Three Benefits of Escape Game Play (Besides Fun)

Escape games are skyrocketing in popularity around the world, and there’s good reason for it. Far from a simple form of entertainment, an escape room is an activity that offers a lot to its players. And with hundreds, if not thousands, of escape rooms popping up all over the world—from the first one in Japan (built in 2007) to Brazil, Australia, India, the UK, Singapore, and, of course, Canada—it is clear escape games have wide-ranging appeal.

The most obvious reason escape rooms are so popular is because they’re fun. But it’s not the only one.

Escape rooms are great for team building and bonding

Workplaces looking for a way to get their employees to work together—without the high stakes of a real-world project—are no strangers to pushing their staff into an escape room and throwing away the key. Why? Because there’s no way around teamwork in an escape game. If you don’t work together, you’re not getting out.

Plus, there’s scientific proof that experiences like escape games bond groups of friends and families by creating memories and genuine happiness. 

Escape games spark new neural pathways

Sure it’s fun to pretend you’re saving the world from the Zombie Apocalypse, but as you’re doing it, you’re also strengthening the problem-solving faculties of your brain. More specifically, escape games help to build highly important “fluid intelligence,” which you can learn more about here.

Escape rooms give you a rush of adrenaline—without the danger

Not all of us get our kicks from jumping out of planes. For those looking for a fun challenge and a completely safe way to get their heart rates elevated, an escape game is it. You’ve got limited time to get yourself out of a (fictional) dangerous scenario and the pressure is on—trust us, your fight or flight response will definitely kick in.

Book a genuinely fun, experience-making, brain-building outing at our Coquitlam escape room here.

Coquitlam Escape Games

As winter closes, we all start looking for ways to escape: escape the dreary city, escape our daily routines, and escape boredom. Never fear! We’ve rounded up five foolproof ways to get out of the fall funk in our Coquitlam ’hood—and put your escape skills to the test.

Coquitlam Skyline Photo: Greg Salter (CC BY 2.5)

Defeat the IKEA maze

We’ve all had to go to IKEA to do something boring like buy cutlery or a lamp shade, but let’s be honest: at its best, IKEA is basically Disneyland for grown-ups. Instead of heading to IKEA Coquitlam to squabble you with your partner about a lime green rug, turn it into an adventure by creating a scavenger hunt and seeing who can make it through the IKEA maze to win the day.

Take a crash course at Crash Crawly’s

Let’s not forget the younger escape fans out there: get your tyke prepped for a future as an escape game master by taking them to Crash Crawly’s. It’s basically an obstacle course for pint-sized people, with plenty of challenges to help develop their problem-solving brains.

Escape the city at Minnekhada Regional Park

Though the rain may follow you here, the dreary greys of the cityscape will be replaced by the bright greens of pine trees and deep blues of the water. You don’t even have to go very far to make your great escape, as Minnekhada is just on the outskirts of Coquitlam.

Shake-up routine at Krakit Escape Room

Gathering a group of friends for an outing to Krakit’s Coquitlam escape room offers a chance not only to literally escape the room, but to escape into your imaginations for 45 minutes. Just like the books you read as a kid, you can choose your own adventure: Will you escape from the Zombie Apocalypse, the Asylum, or the Saw Room?

Sail away at Cloud 9 Float Spa

Speaking of escaping into your mind—you can take it one step further and forget you even have a mind at Cloud 9 Float Spa. Climb into a big vat of mineral water, with no light and no sound, and float away into nothingness.

Not a Horror Fan? 10 Escape Films Just for You

Though we’re huge fans of horror (you might have been able to tell), we know that not everyone enjoys having the living daylights scared of out of them.

That’s why alongside our horror-themed escape games we have one that has all of the brain-teasing fun without all of the hair-raising chills. Currently, that’s our One Night Stand room—which offers a different kind of horror as motivation: You need to find out what exactly happened “the night before,” before your 45 minutes is up and the game is over.

For those who prefer the excitement of escape with minimal gore, we list 10 of our favourite non-horror escape films, with a title for every taste.

Labyrinth (1986) 

A selfish teenager has to solve a magical labyrinth to save her brother from goblinhood. Plus Davie Bowie, Jim Henson puppets, and a baby in a stripey onesie. What’s not to love.

The Shawshank Redemption (1994) 

Tim Robbins plays the long game in this prison-escape film that comes from Stephen King’s sentimental side.

The Martian (2015)

Another long-game escape. Matt Damon’s only hope of getting off the desolate planet of Mars is some serious scientific calculations and quick-thinking problem solving. And lots of waiting.

Battle Royale (2000) 

This classic Japanese film sees ninth graders pitted against one another, fighting for the chance to be the one who escapes a deserted island with their life.

The Matrix (1999)

Yes, a sci-fi masterpiece, but also a tale of ultimate escape. For what is the Matrix if not one giant hallucinatory prison from which humanity must break free?

Escape from Alcatraz (1979)

Though it’s been decommissioned for decades, Alcatraz is still known as being the inescapable prison. Clint Eastwood begs to differ.

Papillon (1973)

Another prison break film, set on another island. This time it’s Steven McQueen who attempts to escape his cell—over and over again.

The Maze Runner (2014)

A bunch of boys and one girl are tasked with navigating a shifting maze full of deathbots. Poor things are destined to run into even more obstacles in the forthcoming sequel, The Scorch Trials.

Chicken Run (2000)

Chicken run? More like chicken prison. This family-friendly claymation sees a bold chicken attempt to lead his fellow fowl to freedom.

The Hunger Games (2012)

An unsurprising entry, but one we can’t leave out. The first of the popular franchise has Katniss trying to escape the Hunger Games with her life, before going on to attempt freedom from larger political shackles.

Book a round in our One Night Stand Vancouver escape room here.

Hijinks at the CIA: The Unsolved Kryptos Sculpture

Kryptos by Jim Sanborn, at CIA headquarters in Langley

Photo: Jim Sanborn (CC BY-SA 3.0)

When you think “CIA,” the first thought that pops into your head usually isn’t “fun guys.” But the notoriously stern-faced organization must have some sense of fun (or maybe even a sense of humour?), since their headquarters at Langley is home to one unusual and perplexing work of art: the Kryptos sculpture.

Here at Krakit, we know that art and logic combine to highly fun ends—that’s our Vancouver escape room in a nutshell—and the Kryptos sculpture is testament to that.

Created by artist Jim Sanborn in 1990, the copper and wood sculpture features four ciphers, or coded messages. Composed of 2,000 letters in total, the ciphers presented a challenge not only to the codebreakers and logicians employed by the CIA, but also to the public at large.

It took five years for a group of clever clogs at the National Security Agency (NSA) to break the first codes (although this was kept secret), with the first member of the public, computer scientist Jim Gillogly, announcing his computer-aided solution a year later, in 1996.

However—only three of the four ciphers have been solved to this day.

The final cipher, a mere 97 letters, has yet to be cracked. Sanborn, one of two people who know the puzzle’s solution, has released two clues since the sculpture was unveiled. In 2010, he revealed that letters 64 to 69 spell “BERLIN.” Still, nada. So in November 2014, he doled out another clue: letters 70 to 74 spell “CLOCK.”

It’s been a year since the second clue was given—and 25 years since Kryptos was unveiled—and, still, even the CIA has yet to crack the code that sits on its grounds. (Or, at least as far as we know. They kept their solutions to the first three ciphers secret!)

The cherry on top of this most mysterious of artworks? Solving the final cipher isn’t the end of the puzzle: the code’s solution will complete a riddle, which will then also need to be cracked.

If you want to try your hand at being the one to solve the final 97 letters, the full transcript of the sculpture is online here, along with many other facts about the work, compiled by Elonka.