My first experience in the escape room happened to be messy, cool, stressful, memorable and exhausting. I know, very contradictory emotions.
Two months ago my friends gave me an unusual gift for birthday: certificate to the escape room game at Escape Hour in Calgary. It was my dream. I saw the ads many times and really wanted to try it myself. I was very emotional.
So we were a team of 6 and only one of us did the escape room before, the rest were newbies. Our game master was super friendly and very patient. He showed us around, explained us how it worked. They had quite a few interesting rooms, we opted for ‘The Lost Jewel of Zanzibar’. The game master introduced rules to us and the countdown started.
We were glad we went into ‘The Lost Jewel of Zanzibar’. I love adventure films and history.and the design of the room made it feel so authentic with all those African masks and safari hats on the wall, dry decoration branches and clay crockery. I felt like I was actually transferred to Africa.
We were too distracted at the beginning. We were scrutinising every object thinking it could be a clue. Well, it made us loose a lot of time. Anyway, it was so engaging and fun.
Tricky thing about escape rooms: you think that’s just a game and you’re smart enough to figure it out. But in fact you’re stuck so many times. Or sometimes you dig too deep looking for a hidden meaning while the solution is right there on the surface. Overthinking wasn’t always efficient.
Escape room game turned out to be a great way to spend time with friends and get to know each other better, even though we were all friends since middle school. We discovered that Tania was good at reading maps and Helen could be very stress resistant and reasonable. She kept calm when everyone else was about to quit or ask for a hint.
Most importantly we had great time and had got tons of memories. We still recall our escape room experience, those silly moments are now very amusing. We think of making it a tradition to go an escape room for our birthdays cause we absolutely love the experience.
We didn’t beat the room though. And now we’re seeking a revenge. We’re going again to Escape hour, this time for ‘The Matrix Theme’. We’re movie fans.
