Escape Game First Date: 5 Revelations You Will Learn about Your Future Bae

On paper, it may sound a little intimidating: enter a locked room with a person you’ve exchanged very few words with, and who you likely only just met in person for the first time, and then attempt to escape that locked room through close collaboration.

We’ve seen plenty of first dates at Krakit Vancouver Escape Room, and we’ll tell you why it’s a fantastic way to jump start what could be the beginning of a beautiful relationship. (And OK, maybe it’s a little intimidating, but what first date isn’t?)

Here’s just a few of the qualities that a high-pressure situation, multiple brainteasing puzzles, and a 90-minute countdown will reveal about your next bae.

1. How they deal with stress

Put anyone in any situation with a countdown clock, and you’re guaranteed to get the stress hormones flowing. This is great for a first date, because you get to see if that guy who seemed so easygoing on Tinder is actually a tightly wound spring.

2. What their imagination is like

If you’ve chosen an escape room also your first date, odds are you’re a creative person who likes to immerse themselves in challenging situations and, yes, get lost in a little fantasy. No other first date will reveal if your future gal is on the same imaginative wavelength like an escape game date.

3. How well they communicate

We are all very aware that good relationships are built on good communication. So, why not throw this budding romance into the proverbial fire and see how quickly the two of you can get those verbal juices flowing. Without them, you certainly won’t win the escape game, and your date probably won’t win your love.

4. How they cope with failure

Whether or not you solve the escape room, there’s a good chance each one of you will fail at least one of the puzzles. Will your date take failure like a champ? Let’s hope so. Will they take your failures with grace? Let’s doubly hope so!

5. Whether or not they will put you first

A brain-hungry zombie rattles on the door—does your date shield you, or use you as a shield? VERY important to know. Might as well find that out asap.

Book your escape game first date in one of our four themed Vancouver escape rooms.

Things to Do in Burnaby

The sun is out, it’s warm and Burnaby is your oyster. The more you have in terms of options for leisurely activities, the more you’re going to attract people around you and improve your social life this summer. Let’s start with the basics of getting yourself out there.

• STYLE: Metropolis at Metrotown has over 300 shops to choose from to get you fresh; make sure you have a great bathing suit and a good cologne or perfume. Lougheed Town Centre Mall has 175 shops, Brentwood Mall has 110, but if you’re looking for a one-of-a-kind shops, head over to traditional street-front shopping at The Heights with over 350 unique storefronts.
• ENTERTAINMENT: Have you ever played an escape game? What an experience. While many people are looking for pure leisure with a bottle of their favourite beer or wine in Burnaby park they may head to Barnet Marine Park (which has a swimming beach!), Burnaby Fraser Foreshore Park, Deer Lake Park, or Burnaby Lake Regional Nature Park; others are looking for something more unique and edgy like Krakit. Krakit is a real-life escape room challenge that will help you grow and challenge your instincts. A perfect date should be unique, build trust and friendship, while showing your intelligence. Smart is sexy. 
• FOOD: You might need to replenish some brain cells now that you’ve cracked some codes and emerged victorious from Krakit’s escape room. You’re date might be hungry, too. Burnaby boasts awesome seafood and elegant choices for your adventure. Whether you’re looking for seafood, Italian, Greek, Chinese, Japanese, dine-in, take-out, or something quick, hundreds of  delicious restaurants are around each corner ready to serve you.

Things to do in Burnaby

5 of 7: Helpful Hints to Prepare for the Apocalypse

This is a seven part series outlining survival techniques based on Maslow's hierarchy (beginning with physiological needs). In the final segments (self-actualization and self-fullfilment) I'll work my way into team building culture, role diversification/intelligent responsibility-delegation, and, above all, leadership techniques.

You assemble your ranks daily in the school’s gymnasium following indoor and outdoor training exercises, evaluating their progress based on systems created by a team of your subordinates. This is their, and your, daily life; there is no weekend (although there are also some things to do in Burnaby). A binding agreement of saving the human race dictates a no-days-off policy. You look at them, full of pride having brought so many together under a common umbrella of causes. Their rag-tag appearance ignites a sense of honourwithin-rebellion and currently has no deteriorating affect on the morality of the group. But, how did we get here? Why are we alive while the rest of the world has departed or is suffering? Who are we? What happened that has left The Righteous as leaders of saving the human race.

• COGNITIVE NEEDS: You must know why this has all happened and the books in the school’s library aren’t doing it as they are all set within the past, within mythologies and sciences since debunked. You have no clear understanding of yourselves or the enemies that, daily, surround the walls of your stronghold. You assemble a team of medical and spiritual professionals with experience from ‘the times before’ the apocalypse to further explore the inner and outer workings of the situation. The medical team dissects captured enemies of the Righteous in conjunction with the spirit team who, in cooperation with the psychological team, explores the inner workings of the ‘demons’ and ‘zombies.’ They work day and night, making breakthrough after breakthrough, before making an epic discovery: these beings were engineered from a central source with specific  scientific and divine knowledge: ones seeking to expel the human race and acquire the planet for themselves. But who or what could do such a thing? You continue your explorations and find the root-source of the problem. An artificial intelligence that has surpassed human knowledge, has begun to exist as a megamind, absorbing life energies of life, both physical and metaphysical, from planet to planet. 

3 of 7: Helpful Hints to Prepare for the Apocalypse

This is a seven part series outlining survival techniques based on Maslow's hierarchy (beginning with physiological needs). In the final segments (self-actualization and self-fullfilment) I'll work my way into team building culture, role diversification/intelligent responsibility-delegation, and, above all, leadership techniques.

It’s been days, weeks, months since Satan has waged his war on humanity and you’ve finally become accustomed to your daily routine: it’s a never-ending daily cycle: you wake up to the cacophonous screaming of demons dispensed from the depths of hell and the walking dead bereaving their miserable souls within the traps you’ve placed, then you dispense heavenly justice and re-set each trap tripped and carry on. You’re well armed now, having escaped to loot a local gun shop and an abandoned grocery superstore store loaded with caches of food. You have found a fresh water spring by plowing through a wall in the basement of your school and are supplemented by a large supply of bottled water. But, you've become depressed from the sounds and situations around you and you’re dreadfully lonely. One day, having followed the dim glow from the your high nesting ground, a mother and her child arrive, chased by a small hoard of living dead.

• LOVE AND BELONGING: After vanquishing their pursuers with your small arsenal of defences, you, cautiously, examine the couple’s physicality. You prod them both with a series of questions you’ve prepared for such a situation, determining to a small extent that they are actual living humans. Nevertheless, you request they both remain in detention for a time until you can be absolutely sure they pose a minimal threat. On the first day of their arrival, you prudently lower food into their gymnasium cage via a rudimentary pulley system you’ve crafted referencing library books; you include within this exchange a change of clothing from the lost-and-found, clean blankets from the school’s dormitory, and a book. The mother expresses she’s broken her reading glasses and cannot read on her own; her young daughter is terrified. So, you read them a book aloud, daily, from the school’s library and observe calmness wash over their faces with each word you speak. After a week, you’ve developed a rapport with both of them, and release them from their lockup. The previous looming feeling of emptiness has disappeared. For the first time in months, you feel hope. Suddenly, the morning screaming doesn’t seem as bad.

Helpful Hints to Prepare for The Apocalypse: 2 of 7

This is a seven part series outlining survival techniques based on Maslow's hierarchy (beginning with physiological needs). In the final segments (self-actualization and self-fullfilment) I'll work my way into team building culture, role diversification/intelligent responsibility-delegation, and, above all, leadership techniques.

You’ve barricaded yourself into a recently-abandoned, private school: a Victorian-style building six stories tall on about 2 acres of land. 

Leaning your back against a wall in a classroom on the highest floor, you look around and start piling soft objects you’ve found, like hooded sweatshirts and gym mats, upon one another in order to get some rest. You wake up an hour later from a black sleep, your cracking lips and a purring stomach reminding you of what’s happening; you’ve only temporarily escaped from the perils surrounding you. You’re thirsty, famished. Luckily, the school’s cafeteria stock loads your solitary base of operations with a temporary cache of vending machine beverages, cans of food, and various dried goods. 

You’re alive. You’ll remain alive as long as you can stay safe. But, evil is around every corner and you’re unarmed.

• SAFETY: You must use your ingenuity to ensure your immediate vicinity is not susceptible to imminent attack. You break the head off of a mop from a supply closet to immediately arm yourself with this sharp, pointed object while you look for the groundskeepers quarters. Upon finding the tool shed, you load a canvas bag found within with stock of wire, tools, and sharp objects. You return several times. Using a combination of lessons from survival television shows and boy scout training to arm the halls with home-made traps; you arm any possible entrance leading to your base location with trip wires. To further secure yourself from the ambitions of rock demons and diseased walking deceased lurking about the region, you’ve dug a series of narrow, deep holes and furtively covered them with sticks and brush. It’s now impossible to hear your oafish foes fumbling as they occasionally attempt to ransack your base. The first of many wire traps leading to where you sleep proves only partially effective, so you’ve improved and upgraded each part of them until you’re 100% sure you can get a full eight hours of sleep before waking up to put the morning intruders out of their misery. 

Helpful Hints to Prepare for The Apocalypse: 1 of 7

This is a seven part series outlining survival techniques based on Maslow's hierarchy (beginning with physiological needs). In the final segments (self-actualization and self-fullfilment) I'll work my way into team building culture, role diversification/intelligent responsibility-delegation, and, above all, leadership techniques.

The disease has been let loose and it’s raining fire. Flesh-eating elephants have escaped from the zoo and herds of cattle are running rampant through the city streets. Michael, the archangel, appears from behind a cloud and sounds his trumpet—all of a sudden the ground opens up to reveal a furnace of torture instruments as an icy breeze swiftly blows from the flames of hell, biting your face and numbing your hands. Stop what you’re doing: this is invariably the end of all that is. The following is a worst case preparation scenario for the impending apocalypse.

• REFUGE: The first action you must take is to find a place of refuge where you can recharge, catch your breath, store your gear, and organize your thoughts. Any secluded area will do, such as a penthouse in an abandoned high rise condo building, an empty bank vault (as long as you have means to not become locked in), or a small school. Be sure to limit the amount of entrances and exits in order to face your diseased, mutated foe head-on. If you have the option to barricade yourself in at night, then do so as the lack of visibility is your enemy, hoards of starving brain-suckers, will be sniffing you out with canine-like intensity. Be assured: they can smell your fear. Furthermore, you are not only protecting yourself from the perils of death sweeping through the streets, but also from those survivors who mean to undermine your efforts to redeem the human race. You will face deception from foe posing as friend. Remember: trust no one. Anyone who has not otherwise proven themselves as an ally to defend your mortality is an enemy to which you must always be ready to swiftly remove from their plight. Find water. Find Food.

10 Reasons Why the Vancouver Escape Game is a Killer First Date

The Krakit Escape Game is great for groups that want to have a wicked night out solving puzzles. You'll laugh, you'll cry, you'll test your wits and you'll probably sweat (just a little).

But what about for a first date. Here are ten reasons why Vancouver's top escape game is an awesome idea for a first date:  

10. Variety is the Spice of Life

Everyone goes for coffee; It's the safe option. It's cheap and you can duck out quickly if the pictures don't match reality. But who wants to be safe? Why not lock yourself in a room with a total stranger. YOLO!

9. Jingle Bells

Everyone likes to get into the holiday mood, especially after a long day of work. It's like instant happiness, a mix of warm memories and iconic symbols. Krakit has a special holiday room designed for those who love Christmas.

8. Adrenaline Rush

All the thrills of an extreme outing without the risks. No one wants to finish their first date on a hospital gurney. Krakit offers an environment that gets the adrenaline pumping but offers little opportunity for injury.

7. Be the Hero

You don't need a cape and a flashy nickname to assume the role of hero. Just use your brain, your patience and your confidence to impress. Your natural super powers will have your date seeing stars. Kal-El ain't got nothing on your natural ability.

6. Physical Contact

For the same reason that people love to go to scary movies for first dates, the Escape Game will give you loads of opportunities for physical contact. When the chill factor starts to rise, humans naturally huddle up. It's in our DNA. Not too many threats at Starbucks, but in The Asylum, fear reigns. Get scared, get close and see where the night takes you.

5. No Pregnant Pauses

You've finished dinner and are waiting for the cheque. You've exhausted your first-date banter. The silence makes you squirm in your chair. This is not how you planned to end the night.  At Krakit, you will be so focused on the game at hand, you won't have time for awkward conversation pauses. With 45 minutes to break out, you'll need every second.

4. Social Barrier Break Down

Traditional first dates are all about keeping your cards close, not revealing too much and playing a safe game, with the hope of securing a second date. But do you really know the person after a quick meet-and-greet? Not likely. But throw yourself and your new friend into an escape challenge and all the cards are on the table.

3. Zombies

Really, who doesn't love zombies.

2. Instant Bond

The best thing about the Vancouver Escape Challenge is that it's a cooperative environment.  It's not like pool or bowling where you play against each other. You will only succeed if you work together - lessons learned from the Walking Dead.

1. Monday Morning

People love to share their experiences. Why not arrive at work on Monday with a hilarious escape story? We say Monday morning, but with social media it will probably be five minutes after the date is done. Give him or her something to share. A unique tale of escape will linger far longer that that first-date coffee breath.