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Comment by nanoseltzer | Hacker News Reader

Honestly I fail to see their appeal. I did one and it was so boring. I think the main “appeal” is that it locks you in a room where everyone is forced to actually interact and not just stare at their phones. It seems to be mostly used for corporate outings or clubs, where people aren’t quite comfortable with each other yet. I’m thinking it would also be good for group dates. But for with your real friends with whom you can do other activities or even just have a good convo? It just seems a “forced creative experience”. The only reason the industry is “booming” is because it was non existent before and filled these specific niches. It will oversaturate very quickly.

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As someone who gets dragged on work outings I vastly prefer escape rooms to most other options. They are a good mix of interaction and activity, don't require me to put up with drink people, and can occasionally be fun.

The real challenge with the industry, unlike a lot of others, is the lack of replayability. This makes the industry rather unique and requires more operators to fill a given level of demand in a metro region than other similar options.

But god I hope the industry keeps growing or it'll be back to wine tasting or skeet shooting or all day resort retreats. Ugh.

Maybe you got a bad one. As someone who has done a dozen, there's definitely a wide range in term of quality, but the good ones can tickle the puzzle solving itch really well. This is coming from someone who has played almost every puzzle video game out there.

It's definitely not for everyone, and I'll say, I personally like it better when there's only 1 or 2 others in the room; more than that gets too hectic for me.

Tbh I’m not sure if they are meant for less interaction. I think they were meant to get you talking to a bunch of other people, not for true puzzle solving aficionados. Then again - I’m not sure where you could satisfy your puzzle solving itch. Perhaps there is a market for escape room type mystery books and strategy games. Reminds me of those Sierra games in the 90s lol.

> Perhaps there is a market for escape room type mystery books and strategy games

There absolutely is. Zero Escape is basically a series of escape room games.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Zero_Escape

Personally, I see the "Escape Room" boom as something akin to the "Fondue Party" craze in the 70's. It's a fun social outing... once. Eventually there won't be enough new customers to sustain the business model and they will disappear almost as quickly as they arrived.

I'm sure there are better example, particularly ones from the entertainment industry booms of the 1920's and 1950's but I just can't think of any off the top of my head.

It might be like karaoke.

I could hear the same concerns against that as OP delivered here. And to be fair that's something that is more successful in some places and much less so in others.

Other places, like casinos or top golf or laser tag or Dave and Buster's... I know some people who love them and others it's kind of a one time experience.

Fad to enduring cultural pastime is a wide spectrum, and we tend to maintain lots of options with niche followings.

The difference here is that those parties are approximately the same every time, minus different people.

Every room from every provider is different. While you can only go to one once, a metro area could have 100+ rooms. Quality varies, but the most motivated people could go regularly and not run out.

The tiny number of people who can go through a single room at a time limits scalability/profitability, while also ensuring most people in a local area could still be first-time visitors.

Well, now you just need 18 other try-it-once fad businesses and then you can rotate through them all, one per year.

Where it’ll go is teaming up with established attractions. In New Orleans for example one already in business is expanding to a shark themed escape room at the aquarium.

Of the limited number I've been to ( 2 ) each of them have multiple types of rooms. And they can shuffle the clues around to make it basically anew experience. Different people changes it up a lot and you can also add other elements too. Isn't there one variation that has a "zombie" chained up in the room with you?

What city are you in? I can look at some internal ratings spreadsheets and find you a good one in your area! They're very hit or miss, and I've done some truly horrible ones before.

I think some can be boring. There is one near our house with 3 or 4 rooms. I took my family to it and we did two of the rooms. I've been to some escape rooms with work as well. The one near my house that I took my family to was my favorite, and had a room that was genuinely enjoyable and exciting.

That room was actually 3 rooms as part of the escape. It was built around the idea of a zombie apocalypse. You enter a room, #1, and the lights are off, and you are trying to get into a bunker. Once you get in to the bunker, room #2, you have to find your way out of that room before a toxic gas is released. We had to use a ladder to get to a "vent" to climb through (and shut off lasers in the vent) to room #3, the final room, a science lab.

The quality of the build was very high, and was pretty fun, as it was very much like a movie scenario.

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