What’s the first thing that pops into your head when someone says escape room? Flashes of excitement, claustrophobia, or trying to outwit a villain? Those are all accurate descriptions and yet there is so much more to escape rooms. A/Maze has created many different rooms to tickle anyone’s fancy. On top of that, they offer puzzles that have you practising your team work, communication and creativity skills. Escape rooms make for awesome squad activities and here is why!
Expect the unexpected
Everyone loves adventure, whether it’s through reading a book, watching movies or travel. Escape rooms are designed specifically for the environment around you to change. You push a button and then a shaft to crawl through opens up. You put all the mini statues on the map in the designated areas and then you hear the unlocking of a hidden door. Customers’ self declared favorite parts are when things happen at the most unpredictable time. When you solve a puzzle, bear crawl through a tunnel and wind up in a room that looks nothing like the previous room, the excitement of what comes next is the most thrilling feeling. You never know what’s going to happen next; will you need to find a key, decipher a different language, or crack a secret code?
A portal into another world
Sometimes the escape room you have chosen fabricates an alternate reality of great proportions. Focusing on distorting reality, there are many senses that are stimulated purposefully in a game. Strobe lights, alarms, smoke (harmless), bombs (phony), swimming pools are all examples of added ambiance to give victims the idea of being in a real escape situation. Understanding that it increases your anxiety when you have a timer, counting down till your time is up! Imagine a room filled with mind bending riddles and alternate realities that make you question everything you hear, touch or see. Trying to keep a cool head in order to solve all the puzzles and then experiencing a huge sense of achievement as a group is what makes escape rooms an extraordinary and unique experience.
Group achievement
Which brings us to the next point, what’s better than winning when you’re with your friends or family? Not winning, but having an incredible experience trying to. Most escape rooms are limited to a short amount of time, usually 60 minutes. You begin with a short story about the room you’re about to enter, who are the characters, why you are in there, and clues on how to get out. You are led to believe that you and your group are clever and crafty people who can solve anything that comes your way. Finding that first key or opening that first lock has everyone jumping up and down high fiving each other. But then 45 minutes into the game and you’re all left scratching your heads. The fun in escape rooms is that everyone can help find clues and solutions with their own strengths or non-strengths, if you will.
Competitive in nature
Although you work as a team to escape, there is a sort of unspoken personal competition within oneself. Before you go into the room, you hope you find the first big clue, or at least the second. When you start finding clues left and right, you realize you work better as a team! The dynamics in a team is what makes an escape room the perfect ice breaking or team building activity. No matter if you do it with your best friends or as a team building activity on a new job – the competition, the riddles and the unusual situation makes everyone question themselves and their abilities. You might get to see a whole new side of you, that quiet friend or your new colleagues.
Learn to communicate together
Where one clue leads to another it is important that you listen to others findings and requests. You really have to be open to the ideas of your group members, because if they come up with a plan, it’s in the groups best interest to test it out. As we said before, escape rooms can be wildly far-out so you need out-of-the-box thinkers and players who are proactive and good listeners. So many puzzles are unsolved because people are too bull headed to give attention to sundry guesses. Quickly, players will learn to communicate not only with their words but actions as well.
Escape rooms are the best activity to do with a group, as they say, the more the merrier. They are rip-roaring, challenging, mysterious but most of all highly entertaining. If you are looking for something to do that is out of the ordinary and will seriously connect your friends and family on a different level, then you must book an escape room!
