DCist in the Escape Room.

Question: What happens when you lock three DCist staffers, along with some of their friends, in a room, leaving them to find hidden clues and solve puzzles in order to escape?

Answer: No bloodshed or tears, surprisingly. Also, a maddening, challenging, sometimes frustrating, but ultimately entertaining experience.

Because we couldn’t resist the idea of being locked in a room together, your faithful editors, along with DCist soccer guru/abandoned places explorer Pablo Maurer, decided to try out Escape Room Live, a recently opened “exit game” experience in Glover Park. What does that mean? Exactly what it sounds like.

You and a group of up to seven friends are locked in a room for 45 minutes and are supposed to search for clues and solve puzzles hidden around the room to figure out how to get out. There’s a whole narrative to go along with it: you’re a secret agent, or something, and you’ve got to find clues to crack codes in order to find the key to your freedom, along with the location of a drop point to meet another secret agent. The group is monitored the entire time via camera by a member of the Escape Room staff, who will occasionally call out a clue if you accept it. (We accepted two clues and received one admonishment for pulling out a cell phone.)

DCist did it and survived. But at the cost of $28 per person, the question we pondered over drinks afterward: Was it worth it? Here’s what we decided.

DCist in the Escape Room.

Matt:

  • Choose carefully who you want to do this with, because chances are there will be a lot of arguing and you’ll all want to strangle each other after.
  • It’s surprisingly challenging! We “escaped” the room with six minutes left, and that’s after we spent about 15 minutes checking over our clues to make sure we figured it out correctly.
  • The room isn’t big, so you’ll spend a lot of time tripping over each other to search for clues. A more methodical approach to the “AHHHH, EVERYONE TEAR THIS ROOM APART” one we took would’ve been more fruitful.
  • While entertaining, the whole thing lasts about an hour only, and could’ve benefitted from some more puzzle-solving activities to accompany it.
  • This is a prime date idea.
  • This would’ve been amazing if inebriated.

    Conclusion: It’s definitely worth checking out, especially for an occasion like a birthday. That being said, $28 per person is kind of steep for an hour of screaming obscenities at your friends.

    Pablo:

  • A good way to flush $30 down the toilet.
  • It would be much, much better with alcohol.
  • And karaoke.
  • Basically if it was a karaoke room with no puzzles.
  • Karaoke FTW.

    Conclusion: Pablo wants more karaoke bars in D.C.

    Sarah

  • If you can’t find the entrance to Escape Room DC, just turn around and go home.
  • The staff member who assisted us, Olivia, was extremely friendly and helpful, providing us with a backstory and rules — like don’t use “excessive force” — which we promptly ignored.
  • Do not record yourself in the Escape Room. The sound of your voice exclaiming “I found a clue!” will make you never want to speak again.
  • While Escape Room DC offers a 20 percent discount for filling an entire room, a smaller group is better. It just becomes way too chaotic with eight people who don’t know how to communicate trying to figure out who had solved what.
  • Have more than one person solve a clue. I single-handedly almost lost us the game because I insisted I had properly solved perhaps the simplest clue.

    Conclusion: Escape Room DC has been open for less than two months, but the staff is regularly making adjustments to the game. The cost, while high, seems worth it for an experience you can’t get anywhere else in the city. On the one hand, it seems like a great activity to do while your parents are in town so they can foot the bill. On the other hand, you’ll be locked in a room with your parents.

    • Filed Under: escape room,