'Escape Rooms' Challenge Players To Solve Puzzles To Get Out

"This account is currently out of funds. To complete this call, please add credit to the account or place a collect call."

So the buzzer runs out as we are trying to remember how to make a collect call (to voicemail no less).

Afterwards we asked the staffer how we were supposed to fetch the voicemail, and she said "wait, there was a voicemail on the phone?" Turns out there was also an already-read text message on the phone that we were supposed to look at, but we were successfully red-herringed by some random person leaving a message at the wrong number.

I played my first room in 2013 and started working on our escaperoom platform Escape Rooms Nederland beginning of this year. Biggest platform about escaperooms with reviews, news and comparison. Played around 40 rooms myself. Really love this phenomenon. Hopefully it will stick around. If you ever visit the Netherlands and want to know the best one in your area. Let me know.

A new thing is growing popularity as well, Prison Island. You should check it out as well.

If you want to jump in, one of my favorites is "Trapped in a room with a zombie". They were featured on Big Bang Theory (don't hold this against them, and the room is nothing like portrayed in the show) and it's really well done--our zombie was hilarious. They have rooms in Boston, Chicago, Columbus, Dallas, Denver, LA, NY, Philly, and Seattle: http://roomescapeadventures.com/

In LA specifically, the Race/LA rooms are great: http://escaperoomla.com/ (Race/LA also puts on scavenger hunts which are also worth a shot.)

(Not associated in any way with these rooms, just a huge fan of the concept.)

the puzzle layout was such that there were some 30-40 individual steps that needed to be taken that would culminate in a four digit combination

you then use the four digit combination on a lock securing the lid of a box that contained a button that opened the exit

the lock was a wheel lock where each wheel had 7 faces, 0 to 6

about halfway through the game the group had found the first 2 values of the combination

i explained to my friend that math could get us out

at 7 faces and four wheels your looking at:

  #!/usr/bin/env python3
  import itertools
  len(list(itertools.product("0123456",repeat=4))) #2401

  len(list(itertools.product("0123456",repeat=2))) #49

my friend was ecstatic and encouraged me to do it, but when i went over to the lock and started trying the different combinations a staffer came up to us and stopped us asking:

  'do you really want to win that way?'

eventually the timer ran out before the group could solve all of the riddles to find the last two digits of the combination

edit: copypasta err

One of the founders, Derek, is an interesting guy and built an impressive tech stack that drives the rooms with a very high degree of automation. I think most HN'ers would enjoy speaking with him about it.

Typical price for 20-hour puzzle hunt is about $3-5 per person. Escape room costs 1 hour for about $30. The room is probably much better done, but I would bet you would have more fun puzzle solving in a more traditional puzzle hunt.

Now most cities in Europe has them. Great activity for team-building. One thing I find interesting is that everywhere these games show up, they top the TripAdvisor rankings.

They are an offshoot of the Japanese division. All of their games are really well done. There are several other places in the bay area doing this now too, this one in Richmond is also great: http://letsescapesf.com/

Another popular thing is location games. You receive a book of puzzles in the form of "find X on a street Y near house Z" (some unusual features). You then need to solve travelling salesman problem while solving puzzles and recording answers. Some puzzle sets are bike-oriented, some assume you travel by public transport, some car-oriented.

I wonder now which came first, the computer games or the real life escape rooms...

I saw another comment mentioning 4-digit codes. For some reason, every single such computer game I played also involved a 4-digit code, as if that's some kind of obligatory thing to have. So the 4-digit thing kind of lost its originality, I wonder why it keeps being present in such games?

It's been a massive fad for a year or more in Europe, seems like they have to capitalise on as many TripAdvisor reviews as possible before it loses popularity.

The fast-paced group problem solving is quite enjoyable, although I still think it's not worth the 20 € / person they usually ask.

That meant being intentionally ignorant to certain aspects of the puzzles to force participation from the quieter people in the group.

I would seem like something that could easily be turned into a good business given the popularity-level, and the ability to simply franchise the concept on a global scale with the same rooms and structures. Only "problem" would perhaps be that it's not something you do again and again, which would either mean rooms would have to be retired or that your business-model would have to rely heavily on activating new customers over and over.

I think I had the most fun sitting back and watching everyone come together and solve a problem.

Tip: don't go to a new one directly but only after a few months or so, so that the room can be tested and tuned in difficulty. Also, wear and tear can reveal some clues and correct solutions, so in those few months, everything gets tried and thus the overall wear and tear masks the correct solutions.

It's expensive though, 20€/person for an hour or less if you're fast is relatively steep.

The good part of this is that they're making $280 per hour (8 x $35) off of their escape room, and at those prices, there should be many, many more of them soon (which will bring down the price to its equilibrium, which I assume is far lower).

Definitely give it a try though. Go to the bigger ones because they tend to have space for neat tricks like sliding door/book shelves etc.

I'd love to see something like this done with the Occulus or some similar VR platform, though I doubt it'd have the thrill of the actual experience.

I get that everyone still goes after the 'cool' demographic narrowly like sheep, but I hope he felt really foolish for saying that out loud. Of course, if his name is Kayden, he's likely very young and his dad has money and he may not have that sort of perspective/awareness at all yet.

How often do they resort to P&C adventure game logic?