Break Out Rooms

[Gizmos Mama]

Hi Folks!

I looked for an existing thread to post in, but couldn't find anything that seems to fit.
(mods, if you feel it belongs in Chat, please, feel free.)

Anyway, I just had this "team building" event at work, and for once, it was actually a fun thing. My boss booked us all into a "break out room"

"What's that?", I hear you ask. (I don't know if you have these in the UK? I'd never heard of it before.)

Well, it's a cross between a locked room murder mystery and live action role playing, where you get to play the detective. You are literally locked in a room with 5-8 people, and you have to find clues, (hidden under lamps, in the content of pictures, etc.) that give you clues to combinations for locks, that lead to other puzzles, open secret compartments, etc. The objective is to get a code to open the door within the hour, or you fail.

This was really fun, and definitely had a Sherlockian feel to it... But that could be because our room was a Victorian study, with fireplace, wing chairs, book shelves and writing desk. The theme of the Room also definitely had a bit of a Fortean twist to the plot, in that it involved a dead man, a missing body and some experimental science!

Over all, a very enjoyable, challenging and inter-active way to spend an hour with a few friends! Or coworkers, in my case!

 

[Shady]

That actually sounds pretty cool, did you make it ?

 

[Frideswide]

wow! give more details please? is this somewhere that can be booked?

 

[Gizmos Mama]

Hi! to answer questions...

Shady

Yes, I genuinely enjoyed it, and the whole work/team building thing's not something I usually enjoy at all.
No, we didn't make it out, and we used only 1 of 2 hints you get to use. But that room has only a 4% solve rate, and we were told we made it about 75% through, so I thought that was a respectable showing for us!!

Frideswide

I found out there are actually 2 or 3 such places in town, (I'm in Calgary, Canada) that each have a couple of rooms you can book. But I'd never even heard of concept before it was brought up at work, so I'm not sure if it's just a local phenomenon, or everywhere.

They may also be called locked rooms or escape rooms. It was around $25(Can) each for an hour, though I'm not sure what the other places rates are like.

We had a choice of three rooms, each with a different theme. No phones/recorders or personal items were allowed in the rooms, so they have lockers for your stuff. You get shown to the room, and staff tells you the rules and basic instructions, and the object of the game, set within a scenario to play out.

Then they start the clock and lock the door, and you start trying to figure out where to even start! LOL

I would recommend it, if you get the chance. I was not that excited about it at first, but now I want to go back and do it again!!

I hope that answers both your questions? Anything else, Just ask!

Cheers,
GM

 

[Krepostnoi]

I found out there are actually 2 or 3 such places in town, (I'm in Calgary, Canada) that each have a couple of rooms you can book. But I'd never even heard of concept before it was brought up at work, so I'm not sure if it's just a local phenomenon, or everywhere.

FWIW, my brother- and sister-in-law run one in the South of Russia.

 

[Gizmos Mama]

So it is a world wide trend!
I guess I'm not very hip to the new stuff when it comes to pop culture.

May I ask how long they have been operating theirs?

 

[Krepostnoi]

So it is a world wide trend!
I guess I'm not very hip to the new stuff when it comes to pop culture.

May I ask how long they have been operating theirs?

It must be a good three or four years already, possibly even longer than that. I remember my wife and I being really freaked out when out of the blue she received a parcel, addressed to her by name, that contained two severed arms They were fake, but pretty damn convincing. She'd been having some unpleasantness from business acquaintances/rivals, and the only thing we could think of was that this was being taken to the next level - a cut-price horse's head in the bed, sort of thing. How we laughed when a couple of days later her sister casually inquired whether the props for their new quest had arrived :banghead:. (They were planning to visit us shortly after, so it was far cheaper for them to send the arms to us and then take them back to Russia. Gives a new meaning to the phrase "hand luggage".)

 

[Gizmos Mama]

Ha! Well, like I said, I'm not very up to speed when it comes to stuff like this!

And I'd be a little perturbed if I got two severed arms (even fake ones!), in the mail, too!!

 

[Min Bannister]

There seem to be millions of these in Edinburgh. I haven't tried it though. But here they are called Escape Rooms. For some reason, Break Out is something that some people have started calling our break rooms.

(I don't know why because getting IN to them is the trick since they are always booked out for meetings and so on and you can't have a cup of tea or sit to eat your lunch.)

 

[Heckler]

Quite a few on the South Coast of the UK too, a few of the local boozers have them setup in back rooms.

 

[Carse]

There are loads in Scotland including 2 rival ones within 100m of each other in Inverness. Can't see the point myself, like.