Menu
If you ended up on this article it is because you are probably wondering how escape rooms work, and quite likely are a novice to the magical world of escape rooms. That is why today we will answer the questions that brought you here. What escape rooms are, how escape rooms work, and most importantly, what do you do in escape rooms?
Today let’s go back to the basics a bit and get some clarity on the ABCs of this world because once you are clear on how escape rooms work and what you do in escape rooms, you will see that they will become your favorite pastime!
An escape room is a game in which you are basically locked in a room and the goal is to be able to find the key or a way to escape. They were born in 2008 in Japan, in the mind of Takao Kaote, who after seeing an escape game on a phone, decided to try to create a physical one. Thus was born SCRAP Entertainment, which began opening new escape rooms around Japan and China.
In 2011, the first escape room in Europe opened, in Budapest to be precise, by a company called Parapak. In 2012, it was the turn of the United States, and on the American continent, this escape game came right through a friend of Takao Kaote’s, who opened Real Escape in San Francisco. From there on, the success of escape rooms has only been on the rise: Escape rooms have spread all over the world, becoming destinations for the curious, fans of logic games, and groups looking for a new way to have fun.
To play an escape room, there must be a minimum of two people, while the maximum number of participants varies depending on the complexity and size of the room: it ranges from 6 to 10-12, at most, but it is rare to find these numbers, partly because playability gets complicated if there are too many of them.
The duration is usually standard and is one hour, but even here there are exceptions, which however rarely exceed 90 minutes.
What makes an escape room special is, of course, the settings and the puzzles; the beating heart of an escape experience; These two aspects make the game original, challenging, engaging, and immersive. This is how escape rooms work; the purpose of an escape room, in fact, is not just to hide a few puzzles here and there, but to make the player identify as much as possible with a situation, so as to make that hour of play a real adventure!
Now that you know how escape rooms work, you might be wondering, what do you do in an escape room? Well, it depends. Surely a way out must be found, but between you and the final key, there are a series of logic puzzles to be solved.
Once you choose the escape room with a certain setting, you will be given some basic directions, and maybe even some props. You may get a pair of handcuffs because the start was from a prison, or maybe a flashlight because the setting was a dark bank vault. Once you get your initial directions and your tools, if any, you will need to start looking.
You will see that the rooms will be rich in detail, well cared for, and devised so that the chosen theme is recreated. And so your task will be to search among the props for those clues that will enable you to solve the puzzles. Here’s a tip: Don’t overlook anything! This is how escape rooms work; sometimes the solutions are in the most unexpected objects!
Among the most common puzzles in an escape room are padlocks; you will almost certainly find yourself dealing with a drawer, door, or box that is locked with a padlock. What you’ll have to do then is look for the key or the alphanumeric code that unlocks it. And to do that, you will most likely have to solve other puzzles of various kinds first. For more on the topic of “puzzles in escape rooms,” check out this article.
As you can imagine, it won’t be easy, which is why it is recommended to play it in a group: they usually say that 4 is the perfect number because there is a good division of tasks and you may be able to find clues and solve puzzles faster, and thus be able to escape in the allotted 60 minutes.
In addition, how escape rooms work is that each escape room grants a certain amount of help, should participants find themselves in trouble or stuck, so don’t worry; should you feel lost, the escape room operator, who follows your every move from the cameras, will be ready to direct you!
So now that you know everything about how escape rooms work and how you play them, let us come to our MysterU cases. They were obviously born out of a passion for physical escape games and puzzles. In fact, the creators of MsyterU are passionate about computer science, investigation, and escape rooms, so they decided to create a product that combines all these things. To learn more about the history of MysterU, click here!
In a MysterU room, which needs to be differentiated from a video game escape, one must be able to virtually find a solution to resolve a situation, whether it is one of “imprisonment” or not.
In our case, we offer cases for you to solve, so our MysterUs are presented as investigation games. The realism that one breathes in a physical escape room is rendered through certain aspects that the creators of MysterU wanted to recreate, such as role-playing, in that players are called upon to be secret agents; or searching for clues scattered across real sites, forums and social networks. There is no time or participant limits, as the game can be paused and resumed at any time.
To learn more about our games, visit our website, where you can see the available cases and where you can find all the information you need to get started! Now that you know how escape rooms work, what are you waiting for? Go have some fun!
