We’re continually asked 2 questions: 1) What’s an escape room (which we covered in a previous blog post), and 2) Where the heck did this escape room phenomenon come from?
While the escape room concept is new to Cape Cod, they’ve actually been around for about a decade.
Not surprising, the concept began online where gamers had to escape a virtual room by solving clues and puzzles. Crimson Room was probably the most well-known and popular.
The virtual game evolved into the live action version in the early 2000’s when SCRAP, a Japanese publishing house, opened The Real Escape Game in 2007. The story goes that 35 year-old Takao Kato was sitting in a class in 2006, looked over a friend’s shoulder and saw her playing a game on her computer. The game involved pointing and clicking her mouse around a virtual room to reveal clues needed to unlock the front door. Takao, who had been looking to create a new event experience, was intrigued. A year later, he launched the Real Escape Game.
Real Escape Games spread quickly with rooms proliferating throughout Asia. In 2012, SCRAP brought the first Real Escape Game to the U.S. with a launch in San Francisco. The phenomenon has since mushroomed across the country. By some numbers, there are roughly 600 escape rooms in the States, mostly in metropolitan cities like New York, Vegas and New Orleans. And now, Mashpee, Cape Cod!
In Japan, they’ve even taken the experience out of a single room, holding Real Escape Games in venues like ruined hospitals, stadiums and amusement parks. That got us thinking…could an “Escape the Beach” be in our future?!
Want to see what all of the hype is about? Live in the Cape Cod area? Why not book an escape room with the Cape’s only escape room experience.
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