Originally invented in Japan, “Escape the room” style challenges were launched in Europe in 2011. Since then, they have increased in popularity and nowadays you can find them anywhere in the UK. They usually have a theme such as zombie attack, prison escape, bank heist, bomb to diffuse, or pirates. There is even now a Harry Potter themed room!
The premise is fairly simple: You are placed in a locked room and given a mission to complete. By solving clues you progress through the room and when solved, this provides you with a key to exit the room. You have a limited time to complete the mission (usually an hour).
Ever since these became popular a couple of years ago, I have been dying to have a go. It reminds me a bit of old TV shows like the Krypton Factor or Crystal Maze – the idea of solving clues and using brain rather than braun really appeals to me!
I looked into different escape rooms, there are so many nowadays – originally I was drawn to a Harry Potter themed one by Enigma Quests – but they were booked out until November so that would not have worked with my October deadline! Further research unearthed a local one called Containment – in Guildford (Merrist Wood).
I pulled together my team – Natalie, Chris, Sharon, Paul, Karen and myself. We all have different skills (logical, abstract, practical, pattern-spotters, wordy, numerical) so I thought it would be a great combo. Paul, Karen and Sharon had done an Escape Room before so knew the format which helped! We could have a team of 4-6 people, but the cost was the same (£120) regardless of team size – so by having more people it kept costs down!
Upon arrival, we were greeted by Toby who gave us our briefing. We’d be locked in but he’d be monitoring us on camera so we would never be in danger. We could ask for 5 clues as we got stuck. If we got the general gist of a clue but made a silly mistake he could point us back to the clue rather than us missing it out.
All prepped, we got locked in our room and our hour’s countdown began! We all immediately started poking around to solve our clue, which involved breaking into a bank vault. I won’t give any of the clues away in case you try it yourself, but there was a lot riffling around and poking at stuff. We spotted some key locks and some combination locks, so we figured we’d have to find the codes and keys to progress. We spent ages trying to solve a clue that was not a clue; fortunately the experienced members of the team asked for help before we wasted all of our time on the first stage!
The funniest part was when we had two people manhandle a heavy bit of furniture, to which a key was attached, towards a tiny keyhole – for Toby to flash up a message advising us the key detached from its anchor! We felt very silly!
After a while, we got into the swing of it. 20 minutes had passed when we got through the first bit, and we really thought we’d never crack it. But we gathered momentum on the second section and soon we had cracked the vault! We found a safe, opened it to get the key to the door as well as some “treasure”… some gold coins (sadly chocolate… not real).
We finished with over 5 minutes still on the clock, which we were super proud of!
All of the team contributed, although I think that I mostly faffed and got in the way of the others! I did spot a couple of things however so I wasn’t completely useless. The team worked best when we paired off and worked on a different section, allowing us to be more efficient. We used all 5 of our clues, strategically asking for help whenever we spent too long on one element, and it was this that gave us the time to complete the challenge.
I really enjoyed myself and I would definitely do it again. The Escape Room was really well organised, and I definitely want to try the other scenario that Containment in Guildford have. Also on the hit list is the Harry Potter one in London, but the waiting list is massive!
You can google local Escape Room style organisations and I would say it’s definitely worth a go, you’ll have fun and it’s great exercise for your brain and problem-solving ability!
For more information:
- Containment Guildford
- Enigma – Harry Potter themed escape room
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