The Escape Game Phenomenon

"Escape the Room" real-life challenges are becoming hugely popular around North America. The movement started in Asia, spread to Western Europe and popped up on the west coast in the last year or so.

The room challenges come on the heels of a widely successful online gaming genre where gamers must escape a certain set of parameters with only a limited amount of clues. The offline version is now eclipsing the popularity of its predecessor, as more gamers choose to do their sleuthing in person rather than from in front of a screen.

One of the major benefits of the 'real-life' experience is the social interaction. Sure the new console platforms come with helo-grade communication headsets, but they don't compare to the experience of climbing around a room with your friends, shouting out directions and laughing the whole time.

Jerry, from South Carolina, may come up with a few 'zingers', but Rich, your oldest friend, will always have you laughing the hardest. Especially when he references your high school awkwardness.

For parents, the escape rooms present an environment that is more controllable than the Internet. It is free of creepers (the two-legged kind) and online bullying opportunities. But the most encouraging thing for parents is the promotion of problem solving in a setting outside of the classroom. Kids get to work through the required tasks and ask for clues if they need them, so they don't get overly frustrated. They get to use all their education at once, to solve actual problems. And who knows, maybe one day they will be trapped in zombie apocalypse.

Some media analysts speculate that the immersive escape experience is an intermediate step between full-on virtual reality and the motion capture experience supplied by console apparatuses like the Wii. Technology can't quite offer the virtual experience console games tease us with. The analog purity of the first-person real-life experience is much more enticing.

But maybe the biggest draw is society's new desire to de-tech, especially after a long workweek staring at screens. The escape rooms provide a tech cleanse of sorts, where participants can turn away form their mobiles, detach from their social media platforms and tune back to the thrill of real life experience.

If you haven't tried this latest craze, you really owe it to yourself to give it a whirl. Vancouver's top rooms are at Krakit. Come try one of the four escape puzzles and unplug for an hour of fun.