If you live in Bloemfontein and answered yes to any of the above, you should get some friends together and give Elude Escape Rooms a try.
What is an escape room, you ask? Well, according to Wikipedia, an escape room is a physical adventure game in which players solve a series of puzzles using clues, hints and strategy to complete the objectives at hand, within a specified time limit. The objective often includes getting out of the room. So basically, you pay someone to lock you up.
Generally, every escape room has a unique theme, and different kinds of puzzles to solve. You might find yourself in an ancient tomb, inside a wizard's caste, inside a serial killer's cabin, or stuck in a mad scientist's office. Check out the Geek & Sundry channel on YouTube for some really cool examples of escape rooms.
Back to the example at hand: Elude Escape Rooms currently offers their first world-class escape room, the Conspiracy Room, themed around a conspirator's house in the 'time before smart phones and the internet'. They have also opened their next room, The Cell. We definitely plan to do this one as well!
We don't want to give away any important details, but the Conspiracy Room is amazing. Our friends who went with us were just as blown away as we were. The room is filled with possibly significant clues (and of course a few red herrings) which you have to decipher to open locks to new clues, which will eventually (hopefully) allow you to escape in time. A screen inside the room shows you how much time you have left, and also puts up hints to help you find the clues, when necessary.
According to the owner, many of the groups actually don't make it out of the room in time. Our group almost made it out - we literally went one minute over time. So don't be like us and refuse any clues for the first fifteen minutes - use the help you can get!
Bookings are easy - we went to their website and booked online. You can also find them on Facebook. Groups of 2-6 people can book, but we recommend taking at least 4 or 5 - more brains together can be useful!
Also, you don't have to dress up like the Avengers like we did, but if you have read any of our other blog posts, you'll know that we can't let any excuse to be a superhero pass us by.
This blog post may have sounded like we were paid to promote Elude, but honestly, we were just so impressed that we can not stop recommending this to everyone.
If this sounds like something you'd like, grab some friends now and support these people!
