What to Expect at Your First Escape Game

Fun!

This one’s pretty obvious, but it is the number one thing you can expect at your first escape room experience. At Krakit, we kick the fun factor up to its highest level with live actors, who take our horror-themed rooms from eerie to downright heart-racing. Or, you can have a more chill time in our non-horror-themed escape room, which rotates regularly.

Puzzles galore

Along with the experience of being immersed in a fantastical world, puzzles are the other main component of what escape games are all about. Logic puzzles, number puzzles, factoids that make you dig old information out of the dark recesses of your brain—all of these can appear somewhere during the course of play.

Each puzzle will lead to a key that together add up to your escape from the room!

Total recall

Much like all those detective shows we’re all totally obsessed with, escape games require you to not only solve puzzles, but to “read the room” in the truest sense.

In order to access the puzzles that will lead to your freedom, you need to first figure out where they’re hiding. This requires you and your teammates to assess the room, figure out what’s “off” (that is, a clue), put together different elements you see, and remember what’s happened earlier in the game.

Stress, but the good kind

With only 45 minutes on the clock, sniffing out all the clues, putting all the pieces together, and solving all the puzzles can make you feel like you’re in a pressure cooker. But trust us, this sort of countdown-to-doomsday scenario is one of the best things about escape rooms. Gets all your adrenaline pumping, that’s for sure!

To find out what your friends—and you—are made of

You and your teammates will need to work together if you have any hope of solving all the puzzles and cracking the room—leading to your freedom. Find out who’s the leader, who’s the numbers guy or gal, and who’s the one who keeps the calm.

Book your escape game experience with Krakit here: bookeo.com/krakit.

Best Escape Room–Themed Game Shows on Television

It’s far from a secret that escape rooms are getting more and more popular and landing on more and more people’s lists of things to try. So it’s not really all that surprising that television networks are getting in on the escape room action. 

At last count, there are three currently airing TV shows that not just feature escape rooms—like Big Bang Theory, Conan, and Two Broke Girls have done—but completely focus on them. Like escape games themselves, this sort of puzzle-rific television has deeper roots.

To help escape game fans catch up on this essential TV viewing, we’ve rounded up the best escape room–themed TV out there.

1. The Crystal Maze (1990–95)

One cannot talk of today’s puzzle- and escape-themed TV shows without first mentioning The Crystal Maze. Hosted by Richard O’Brien (aka Riff Raff from Rocky Horror Picture Show), The Crystal Maze was one of the biggest and most beloved UK game shows ever to air.

Many Canadians may have missed out on the craze, so luckily there’s quite a few episodes on YouTube to catch you up. And, if you’re heading to London any time soon, it’s even coming back as a “live and immersive interactive experience” (aka, a sort of escape game).

2. Takeshi’s Castle (2002–04)

From the other side of the world—Japan—comes Takeshi’s Castle. The premise is that contestants are trying to make it through a trap-filled castle in order to reach the count, aka actor Takeshi Kitano. More physical than puzzley, Takeshi’s Castle is nevertheless a forebear to today’s escape room–themed television shows. Plus, it’s by far the zaniest—what else would we expect from Japanese TV?

3. Race to Escape (2015–)

Race to Escape is the brainchild of the folks at the Science Channel. Their inspiration comes directly from real-world escape games, with contestants trying to solve clues and bust out of the various themed rooms. Though perhaps not as exciting as actually playing a game yourself, it’s definitely some useful viewing for anyone preparing to take on the Asylum room at our Vancouver escape game—the hardest room we have.

4. Hellevator (2015–)

Another new addition to the genre is Game Show Network’s Hellevator—but this one comes with a twist. Like our own Krakit team, the people behind Hellevator know a good scare when they see one—or make one, rather. This is unsurprising, as the show’s hosts are Vancouver’s own Soska sisters, the directors behind American Mary.

Contestants of Hellevator are challenged to escape an abandoned warehouse, which just happens to have a haunted elevator. Unsurprisingly, screams abound.

5. Code (2016–)

This show has literally just hit the airwaves, broadcast by Korean network JTBC beginning this month. To spice up the format, Code has celebrities as contestants (it was only a matter of time!). The group starts eight floors underground, with the winners advancing one floor per week by solving puzzles and unlocking doors.

Try out the real thing at our Coquitlam escape room by booking here.