How Escape Rooms Came to Dominate Games Culture and Your Social Life

When time gets a hold of you, a sense of impatience, commotion, confusion, urgency, and haste takes over. The adrenaline rush felt is second to none. Think you’re smart enough? Believe yourself to be clever enough? Are you really as observant as you think you are? Or is it just a bluff? Want to put your skills to the test? We welcome you to the game of escape rooms. It’s a race against time. Put yourself to the test and know-how skillfully, and you can survive a testing environment where time tightens its grip around you with each ticking second. 

Ever since the world was introduced to escape rooms as a phenomenon, no one has ever been able to have enough of them. It is pretty evident that escape rooms are here to stay. Escape rooms have successfully captured the game culture and have become a major part of people’s social lives. In this article, we will be discussing how escape rooms influenced the games culture and our social lives.  

1. An escape from gadgets  

Games like escape rooms are a really great way to keep technology and gadgets aside for a minute and have an immersive experience with your fellow players. While smartphones can be found in the hands of kids and adults alike, escape rooms are actually a great way to do something outside the phone for once. 

Moreover, escape rooms actually have the tendency to keep you busier and more entertained than your devices. Unlike other games, escape rooms can keep you entertained for the entire while you play them, with new puzzles and riddles waiting to be solved every step of the way. 

2. Tickles the creative muscles  

Escape rooms require you to put both sides of your brain to use, especially your creative abilities. Escape rooms are no child’s play. They genuinely challenge and are not the easiest of activities (however, they are not impossible to solve either, obviously). Escape rooms require people to think outside the box and come up with unique solutions for the unique puzzles. 

While it may seem like a daunting task at first, once you flex that creative muscle, the sky’s the limit for your imagination. This is what makes escape rooms way better than any other game activity like bowling or arcade gaming. Unlike those activities, escape rooms actually require you to put your mental and creative skills to the test. 

3. A great bonding activity 

Escape rooms are one of the go-to games for corporations when they wish to inculcate team-building qualities in their teams and employees. Escape rooms are not a game meant to be played alone. ‘Teamwork makes the dream work,’ and that is truly the mantra escape rooms swear by. Different people bring in different perspectives. While your way of thinking might seem stagnant to you, another person can actually offer you a fresh perspective on the problem (puzzle) at hand. As the culture of work from home and zoom meetings has increased a lot, it has become very important to organize some games to play on zoom with coworkers so that they can connect with each other.

This also helps people understand what their teammates’ way of thinking about real-world problems is like. More than anything, escape rooms help you get acquainted with your teammates better than any activity. The credit might just go to the fact that it is one of the activities that do not require the involvement of any gadgets to be played. 

4. A great stress buster 

Escape rooms are actually an amazing respite from the real world. For that one hour, when you are inside the room, you can leave all your issues right outside the door. Escape rooms are a great way to replenish and rejuvenate your brain and give it a break from the mundane world of daily routines. And while escape rooms allow you to disconnect from the outside world and have some time solely with yourself and your friends, the constant demand for attention for solving puzzles helps in keeping you alert. 

Hence, when you do get over your experience, you do not dread returning to the regular world. Who knows, maybe putting your mind into those puzzles might just help you in coming up with a solution to that one problem that had you wrapped around its finger throughout the week? 

5. A great way to learn about boundaries 

A very unexpected benefit of escape rooms is the fact that it teaches about boundaries quite well. People tend to get very competitive in escape room games. And frankly speaking, escape rooms do instill a feeling of healthy competition. However, what one needs to look out for is the fact that sometimes things can get out of hand, and people can get overly competitive. These are the moments where people learn to respect others’ boundaries and let them have their space instead of hogging up the entire room. Moreover, acceptance of how one’s thinking and trying out people’s solutions makes people respect others’ opinions.   

Final thoughts  

Escape rooms continue to create a buzz in almost every sector. The benefits reaped from playing escape rooms not only set them apart from other regular games but also make a compelling argument for why it is affecting people’s social lives. Believe it or not, the day isn’t far when people begin to bond over escape room experiences, and we’re already pretty deep into that future. 

Author Bio: Charlotte Lin is a content creator at escaperoom.com. She’s a passionate young woman, mother to an amazing nine-year-old, and an avid reader. Over the years, writing has helped her explore and understand the world as well as her own self. She loves to travel, meet new people, and spend quality time with her daughter. You can find her on LinkedIn.