There is a new kind of entertainment out there, something that people have been telling me for months that I needed to try. I'm not sure when they started popping up, but it has only been this calendar year that I took notice of them. After saying in the abstract that it would be great fun to try an escape room, today for the first time I actually did it.
My younger daughter was the first to tell me about these places. You are literally locked in a room (or a small suite of rooms), and you have to find objects and solve puzzles and riddles to figure out how to escape before time runs out. It's not something a single person does, but rather groups of people work in concert to get out. You are allowed no personal items. No purses, weapons, tools, phones, lights, nothing. You have to rely on wits and teamwork only.
My daughter had purchased vouchers to try one of these escape rooms in downtown Boulder, and she had until the end of the week to use it before it expired, so she insisted that we all join her today. It was located in an office suite just off of the Pearl Street Mall, in an very unassuming building. The lobby was filled with the most eclectic collection of junk imaginable, but the room we were taken to was only sparsely decorated. There were four of us, and we were split up. My daughter's boyfriend and I were locked in the original room, and my daughter and her dad were taken away. A large countdown timer started on the wall. With no instructions other than "You have 60 minutes to escape before a psycho killer returns," we had to look for clues. Our room had a dresser with a mirror, an old piano, a screen, a rug, and a bedside table with a safe. There was a dry erase board on the wall, and once Mr S-P started speaking to me through it, we discovered there was a pipe connecting the rooms (not directly, but at an angle). We had to open drawers and search the room for puzzle pieces, and eventually we found enough pieces to find a series of numbers. There were three locked drawers in addition to the safe, and we had no idea which of these might be opened with the code. Eventually we started working between the rooms, talking through the walls. We found a key that opened our door, and then we really got going.
The other room had a whole lot more knicknacks in it. We had to identify what they were used for, or how they related to the page of riddles. We each had our strengths figuring out the pieces. I, for example, solved one of the riddles and worked out a code written in invisible ink (under black light) that required someone who could read music. The kids solved the other riddles. Mr S-P figured out how to break a code involving a clock and letter wheels.
We made it out of the room with six minutes to spare. While we were smiling and exhilarated, the man running the entertainment said that the room we chose is only successfully cleared 25% of the time. There was another room involving alien abduction that might be a touch easier. We all agreed we totally want to come back and try that one too. The company rotates out themes about every six months, so if they are able to stay in that building (Boulder rents have a tendency to rise), then we can go back next calendar year for more fun.
With my phone locked up, I couldn't take pictures inside the event. We got a group shot afterwards, where we were told to grab a random prop. Of course I selected an underpants gnome.
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