Escape room

Escape rooms or Escape boxes are inspired by "escape-the-room"–style video games. This is also the likely source of their name.[4] It is also referred to as Room Escape, Escape Game, Exit Game and Live Escape.[5]

In spite of the name, escaping a room may not be the main goal for the players, nor is the game necessarily confined to a single room.[6]

Different attractions contained elements similar to modern escape rooms and could thus be seen as precursors to the idea, including haunted houses, scavenger hunts, entertainment center 5 Wits or interactive theater (such as Sleep No More, inaugurated in 2003). An additional inspiration for escape rooms came from the "escape the room" genre of video games. Escape the room games, which initially began as Flash games for web browsers and then moving onto mobile apps, challenged the player to locate clues and objects while within a single room.[10]

Players solve a puzzle at the original 5 Wits in downtown Boston, circa 2006

The earliest concept to resemble a modern escape room was True Dungeon, which premiered at GenCon Indy in Indianapolis, USA, in July 2003.[11][12]  Created by Jeff Martin (True Adventures LLC), True Dungeon had many of the same elements that people associate with escape rooms today; a live-action team-based game where players explored a physical space and cooperatively solved mental and physical puzzles to accomplish a goal in a limited amount of time. True Dungeon "focuses on problem solving, teamwork, and tactics while providing exciting sets and interactive props".[13]

Four years later, Real Escape Game (REG) in Japan was developed by 35-year-old Takao Kato,[14] of the Kyoto publishing company, SCRAP Co., in 2007. It is based in Kyoto, Japan and produces a free magazine by the same name. Beyond Japan, Captivate Escape Rooms appeared in Australia and Singapore from 2011,[15] the market growing to over 60 games by 2015.[1] Kazuya Iwata, a friend of Kato, brought Real Escape Game to San Francisco in 2012.[16] The following year, Seattle-based Puzzle Break founded by Nate Martin became the first American-based escape room company.[17][18][19][20][21][22][23][24] Japanese games were primarily composed of logical puzzles, such as mathematical sequences or colour-coding, just like the video games that inspired them.

Parapark, a Hungarian franchise that later operated in 20 locations in Europe and Australia, was founded in 2011 in Budapest.[25] The founder, Attila Gyurkovics, claims he had no information about the Japanese escape games and based the game on Mihály Csíkszentmihályi's flow theory and his job experience as personality trainer.[26] As opposed to the Japanese precursors, in the games of Parapark players mainly had to find hidden keys or reach seemingly unattainable ones in order to advance.

In 2012 a Swiss physics professor created a scientific escape game for his students. The game was later offered to the public under the name of AdventureRooms and distributed as a franchise in twenty countries. The Adventure Rooms introduced scientific puzzles (e.g. hidden infrared or polarized codes) to the genre.[27][28]

As of November 2019, there were estimated to be over 50,000 escape rooms worldwide.[29] These can be particularly lucrative for the operators, as the upfront investment has been as low as US$7,000, while a party of 4-8 customers pay around US$25–30 per person for one hour[30] to play, potentially generating annual revenue upwards of several hundred thousand dollars.[31] As the industry has grown, start up costs have increased dramatically and so have the competition. Customers now expect higher production values and often games can cost over $50,000 to create. The UK has seen the market grow by over the past 5 years by 93%, 148%, 409% and 43%[32]

The format of a room or area containing puzzles or challenges has featured in multiple TV game shows over the years, including Now Get Out of That,[33] The Adventure Game,[34] The Crystal Maze,[34] Fort Boyard and Knightmare.[35] A similar experience can be found in interactive fiction software, and escape the room video games.

A player studying a clue

The South China Morning Post described escape rooms as a hit among "highly stressed students and overworked young professionals."[36] Sometimes the excitement becomes a bit much, though, and players get so invested that they tear down equipment or decorations inside their "fake" prisons.[37]

The use of Hong Kong room "escapes" as distractions from the living conditions of the real city of Hong Kong has been reviewed by local journalists.[38][39]

Early games consisted mainly of puzzles that were solved with paper and pencil. As Escape Rooms progressed physical locks were introduced that could be opened by finding combinations, hidden keys and codes using objects found in the rooms. These ideas have evolved to include automation technology, immersive decoration[40] and more elaborate storylines to enhance the visitor experience, make puzzles more interactive, and to create an experience that is more theatrical and atmospheric.

The development of the new device as head-mounted display allows complement or even replace modern approaches to entertainment in the field of Escape Rooms. Multiplayer VR game ability can turn old school designed Escape Rooms into a new wave of Escape Games at virtual reality with big themes variety of locations and styles. Developers of VR Escape Rooms include Ubisoft, Exit, VR Cave, ARVI VR, and Escape VR.

The first known fatal accident to occur in an escape room was the death of five 15-year-old girls in a fire in Koszalin, Poland, on 4 January 2019. The fire was caused by a leaky gas container inside a heater and resulted in the death of the five victims from carbon monoxide poisoning and injuries to one employee, who was treated for burns. According to the state firefighting service, the chief failure that led to the deaths was the lack of an effective evacuation route. Shortly after the accident, authorities ordered safety checks in escape rooms across Poland and 13 more such establishments were shut down for safety flaws as a result.[41][42]