Escape room

Real-life room escape games are a type of physical adventure game in which people 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. Some games include sub-plots. The games are based on "escape the room" video games, such as "Crimson Room" and "QP-Shot", 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. Other inspirations include adventure board games and movies.

Weekend or day event escape games have been held in Montreal, Toronto, Seattle, Washington and San Francisco, California; as well as Hungary, Switzerland, Russia, the UK, Spain, Poland, Greece, Australia and a number of Asian countries.

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 to escape prison cells, space stations or werewolf villages.

Permanent real life escape games in a fixed location were first opened in Europe (Switzerland and Hungary) and followed later in North America, Asia and Australia. Examples include the two pioneer companies HintHunt and AdventureRooms.

There are now many fixed location real life escape games in the world

History

File:Real life escape(Japan).jpg

Room escape at Ajito of Scrap in Tokyo.

Europe

Live-escape-games has a map of nearly 150 Game Locations in Europe

Portugal

Puzzle Room opened in Lisbon in 2014. Located in downtown Lisbon, it offers a room that uses the history of the City to take the participant into a different time.

United Kingdom

HintHunt set up rooms in London, UK in 2012, and the second London based live escape the room game, clueQuest, opened in 2013 which offers two secret agent-themed scenario in five escape units. The latest addition to escape rooms in London is called EscapeHunt.

Dubai

Escape Quest, opened in Dubai in 2014 and is amongst the very first Companies to do so in the Middle East.

Poland

Challenge Accepted opened two rooms in June 2014. It was the first escape room in Kraków. BrainScape is another Polish escape room, which opened in 2014 in Olsztyn.

North America

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 and it has become a popular tourist attraction. Only 23 people have escaped from the room successfully.

SCRAP Entertainment, Inc., a US branch of the original Japanese company, began operations in 2012 and runs escape rooms in San Francisco, San Jose and Toronto as well as large-scale group puzzle events in multiple US cities.

Puzzle Break has rooms in Seattle, Washington and San Francisco, California.

OMESCAPE, the international real-life room escape provider that has been featured on the Wall Street Journal, opened their first US store front in San Francisco Bay Area.

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 2014.

In Charlotte, North Carolina, Exit Strategy offers two different rooms to escape from in an hour. In Toledo, Ohio, Trapped Toledo offers two different rooms to escape from in an hour. Trapped Toledo is unique as, unlike most escape rooms, it changes out its puzzle paths every six to eight weeks and it completely changes its themes every three to four months.

In Canada, BreakOut Entertainment opened in Edmonton, Alberta in autumn 2014 and has four themed rooms to escape from, with themes expected to change every few months.

In Toronto, Xscaper Arts opened in Summer and iEscaped opened in Fall 2014. Introducing electronic gadgets and automatic traps to the escape game experience, providing players with an immersive experience and a fun team building opportunity for corporate events. Toronto is also home to LockQuest, a company that places a greater emphasis on story and theme than most other escape games.

In Montreal, Obsidem Games will be opening its doors in January 2015, providing players with a realistic and immersive experience and a great team building opportunity. Obsidem Games prides itself on reinventing the genre of “escape games” by offering in-depth scenarios that will immerse the players in its story, and will make the escape more of an accessory to the primary intrigue.

Norway

Quaint World is the first real life escape room in Norway operating since August 2014. Located in the center of Oslo offers two rooms with different themes.

The Netherlands

Amaze Escape Events opened their rooms in summer 2013 in the Netherlands. They offer 3 different scenarios: the KGB, The Urban Legend and the Crazy Doctors Experiment rooms. The Escape Hunt Experience also has a large 400 sqm escape room complex in a period theme on the water in the harbour.

Escape010 is situated in the centre of Rotterdam.

SaveAmsterdam in Amsterdam opened in September 2014 and has the theme of saving Amsterdam from the zombie apocalypse.

Belgium

The Longest Hour was the first escape room in Belgium in Ieper, Antwerp Clue opened in November 2014. Out of the Box escape games, in the centre of Antwerp, is opening in January 2015, offering 5 different games as well as team-building and singles events.

Hungary

Parapark created in 2011 as the first permanent fixed location game, and ExitPoint Games are popular games in Budapest although there are over 35 such games throughout the city. A lot of bars and clubs rent out or work on a percentage of the sales. Many cities in Hungary have their own rooms, many affiliated with firms in Budapest or franchised.

Germany

The first live escape game brand in Germany was TeamEscape. They opened their first store in 2013 in Cologne. Make a Break opened a room in Berlin on 9 November 2014, the 25th anniversary of the fall of the Berlin Wall. The main theme or story of this escape game revolves around the fall of the Berlin Wall.

Romania

Bucharest

Escape Rooms Bucharest - www.escaperooms.ro - opened 2 rooms (Black & White and Military Espionage) in 2014. Rooms are located in the centre within X Hostel Bucharest (Strada Balcesti, 9). A 3rd room called RadioActive will open soon and the time limit is extended to 90 minutes.

Another escape room is in a Tea House in Floreasca. Escape Experience Bucharest is located on Calea Victoriei, near the old city center.

Brasov

Escape Rooms Brasov - escaperooms.ro - have 2 rooms: Dracula`s Den and Wilderness Survival

Cluj-Napoca

The Dungeon was the first escape room to open, in 2013. Less than 6 months after that, PanicRoom and Area51 opened.

The Museum opened at the end of May 2014 and presents a more Romanian theme as the backstory.

ParaPark also opened its first game in Cluj in September 2014. ParaPark is thought to be the first escape room operator in Europe, opening its first game in Budapest in 2011.

Other cities in Romania with Escape Rooms include Oradea, Baia Mare and Sibiu.

Bulgaria

Dextrophobia Rooms, which opened on June 9, 2014, is the first real-life escape room in Sofia.

Escape Rooms Sofia - www.escaperooms.bg is part of the Escape Rooms franchise running in several European cities, opened in September 2014. It has 2 rooms: Mystery Boudoir and Soviet. It is located in Ulitsa Sv. Sv. Kiril i Metodiy, 126

DOMUS REBUS - www.domusrebus.com opened in November 2014 as the first real-life escape room game in Plovdiv, Bulgaria. DOMUS REBUS with its unique "House of Mistery" atmosphere has two rooms - "The Missing Elements" and "The House of Cards".

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 by 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". The Escape Hunt Experience is also open on Orchard Road with 6 period themed rooms.

Escape room games are becoming more popular and mainstream in the city, with Roomraider SG hosting 5 game themes in its 3,000 sq ft (280 m²) venue set in the heart of Singapore's shopping district on Orchard Road.

Mainland China

Date	Incident
October 2008 2008 NOT TRUE!	Real Escape Games arose in civilian houses in Harbin.
September 2011	Real Escape Games started in Shanghai and Hangzhou under the cooperation of Japanese and Shanghai leisure activity companies (BadNews and MaoLivehouse).
January 2012	BBG-Club held Real Escape Games Shanghai and Hangzhou during Lunar New Year.
February 2012	A real escape center, 51taotuo, opened in Beijing.
July 2012	The first Chamber of escape with advanced technology applied opened in Nanjing.
August 2012	Guangzhou's first reality Chamber of escape opened.
September 2012	Beijing "LOST studio" opened.
November 2012	Real Escape business settled in Chengdu.
December 2012	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. Now there're more and more workshops and companies specialize in all kinds of real-life escape game, no matter people prefer code puzzle, ingenious mechanism or great atmosphere, they can be satisfied.

Spain

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

In August 2014 a new escape game was opened in Marbella called BrainQuest. It has 2 kind of game rooms where you can play. The game is suitable for families, group of friends,and for team building events of companies. You can play regardless of the age and the language spoken.

There is another Escape room in Bilbao called Mad Mansion, working now on the 2º episode

In Valencia, you can find the first scary escape room of Spain. Clue Hunter, also the first escape room of the city, offers it with another game and a third one coming on January 2015.

Greece

The first Greek Escape Room opened in Athens and is called "AthensClue". Near the Nea Ionia HSAP train station THE BOX is now also open hosting the "Haunted Box" and the "Museum Box". After Athens, the new trend of Escape Rooms has conquered Thessaloniki. Within the next month, two escape rooms will begin operating in Thessaloniki: 1) LOCKED: will host a game inspired by TV series CSI Las Vegas and CSI Miami, and 2) THE MIND TRAP which is estimated that one of them will be the largest in Europe, with an area of 400 sq.m. The MindTrap" will host six rooms where different escape games will be conducted.Visitors will have the chance to play, for the first time in Greece, "Insanity" in a mental hospital.

Czech Republic

In Prague the capital of Czech Republic, the real-life escape room called Getaway opened in summer of 2014. The game is located in the center or Prague in a real bomb shelter. The first game is called and it was inspired by the given safety doors, thick walls and ventilation shafts. As the environment is an authentic bunker, the atmosphere provides a more unique experience for the players.

Slovenia

First room escape in Slovenia was established in Kobarid.

Ljubljana, capital of Slovenia, got its first escape room in September 2014 Escape Room Enigmarium®. Located in the city center, Enigmarium® has two rooms for two to five players. The first room is inspired by detective novels while the second one has a school theme.

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 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

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.

Indonesia

Exitway Studio is based on Gading Serpong, Tangerang. Target opening date is 11th Nov, 2014. Target to bring the newly gaming experience into Indonesia.

Thailand

In Bangkok, The Escape Hunt Experience opened its first ever branch on July 15, 2013 and has now spread all over the world.

Turkey

Istanbul

Escape34, located in Kadıköy offers a real life Leonardo Da Vinci's workshop experience.

Defuse The Bomb, Exist, Görevin, Kusursuz Kaçış, The Room Türkiye, Tuzak in Kadıköy

Cage404, Escape Planet, Evdenfirar, Excape, Istrapped(first one in istanbul), Mazeup, Odadan Kaçış, Seninmaceran in Taksim

Ankara

Sherlock Ankara, Track The Key(first one in ankara) in Bahçelievler

LockedIn in Kızılay

Eskişehir

Save US!: Exengames in Hoşnudiye

Adana

Code in Ziyapasa

İzmir

Kumpass in Alsancak