If youâve played a Zero Escape game like 999: Nine Hours, Nine Persons, Nine Doors or its sequel, Virtueâs Last Reward, youâre no stranger to the idea of a âroom escapeâ game. Youâre placed in a room, probably with a team. The room is locked, and the only way out is to solve the puzzles and turn in a correct answer.
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This past weekend, I took part in in the Real Escape Gameâs Escape from the Haunted Ship game in San Francisco. The setup is simple: you go on board the ship. Youâre locked in (or, âlocked inââif you freak out or have to leave, they of course let you). They give you a ton of interlocking puzzles of all shapes and sizes, and you have to solve them to win and get out.
The people at the Real Escape Game are super vigilant about online spoilers, so I unfortunately have to keep this article pretty vague. The most important thing: was it fun? Yes. Were the puzzles good? Sure were.
I was in a team with five friends, some of whom write about games, some of whom make games. It was a room full of smart people, actually, mostly grad students, tech professionals and puzzle nerds. And it was a good thing, because the puzzles were hard. Hardcore adventure-game fans wouldnât feel out of place, nor would fans of the Zero Escape games; youâll often be solving a puzzle to learn a password for another, only to come across a cypher that connects to another, unrelated puzzle. There are puzzles written on pieces of paper, but also lying around the room and hidden in plain sight. Everything you overhear, every announcement could be another puzzle. (Or could just be a red herring!)
We were given an hour to solve the overarching puzzle, after which they walked us through all of the solutions. My team did pretty damned wellâwe got maybe 60 or 70% of the way to the final answer (no thanks, Iâm sad to say, to me). But once they got into the final few solutions, I was floored by the difficultyâwho on earth could have gotten this stuff? And yet, one team among the fifteen or so in the room actually solved the whole thing.
The Haunted Ship was a limited-time deal, but thereâs a more regular incarnation of the game that runs in San Franciscoâs Japantown. I gathered that the Haunted Ship differed significantly from the original format, during which each team was actually locked in its own room. You can see the flyer for that one, which will be happening again soon, here:
At first I laughed at the line, âYou will be actually trapped in the room,â but then I found that was an important distinction. In the Haunted Ship, we were all in one big room, so the teams were often crowding around clues and whispering to one another so as not to be overheard. In the original incarnation, well, you are actually trapped in the room.
My friends, who had attended the original game, seemed to feel that the original was somewhat better, since it felt a bit strange to be in a room with a ton of other teams. It wasnât all that immersive; it felt more like a camp event. That said, the battleship was a really cool setting, and the slow rocking of the ship felt just weird enough in my guts to make the whole thing feel off-balance and vaguely nightmarish.
I really want to try the original, one-team-one-room event. Hereâs a shot of the room from the eventbrite page:
The idea of digging through that for clues, along with the great puzzle-design in the game I just attended, sounds great.
The Haunted Ship game concluded on Sunday, but it looks like the original game will be running all through February, so it shouldnât be hard to find a time to go. Iâll certainly be checking it out, and Iâll write more here (no spoilers!) once I have.
