Game Theory vs. Decision Theory

Iain Banks’s 1988’s novel The Player of Games is all about gaming and game theory. The main character Jernau Morat Gurgeh finds himself in an intergalactic gaming competition versus some of the universe’s most elite gamers. Banks uses some of the novel’s unique game platforms as a reflection of social conditions.

The game-based society Empire of Azad had created a labyrinth as a prison for convicted criminals. The basis of the labyrinth was moral insofar as each criminal could be free within a couple of weeks by successfully passing certain virtue-based scenarios; or, upon failure, would be damned to fall deeper into the labyrinth. If the offender were to fail these moralithms continuously, they would eventually be deported to a penal colony. How fair: the most epic escape game where freedom is a prize for the condemned.

In a more advanced society, could a realistic decision theory-based simulation bypass legalities and assess someone’s moral compass? Yes and no. The catch-22 in The Player of Games ‘legal labyrinth’ is that it could only assess its participant’s morality if the scenario isn’t exactly the same as the one in which they were convicted and/or the perpetrator has prior knowledge of their conviction within the moral scenario. Otherwise, Azadians are only testing for systematic manipulation.

Escape games like Krakit use gaming cryptarithmic scenarios to outline parallels to real life conundrums. It doesn’t mean that you are a bad person if you can’t pass a Krakit escape game, but it may mean you need to practice puzzling in order to develop keener lateral styles of thinking.

In Burnaby’s escape room, you might develop mental tools for taking care of business you never knew you were capable of using—and, you can have a ton of fun. Nothing sucks about that!

Haunted Hospitals and Cruel Fates: The Asylum Escape Room

Have you tried the hardest escape room at Krakit yet? That’d be the Asylum room—where you find yourself sentenced to life in a psychiatric institution, with only 45 minutes before you’ll be put into a permanently sedated state. Unless, of course, you can crack the room and escape.

Insane asylums have long spooked us—and for good reason. They were places where some truly terrible medical cruelties took place and where people were locked away for their entire lives, often with no real medical reason by today’s standards. Though a relic of an earlier age, the psychiatric hospital still haunts our cultural psyche, appearing in everything from X-Files to Buffy the Vampire Slayer to American Horror Story.

But these places aren’t just in pop culture—they really existed, and over the last few decades many have been simply abandoned. Unsurprisingly, plenty of these institutions come with tales of tragedy, haunting, and other supernatural phenomena.

Riverview Hospital, Coquitlam, British Columbia

Located right in the backyard of our Vancouver escape room is Riverview Hospital, an abandoned facility in Coquitlam that shut down in 2012, nearly a century after it first opened. It’s often used as a spooky setting for filming, from Supernatural to Watchmen, but it has its own real-life haunting tales. People claim to have heard laughing, snickering, whispering voices on the top floor, when no one else was around.

Liff Hospital, Dundee, Scotland

Westgreen Asylum, 1897 (CC-BY 3.0)

Called the Dundee Lunatic Asylum at the time of its construction in the late 1800s, this hospital saw thousand of patients pass through its halls before its closure in 2013. People have heard footsteps on its staircases—with no one to be found when they sought the cause. Many of the hospital buildings have now been turned into private housing. (No thanks!)

Rolling Hills Asylum, East Bethany, New York

Rolling Hills Exterior (Photo: Paranormal Skeptic CC-BY 3.0)

Established in early 1827, this now-abandoned asylum is known for some extreme paranormal activity, including apparitions involving voices, footsteps, touches, and more. No wonder, since there’s a reported 1,700 bodies buried on the property. It shut down in 1974, and now it’s the scene of ghost tours, horror movie nights, and ghost hunts.

Aradale Mental Hospital, Ararat, Australia

Ararat Mental Asylum, 1880 (CC-BY 3.0)

Definitely one of the most massive mental hospitals ever constructed, Aradale is made up of more than sixty buildings. Constructed in 1867, the hospital had tens of thousands of patients, and more than 13,000 of them died on the premises. The hospital complex, decommissioned in 1998 and turned into a college campus, is said to have several haunting hot spots, from patients who never left—even after death—to inexplicable cold winds blowing through its halls.

Get thrills and chills as you try to escape the Asylum at Krakit Escape Game, on the border of Burnaby and Coquitlam, by booking here: http://bookeo.com/krakit.

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.