What Are Escape Rooms Like? A Guide to Your First Escape Room

The unpredictability, excitement, and variability of escape rooms make them perfect for every group, from families to coworkers and everyone in between.

If you haven’t played an escape room before, however, you may be confused by escape rooms as a whole. What are escape rooms like in general? What does an escape rooms look like? What can you expect? How can you make sure to win (or just have fun!)?

This article will give you insight into what escape rooms are all about, from family-friendly escape rooms to horror-themed rooms only for the brave-of-heart.

What Are Escape Rooms Like? An Immersive Journey Using All Your Senses

Escape rooms are exciting, thrilling, and can be challenging. While difficulty levels vary, you can be sure that you’ll be racing to solve puzzles to beat the clock and “escape” from the room in time!

Escape rooms provide an immersive and interactive experience that engages all your senses, creating a unique and memorable adventure. These puzzle-solving challenges require participants to work together, using their sense of sight to spot hidden clues, decipher codes, and navigate the intricately designed environment. The sense of touch is vital for feeling textures, manipulating objects, and unlocking mechanisms. Escape rooms often incorporate sound elements, such as background music, audio clues, or ambient noises, to heighten the atmosphere and enhance the sense of immersion. By stimulating all the senses (okay, maybe not taste or smell!), escape rooms offer a captivating and thrilling experience that fully immerses participants in the game's narrative and encourages teamwork, problem-solving, and creative thinking.

Choosing an Escape Room Theme

The biggest thrill about escape rooms is that no room looks exactly the same. Some themes tend to pop up more than once, like the well-loved Alice in Wonderland theme, but even recurring themes will have their individual twists.

Before you decide to book an escape room, you should check the room description to see what story you’re going to take part in. Even just a few sentences will help you get a feel for how the room will look and function.

Certain themes may be more child-friendly, while others appeal more to teenagers and adults. Some may be fantastical, while others have a horror twist. You may need a large group to solve a specific story, while others only require two or three individuals.

With all of these variables, it’s no wonder that there are so many different escape room themes!

There are a wide variety of escape room themes, from fantasy to horror and everything in between. Depending on the setting and plot, the room may look like an abandoned orphanage or even a grandmother’s house! How the room looks and feels will vary widely depending on the theme. You may encounter different types of puzzles, different props, and even different layouts in every escape room you play.

What Does an Escape Room Look Like? A Jungle-Themed Example

Let’s look at an example to get a sense of what an escape room might look like.

60out’s Jumanji: Welcome to the Jungle escape room immerses players in a thrilling jungle-themed adventure. Upon entering, participants are greeted by lush foliage, exotic animal sounds, and maybe some mysterious artifacts. The room's design is meticulously crafted to transport players into the heart of the jungle, complete with realistic props, intricate puzzles, and atmospheric lighting. As teams navigate through various challenges, they will encounter cleverly hidden clues, riddles, and even some unexpected surprises. This immersive experience showcases the creativity and attention to detail that goes into designing a captivating escape room, leaving participants with a memorable and exhilarating adventure.

What Are Escape Rooms All About? The History of Escape Rooms?

The original escape rooms were actually video games. In 2004, Toshimitsu Takagi created Crimson Room, a video game in which the player had to solve puzzles in order to escape.

Only three years later, that idea was turned into a “live escape room”. These experiences started spreading across Asia before entering Europe. From there, they came to the rest of the world.

One of the reasons that escape rooms are so popular is because of their incredible variety. Even if you’re an escape room veteran, you won’t encounter any two rooms that are exactly the same.

People also love escape rooms because they allow for an “escape” from reality. An escape room allows you to really become immersed in the story!

How to Make the Most of Your Escape Room Experience

Solving an escape room requires a lot of teamwork, so make sure to pick your team wisely! If you don’t already know each other well, take a minute to break the ice. By understanding each other better, you can direct each other to puzzles that utilize your strengths.

Escape rooms are also just fun to play! No matter what the escape room looks like, the variety inherent in the escape room experience means that it’s easy to find a theme that your whole group will love.

When you decide to do an escape room you’re going to get a different experience every time. That’s why enthusiasts choose to book escape rooms so frequently — it’s always a new adventure.

Why 60out?

When you’re going to book an escape room, it’s important that you’re able to choose an experience best suited to your individual group members. With 60out, that’s easy to do.

60out has 22 different rooms spread out across five Los Angeles locations. These rooms represent a number of themes and genres. Some rooms are available for children as young as 10, and certain rooms are able to accommodate as many as eight people.

No matter what type of experience best suits your family, 60out can help you find it. Book today for a unique family outing that you’ll never forget!

Still not sure what to expect? Want to learn more? Check out these blog articles:

• Are Escape Rooms Scary? Common Escape Room Fears Answered
• Are Escape Rooms Hard? Picking the Right Difficulty Level for Your Team
• Top 5 Escape Room Tips for Beginner Escape Artists