
Unlocking the Business Secrets of Escape Rooms - ddlatham
https://www.wsj.com/articles/unlocking-the-business-secrets-of-escape-rooms-1524838226
======
Schwolop
I've been in this business for a bit over four years now, operating as a B2B
provider with one key partner (a chain of bowling alleys). Our main point of
difference to the typical business in this space is that we don't operate our
own rooms. We instead build turn-key games that can be replicated and shipped
to site, and we've done a lot of R&D to entirely automate the game-master job.
Our rooms track players' progress and introduce easier and easier hints over
time, and eventually bypass puzzles (with justifiable story reasons) so
everyone sees all the interesting parts.

ER enthusiasts typically seem to prefer losing to having a puzzle spoiled by a
clue, and as a result, often hate our rooms. First timers, who make up >99.5%
of our customers, absolutely love it. It's a weird position to _not_ focus on
repeat business, but in such a supply-limited market there doesn't seem to be
any shortage of new customers. It's also a pleasant market to operate in
because virtually all the other operators are our friends - everyone refers
customers to other venues because they can't replay your rooms anyway. There's
hardly any of the cut-throat business practices you might see in other fields.

AMA if you're interested!

~~~
dbrgn
I went to an escape room in eastern Europe recently. The escape room was a lot
of fun, we booked two rooms that were mostly science focussed (one was about
Nicola Tesla and the other was a lab where you needed to find the cure against
a zombie invasion).

I talked to the owner a bit, and he said that their room was also part of a
franchise. They sent the floor plan of the room to the game provider and
received the full instructions for setting up the room, as well as a shipment
of all the electronics and other stuff needed for the puzzles.

Of course every "instance" of such a room is unique in some way. But all in
all it seems to be a good concept - a company with some smart people comes up
with interesting puzzles, and escape rooms all over the world implement those
ideas in an actual building.

~~~
royjacobs
I played a Tesla room as well, in Serbia (Novi Sad to be exact). It was a ton
of fun, and they explained that a lot of the escape rooms actually originate
from that area of the world.

I have no idea if this is accurate or not, but it definitely was one of the
best ER experiences I've had so far.

------
CosmicShadow
My wife and I think they are fun and we know folks who've done 50+ and drive
to different cities to do them. I spent a lot of time looking into the
feasibility of starting my own, but the real estate cost here is too high and
you need to be ready to run a brick and mortar business for a few years which
is a huge leap from just freelancing.

People say they are fads, maybe, but they are essentially just another
"something to do" with a group of friends or co-workers that isn't "going to a
bar". If you like it, you do another one, maybe with different friends, etc.
The problem is in smaller cities there are only a few rooms and you finish
them all and have nothing new to do, so then they either need to reinvest to
redo their rooms or they bleed and die, meanwhile in big metros 100s are
popping up and shutting down constantly, and the quality spectrum is
incredibly wide.

If you like point and click adventure games or hidden object style games, this
is for you, gets you out of the house. If you are a game designer, they seem
super fun to want to try and design and you get to hack at cool tech to build
fun surprises and then delight in seeing real people be amazed by it daily, or
alternatively frustrated or ripping your room apart at the hinges. Either way,
seems like it'd be fun and profitable to do if you were in the right location.
Even if you sold out only on weekends that's like 4 rooms * 8 slots * 4 people
* $25 = $3200 * 2 days = $6400 a weekend in revenue.

------
panarky
[https://outline.com/NCXu93](https://outline.com/NCXu93)

~~~
neonate
Also [http://archive.is/W7Af4](http://archive.is/W7Af4).

------
wallflower
Alternatively, when you go to an escape room, try to figure out how the
puzzles were implemented. I am guessing lots of custom Arduino. For example,
one puzzle required entering a specific price into a cash register to get the
cash register drawer to open. How would that be done?

~~~
lastofus
You are correct that a lot of rooms are using off the shelf Arduinos, often
with buttons/reed switches/RFID tags for inputs, hooked up to a relay +
maglock for the output.

Some of the higher end rooms will pay a little extra for PLCs such as the ones
from AutomationDirect.

Another somewhat common controller are the BooBox controllers which come from
the haunt industry. A lot of haunters got into escape rooms as a way to
supplement income the rest of the year.

------
neves
My son birthday was in a escape room. The children loved it. The monitors know
exactly how to nudge the children according their age. They escaped in the
last second and laughed a lot.

~~~
badcede
Sounds a bit like how we might all still enjoy solving puzzles even after the
AIs take over. (I don't think the AIs will take over, but I also don't think
we'll stop solving puzzles if they do.)

------
andygcook
I live in the Boston metro. There’s a place called Boda Borg that is sort of
like Escape the Room, but much more fun in my opinion. There’s about 30
puzzles, and each one has three rooms. You can buy two hours or unlimited
time. Once you solve each room, you are able to go to the next. If you get it
wrong or run out of time after about 4 minutes, you just get a buzzer, leave,
wait in line and do it all over again. We just went for a team out for our
startup ([https://tettra.co](https://tettra.co)) and it was a great activity.
Highly recommend it if you have one near you.

~~~
asdsa5325
Did you really have to plug your startup when telling the story?

~~~
simonebrunozzi
He did, and both you and I thought that it was unnecessary. Not all publicity
is good publicity.

------
level3
Is there anyone here who is greatly familiar with the overall scene/industry
in the U.S.? I’m heavily into the scene in Tokyo and I’d love to compare
notes. Based on articles like this one, I sense there are a lot of
differences, but I’d also like to hear more anecdotes/perspectives from the
consumer side.

~~~
lovemenot
I live in Tokyo but hadn't heard about this. Could you please recomment a
couple.

~~~
level3
How good is your Japanese? There are a ton of games in Tokyo, but if you can't
read/speak Japanese your choices will be limited. In any case, ideally you
should go with people you know, since communication will be important.

First off, there are four general types of escape games in Japan: 1) Room-type
(single team trapped in a room/series of rooms) 2) Hall-type (multiple teams
at separate tables in a conference room/hall) 3) Stadium-type (large areas
like convention centers/stadiums, sometimes with no limit to team size) 4)
Field-type (no team size limit and no time limit; play area ranges from in-
store to city-wide)

In general, room-types are the best experience for beginners, since they are
more immersive, you don't have the distraction of other teams, you're free to
talk/make noise without fear of spoiling other teams, and you have the staff's
full attention. I get the impression that the majority of games outside Japan
are room-type, while hall-type and field-type are much more common in Japan.

If you just want to get the feel for what kind of puzzles you'll have to
solve, field-types are low-investment, and are less stressful since you can
solve them at your own pace.

Most of the games I would usually recommend for beginners aren't running, but
out of the ones that are (that I've already played), I would suggest these if
your Japanese is fine:

\- 時空研究所からの脱出 (room-type)

\- 下北沢謎解き街歩き (field-type)

\- ある牢獄からの脱出1&2 (room-type; highly recommend going with a full group you know)

\- マグノリア銀行からの脱出 (hall-type)

\- のび太の宝島からの脱出 (hall-type; better if you like Doraemon)

These are also okay for beginners but may be better if it's not your first
time:

\- 2099年からの脱出 (room-type; this is a sequel of sorts to 時空研究所からの脱出)

\- 不思議な晩餐会へようこそ (hall-type; the tables use projection mapping to advance the
story)

\- Escape from the Red Room (room-type; also can be played in English)

\- The Mummy Escape Game (room-type)

\- ある都市伝説からの脱出 (room-type; it's an escape game + haunted house, so only if you
like horror)

\- アイドルは100万回死ぬ2 (room-type; this one's a "time-loop game" where instead of
solving puzzles you're trying to figure out how to successfully break the time
loop, but very fun even for those who aren't good at puzzle-solving)

\- Any of the Detective Conan games (hall-type)

\- ドラキュラ城からの脱出 (hall-type)

\- 監獄アルバトロスからの脱出 (room-type)

All of the suggestions above are SCRAP-produced games, since I feel they're
entertaining even for beginners, especially if you're not sure whether you'll
like escape games in the first place.

If you can't read/speak Japanese:

\- Escape from the Red Room (mentioned above)

\- Mystery Mail Box Global Edition (field-type)

\- Tokyo Metro: The Underground Mysteries (field-type; the play area is city-
wide, taking you to various Metro stations; not currently running but they've
run one every year, generally starting in October)

\- Any of the Escape Hunt Tokyo (recently rebranded as Nazobako)-produced
games (room-type)

~~~
lovemenot
Thank you so much for a very thorough answer. To be honest, my Japanese is ok,
but probably not good enough for this type of game. Nevertheless I am now
considering making a team of people who would work well in such an environment
as room-type, since we'd all be beginners. Thanks again.

------
ggm
I think I watched too many 1960s horror movies. I can't stop thinking about
the twenty-tonne block of concrete, or the ruby laser aimed between my legs on
the band-saw table as the villain goes to feed his kitty..

------
Noos
There are these weird fad-based franchises that pop up often and slowly die
over time. Edible Arrangements (fruit arranged like flowers), Froyo frozen
yogurt shops, Curves for women fitness centers, and more. You can go to a
medium to large size strip mall and see them.

My guess is that it's mostly advertising in franchise lifestyle places (like
magazines) combined with the fact that it's selling a relatively low-cost
service and works more by appointment than an open storefront. Sort of a cheap
version of a business retreat or clown showing up at your birthday party.

Interestingly, a company as big as Square Enix has one, their "Trials of
Bahamut" escape room in various cities.

Oh, and they aren't really new per se, it's just dinner mystery theatre
without the dinner. Places have been doing that for decades.

~~~
Jommi
Not sure if "weird, fad-based franchise" is the correct term here. It's more
of just a basic trend cycle in effect.

Froyo places are far from dead, it's just that after the initial uptrend with
a place on every corner, it has solidified as a market of a few chain stores.
I'm expecting the same to happen with escape rooms.

Also, not sure if low-cost is right either, escape rooms are usually around
30e per hour per person at least here where I am from.

and finally, your last sentence feels like a weird sort of "oh its just x but
with y" handwaving that you could use on any sort of new activity.

~~~
Noos
If you've been to a mystery dinner theater, it's the same general principle, a
group of people get together to solve a mystery. One is escaping a room, the
other is questioning actors to solve a crime. It's just the escape rooms get
rid of the actors and dinner parts and focus more on props.

As for low cost, I meant to start one. Service-based, low amount of employees,
not much need for location if you focus on appointments, etc.

------
dvfjsdhgfv
I'd like to read the article - unfortunately the link shows only two
paragraphs.

~~~
dang
[https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=10178989](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=10178989)

[https://news.ycombinator.com/newsfaq.html](https://news.ycombinator.com/newsfaq.html)

Users often post workarounds in the threads.

~~~
dvfjsdhgfv
This cat-and-mouse game is absurd.

~~~
dang
Yes, but the absurdity is in the state of the publications market, as the
current top story talks about:
[https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=17007036](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=17007036).

Since HN would be much worse off without articles from NYT, WSJ, New Yorker,
Economist, and others, I don't know what a better policy would be.

------
xyz-x
Broken article

~~~
dang
Please don't do this here.

[https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=10178989](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=10178989)

[https://news.ycombinator.com/newsfaq.html](https://news.ycombinator.com/newsfaq.html)

------
merinowool
I find escape rooms extremely boring. I had experienced two in my life and I
just couldn't get it. First of all, the escape room is not real - you can
always just walk out and then you also know that the riddles were created to
entertain average person, so there is nothing special about solving them.
About two hours of pretending I enjoy it, so I wouldn't upset work mates that
thought it will be great team bonding exercise.

~~~
Sangermaine
> First of all, the escape room is not real - you can always just walk out and
> then you also know that the riddles were created to entertain average
> person, so there is nothing special about solving them.

Well, yes. It's a game you play with other people. Have you never encountered
a game before? Did you know that when you play chess, you are not actually
commanding real knights and bishops to fight each other?

~~~
crankylinuxuser
> Did you know that when you play chess, you are not actually commanding real
> knights and bishops to fight each other?

You reminded me of a game called "Battle Chess", in which bishops hold
glaives, the rook is a stone golem, pawns carry short swords. And yes, they do
battle to the death in accordance to the rules in chess.

I played it years ago, and found that the death scene was different for each
thing attacked. It was quite entertaining :)

[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qKcZwPb7C3k](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qKcZwPb7C3k)

~~~
rabidrat
And the queen had a duck!

[http://pud.com/post/59851751577/the-duck-
technique](http://pud.com/post/59851751577/the-duck-technique)

