattle, Washington (as of November 2013) and San Francisco, California (as of April 2014).

In 2013, Enigma Productions, of St. Louis, Missouri, also began staging real-life room escape games called Trapped!: A St. Louis Room Escape. Participants have 60 minutes to work together and solve a series of kinesthetic, linguistic, numerical or logic-based puzzles in order to access the escape key. Two rounds of the game have been produced, with a third in the works for August of 2014.

The Netherlands

Amaze Escape Events opened their rooms in summer 2013 being the pioneers in the Netherlands and they offer 3 different scenarios for the real-life room escape fans: the KGB , The Urban Legend and the Crazy Doctors Experiment rooms.

Hungary

Parapark and ExitPoint Games are the most popular games in Budapest although there are over 35 of such games throughout the city. A lot of bars and clubs rent out or work on a percentage of the sales. http://exitpointgames.hu

Many cities in Hungary have their own rooms, many affiliated with firms in Budapest or franchised.

Romania

Bucharest:

Escape rooms opened in 2014 and are from 2 different firms; one has 2 rooms located in the centre within X Hostel. The success rate is about 20%. The other escape room is in a Tea House in Floreasca. http://escaperooms.ro/

Cluj-Napoca

The Dungeon was the first escape room to open in 2014. Less than 6 months after that other ones opened: PanicRoom and Area51.

The latest is The Museum, which opened at the end of May and presents a more Romanian theme as the backstory. http://www.themuseum.ro/.

Other cities in Romania with Escape Rooms: Oradea, Baia-Mare.

Japan

Real Escape Game (REG) in Japan was developed by 35-year-old Takao Kato, of the Kyoto publishing company, SCRAP Co. in 2008. It is based in Kyoto, Japan and produces a free magazine with the same name. Over 200,000 participants have played the Real Escape Game in Japan, China, Taiwan, Singapore, and the United States since SCRAP was established.

Singapore

Singapore is participating in the Real Escape Game since late 2011. They produced the first installment known as “Volume 1" "Escape from the Mysterious Cathedral.”

Escape room games are becoming more popular and mainstream in the city, with Roomraider SG hosting 5 game themes in its 3,000 square feet venue set in the heart of Singapore's shopping district on Orchard Road.

Mainland China

Date	Incident
2008-10	Real Escape Games arose in civilian houses in Harbin.
2011-09	Real Escape Games started in Shanghai and Hangzhou under the cooperation of Japanese and Shanghai leisure activity companies(BadNews and MaoLivehouse).
2012-01	BBG-Club held Real Escape Games Shanghai and Hangzhou during Lunar New Year.
2012-02	A real escape center, 51taotuo, opened in Beijing.
2012-07	The first Chamber of escape with advanced technology applied opened in Nanjing.
2012-08	Guangzhou's first reality Chamber of escape opened.
2012-09	Beijing "LOST studio" opened.
2012-11	Real Escape business settled in Chengdu.
2012-12	Shenyang’s first launch of reality chamber by the company, “ESCAPE”

The games were so successful that new locations began opening up across China, in cities big and small, according to Want China Times. In the southern city of Shenzhen, for example, the first escape game location opened last August, and seven new game locations quickly followed.

"These real-life escape games can help guys and gals who stay at home on their computers and iPads all day to experience real social circles," Tian Xiaochuan, who owns two room escape game stores in Jinan, told Want China Times.

Earlier this year, The South China Morning Post said the real-life escape games are a hit among “[h]ighly stressed students and overworked young professionals.” Sometimes the excitement becomes a bit much, though, and players get so invested that they tear down equipment or decorations inside their "fake" prisons, as Zhu Yumeng, chief operating officer of Beijing room escape game site Taoquan told China Daily.

Taiwan

Real Escape Game in Taiwan was started in 2012 under the cooperation of the original REG Company, SCRAP and a Taiwanese-based touring company, Comma，Comma. With five themes and the integration of reality and fantasy, the Real Escape phenomenon spread in Taiwan, including Taipei, Taichung and Kaohsiung.

Spain

Real Escape Game in Spain was started in 2012 by PARAPARK, in 2013 appears CRONOLOGIC, the first room escape in Barcelona that includes a real history and graphic adventure, later ROOMIN also offers escape the room games, introducing stories in which you can become the protagonist of the story.

Hong Kong

As early as in 2006, real-life escape games emerged in Hong Kong as group activities for secondary school students organized during joint school camps. One of the earliest organizations organizing non-commercial real-life room escape games was the Union for Young Leaders. In 2008, a student camp jointly organized by the St. Mary Canossian College, La Salle College and Wah Yan College, Kowloon, also featured a large-scale real-life room escape game session with more than 60 participants. Some of the earliest game providers are HKESCAPE, LostHK, The Escape, Mr. Escape and Freeing HK.

Date	Event
2012-11-13	Opening of Freeing HK. 逃出香港(店舖)開幕 http://www.freeinghk.com/ Wiki - Freeing HK
2013-02-16	Soft opening of The Escape
2013-02-20	Opening of Mr. Escape
2013-03-07	It is officially announced that Mr. Escape, another simulated room escape game company, joined Freeing HK as its subsidiary.
2013-03-09	Opening of HKESCAPE
2013-04-1	Opening of Lost HK http://www.losthk.com/

Hong Kong's escape the room gaming culture has been strongly influenced by the Japanese industry. Local elements include the use of Cantonese, the design of settings imitating Hong Kong architecture of the 1960s and mysteries set in prisons or the Mass Transit Railway (MTR) system map.

This type of entertainment is perceived by local journalists as an attempt to escape the living conditions of Hong Kong.