Music, clothing, pop culture and entertainment trends seem to make it to the midwest last. We are influenced by the west and east coasts and a lot more these days by social media. Escape Rooms have been around for a while, the first one created in Japan in 2007.

Escape Rooms started in the US around 2012. The initial rooms starting in the west. The midwest is still waiting for Steam Punk to catch on. We are still waiting for the term escape room to be a commonly known term in Indiana.

When marketing an escape room, it seems like only a few know what it is. A good elevator speech is hard to come up with. People want to know if it is scarey, is it dangerous, does it requires physical strength and endurance. It is hard to get through to people that have no context on what an escape room and its purpose.

Simply put.

• It is a game, real-life adventure game.
• More mental effort is needed than physical.
• There is a 60 minute time limit.
• The object of the game is to escape (solve all of the puzzles in the allotted time).
• You have help, your friends or other participants playing to reach the same goal.
• 4-10 players (participants) is common.
• You play with friends, co-workers, and/or strangers.
• You are “pretend” locked in a room(s) and your objective is to unlock the lock, escaping.
• The room contains clues. Clues in plain sight, clues hidden, clues locked away.
• Using teamwork and problem solving, all of the participants solve puzzles to escape.
• Clues can lead to solving puzzles that result in new clues that require more puzzle solving.
• Some rooms have more than one room.
• Many clues result in combination numbers or letters to open locks. Locks to doors, cabinets, briefcases, boxes, etc.
• Puzzles include ciphers, decoder rings, maps, morse code, etc. Anything that can be solved or a tool to solve a puzzle.
  Fun.