So Today Was My Very First Time...

...in an Escape Room!

What an amazing experience!

Have you ever been to one? If not: DO IT! Really, spend a fun evening with friends trying to solve mysterious events or escaping a dangerous situation.

AN ESCAPE ROOM IS LIKE CSI NY AND INDIANA JONES COMBINED – JUST BETTER

An escape room is practically a live adventure game. The players, mostly 3-6 friends, are locked into a room and have to solve puzzles by finding hints and clues and following a certain strategy. Of course you can just run around chaotically (like us) and missing some hints and signs. Sigh…

But cut me some slack, as I said it was my very first time.

I was so excited as you really become a part of the story. The goal is to free yourself and get out of the room within 60 minutes. And yes, that can be really tough. You have different rooms and themes to chose from and every quest starts with a story you have to solve:

• STEEL THE BLOOD DIAMONDS: you’re a team of special agents trying to break into a bank to steal the blood diamonds the well-known bank director is accused to hide there.

• SAVE HUMANITY FROM VIRUS EPIDEMIC: In the middle of a mass panic a scientist close to discovering a life-saving formula for the unknown virus disappears without a trace. Your group of scientists has to complete the formula to save humanity from extinction.

• PROTECT EXPEDITION TEAM FROM AWAKENED FORCE: Mysterious things happen in the abandoned village deep in the jungle. Natives tell you about the temple that is protected by an ancient force. Despite the warnings, you and your team stay. People vanish and it seems like someone or something was awakened…You have to solve the secret of the jungle before you die, too.

• ESCAPE THE HUNTED MANSION BEFORE YOU’RE THE NEXT VICTIM: You are reporters working on a documentary about an abandoned house. People disappear, unexplainable screams…As soon as you enter the old house strange things happen. Someone is after you and you have to find your way out before becoming the next victim

• ESCAPE THE SERIAL KILLER: A click. You open your eyes. You’re in handcuffs and everything is dark. Thunder and lightning outside. What happened? You just wanted to meet your friend…The news said a serial killer is on the run and now…maybe it’s too late for you.

• SOLVE THE CURSE OF THE HUNTED MANSION: You have to solve the curse that is said to lie on the mansion of a famous treasure hunter. She has traveled the world to the most mysterious places and never returned from her last trip. Everybody stepping into the mansion disappears. Your team has to uncover the secrets to finally dispel the curse.

There are thousands of themes like crimes scenes, mafia, kidnappings, prison outbreaks, murders and much more.

I really shudder when I think of rooms like The Body Shop where you’re locked in the room of a serial killer as it seems to be really creepy. Did I tell you that I hate horror movies or zombies? But it’s this strange attraction: I know it’s not good for me. I just KNOW it. Still I wanna go there – I just have to be realistic about the fact that I’ll sleep with the lights on for weeks. Yep, no joke here!

We chose “The Treasure Hunter” and had to dispel the curse of the abandoned mansion. In the beginning, the game master is telling you the story of what happened and what you’re supposed to do. The game master is responsible for you and is watching you the whole time through various cameras hidden in the room. He’s the invisible additional member of your group and is there to help you. When he realizes that you’re totally lost he sends you little clues on a screen installed in the room. I have to admit: sometimes the clues are as tough as the riddles themselves.

Our game master told us the story of the famous treasure hunter who never returned from her last trip. She has seen the most mysterious places of the world and ever since her disappearance it seems that her mansion is cursed. The bank wants to sell it but every person stepping into the mansion disappears without a trace. We are there to discover what’s going on and to dispel the curse.

We enter the room. Darkness surrounds us. Click. The door is locked. Mysterious and adventurous music starts to play – I feel like Indiana Jones already.

We look around and try to adjust to the badly lit room. In front of us is an old, massive, wooden desk. The drawers and doors of the massive desk are locked with combinations locks.

To the right a long old sideboard. To the left a big fireplace made of stone (well, fake-stone).

The whole rooms reeks of adventure and old mysteries that just want to be solved. We get excited and start walking around the room. We’re already in the middle of the story, feeling like an expedition on the way of solving an old and baleful secret.

Old and faded photographs are hanging at the walls. Exotic wooden masks and wooden carvings give the room a slightly mysterious touch.

In the middle of the room is a small round table. On it a plate with a dome of glass. We lift the dome and big black spiders are sitting on the plate, surrounding a square, gold amulet which looks like something from the Inca. Nice.

As soon as we touch the golden amulet thunder surrounds us. The lights jitter and as we turn around glowing letters appear at the walls.

Warnings.
“Now your are cursed.”
“You can only escape by walking through the green hell.”

Ah, good to know. Unfortunately here is no green hell, but well.

Ok, where to start? What to do? We create a strategy and to save time everyone of us is responsible for searching a different area of the room.

I’m off to the right searching the long sidebar. We were told to touch everything, look under, in and around everything. Just no licking, please. Ok, I can do that. Right now I’m not in the mood of licking old furniture and to be honest, I’m seldom in the mood so this rule is fine with me.

Someone finds a key hidden in the mouth of a wooden mask and it fits into one door of the desk. There’s an old journal hidden inside and we feel like children: jumping around happily and getting all excited: We found our first clue!

My friend Michael reads it to us. The handwriting is old and difficult to decipher.

Marianne, the treasure hunter, is searching for her long lost father. Her entries are from NY, Spain, Africa and Germany. When she finally finds him with the help of a shaman, he is not happy. His last sentence before his death is: “Now you are cursed, too.”

Also, there is a big letter on every page forming the word: K-A-L-I-F

Huh, ok. No clue what it means.

On my sideboard stands an old, faded photograph in a funny frame: like a clock, numbers are carved into the frame. The young couple in the photograph is looking quite stern. The man is standing and wears a nice black tux, the woman is sitting and wearing a white, old-fashioned dress.

Marcus finds an old photograph in an old, wooden bureau. It’s same young couple in the same position, but here the man is pointing up right and down left. The woman now has her arms crossed and points to the left and right.

I put the photograph on the almost identical photograph in the frame and tadaaa, they are pointing to the numbers that are carved into the frame! 3-6-2-8. We try the combination with every lock and one door of the desk opens.

Inside we find several stone plates with different signs written on it, but so far we can’t decipher them.

Matthias stands in front of an old faded map of the world that is hanging at the wall. Little red flags with different numbers are pinned in different areas of the world. Underneath the map stands an old weathered globe. Locked with a big combination lock.

I have a sudden inspiration. Grabbing the journal, I walk to the map, reading the entries.

29.12.1910, New York……Matthias looks at the map. There’s a red flag pinned into NY with 1 written on it. So it’s part of a code again!

18.06.1912, Spain. Number 8.

14.02.1914, Mali, Africa. Number 1.

02.05.1915, Cologne, Germany. Number 2.

The code opens the globe and we find another key.

At the same time someone is pushing something and a hidden door opens. Very small, you have to be a Hobbit to fit through. Nobody wants to go in first as it is really dark on the other side.
We enter the room, finding an altar with two skulls on it. There’s a number written on each skull but we don’t know what to do with it.

This room is even smaller and more creepy than the other one. Beside me Michael kneels down to look into a small basket - and jumps up screaming. Snakes!! A snake is connected to the basket lid and made him jump really high ;). We look around frantically…there must be some clues here. Somewhere.

Thanks to other hints we find even more bigger and smaller plates and realize that the small plates belong into the moulds of the altar. We decipher the signs thanks to some old pieces of stone tablets that we put back together: they are kind of a translation board showing us signs and corresponding letters. We put the small plates into the moulds in the right order and a small drawer opens.

Inside, we find a voodoo doll.

Matthias remembers having seen the outlines of a voodoo doll painted on the fireplace. With a dagger next to it.

Now we’re talking.

Putting the doll in the outlines, Matthias stabs her with the dagger and swooooosh….the fireplace slides to the side, revealing a small hole.

Wow, another room! We crouch and crawl through the small hole. All walls are covered in ivy and other climbing plants. This is really a jungle – the green hell! We must be pretty close now. Another old stone altar from the Inca time is standing on a platform.

Again there are two skulls with number written on them.

We bring them back into the other room but we still don’t know in which order we have to put the now 4 skulls.

We realize that they have some black teeth. One skull has 2 black teeth, the other 3, the other 4. Aha, so that’s the right order and now we have the order of numbers.

It goes on and on, finding clues, trying to solve puzzles – some so difficult and hard to explain that the game maker had to help us with little hints – until we know which of the grimaces carved into the Inca altar we have to press.

A hidden drawer opens at the side of the altar (and we were too excited to even realize it at first), in it a small stone figure. This figure fits perfectly into a hole of the altar and another, this time empty drawer opens. We know that we have to put something inside but we just can’t imagine what.

We try a lot of stuff, running around, shouting, thinking…this is the last puzzle, the last obstacle standing between us and freedom. Then the music stops. The door opens.

We lost. We’re cursed forever. Fantastic.

The game maker smiles at us. “Hey guys, remember the square gold amulet with the Inca carving on it? That you found right at the beginning under the glass dome?”. Oh man, we feel so stupid.

That was THE FIRST thing we found when entering the room and we totally forgot about it!

So much for our Indiana Jones skills.

At least we look a bit more photogenic than Indiana Jones when returning from his quests ;)

And whoever put the little blue crown on my head will be cursed forever, suffering until his terrible ending….muahaha ;)