With the rainy season turning our thoughts and activities indoors, some will turn to hobbies such as needlework, jigsaw puzzles, or fly-tying. Others will pick up a book and read an adventure, fantastic, or frightful story. Yet others will turn on the TV and watch a drama unfold in captivating scenes. Some innovative and adventurous souls will seek to create their own dramatic stories in an escape room, a group activity that has exploded in popularity. It’s a fun way to share time with loved ones, so have a rainy day refuge and unravel mysteries in Salem’s escape rooms!
What Is An Escape Room?
An escape is a themed room with clues and puzzles that can only be solved with the team’s collaborative efforts. When a puzzle is solved, or a clue is found, the person must make the other team members aware of the clue so the team can use it to solve the room. These problematic puzzles may include decoding ciphers, finding hidden objects, such as keys to locks, solving riddles, jigsaw puzzles, math problems, physical challenges such as rope ladders, audio puzzles, etc. As the team collectively solves the puzzles, they arrange the clues to help them unlock the door and exit the escape room. The average time for an escape room challenge is 60 minutes, and the recommended group size is usually between 2-6 people.
Benefits of the Escape Room Experience
By working together as a team with the shared objective of exiting the escape room, participants develop essential skills such as teamwork, decision-making, increasing productivity, developing strengths, collaborating, and improving communication skills. The benefit of this shared struggle is nurturing a deeper bond than when the game began. Salem has two escape rooms for groups of all stripes to explore.
Salem’s Escape Rooms
EscapeTech
Capitol Tower, Suite 300
388 State Street, Salem
503.991.5760
escapetech@escapetech.rocks
Salem’s first escape room, Escape Tech, currently has three on-site rooms: A mystery called Sherlock’s Mystery, which has an above medium difficulty level; an adventure-themed room, Dr. Jones Study Heist, with a low difficulty level rating, and a horror-ish type genre room, Save the Asylum, with a medium difficulty level.
Escape Tech also offers two off-site escape rooms at the Kroc Center in Salem and hosts virtual escape rooms, Escape Extinction and Krockbuster, which range high on the difficulty meter.
Exitus Escape Rooms
440 State Street, Salem
971.599.EXIT
info@exitussalem.com
Exitus Escape Rooms currently offers three different experiences: Operation: Takeout is a crime-themed room with a success rate of 20%. A crime syndicate is suspected of stealing a priceless Chinese artifact, and the room participants are an elite task force gathering evidence to find the missing piece.
Arctic Outbreak is a Sci-Fi room with a success rate of 18%. In it, the group must figure out what the usually secretive scientists at the Center for Arctic Life Discovery (C.A.L.D) were working on in the frozen Arctic. Their last transmission was unusual and full of excitement for a new discovery. Then, radio silence. The team must use the clues to decipher C.A.L.D’s mysterious message. Poe’s Legacy falls in the creepy category and has a success rate of 28%. It is a long-time favorite of local escape room enthusiasts. The participants receive a mysterious telegram from the most reclusive author in the world. The team is to solve riddles and horrors in hopes of winning an interview with this once-famous author.
What to Expect in a Salem Escape Room
Hints
Both of Salem’s escape rooms will offer hints, best practices for problem-solving, and a pre-entry overview of what to expect once the participants are in the room together. As each room has a different theme and unique clues and furnishings, no two escape rooms promise the same experience. For sure, though, there will be puzzles to solve, for solving the puzzles is the only way to unlock the room. The group can ask for hints if it is stuck on a specific phase.
Mental Challenges
Though the escape room is a physical adventure, these are mind exercises, not physical tests. Expect to use your brain – for the most part, speed, strength, and agility won’t be of much use (unless someone needs to climb a rope ladder – be sure to invite that person to the escape room, just in case). Critical thinking and analytical skills are required to win the room, and everyone in the group must contribute.
Immersive Mystery
This is where the adventure begins in the escape room. It’s a combination of the book, TV, hobby, and the experience mentioned above, with the added kick of including the participants in a hands-on mystery. The ticking clock adds pressure as the group must prioritize, delegate roles to each person, and make quick decisions.
From beginner to experienced, the group can find a Salem-area escape room to boost their adrenaline while testing skills such as teamwork and management abilities. Whether the team makes it out of the room in time or not, the experience makes all participants winners as they’ve surely gained strength in beneficial skills.
