Illustration by Todd Detwiler
The “room escape” is a new kind of interactive challenge in which 10 people are locked in a room together. A series of puzzles, when solved, reveals the location of the key to get out. It takes some truly outside-the-box thinking and real teamwork to come up with the answers; less than 10 percent of groups find the key before the hour is up. “People who come in thinking they’re very smart and thinking they’re going to do well tend to do worse than people who just come with an open mind,” says game master Nir Chezrony. Enigma Productions presents the St. Louis Room Escape, Volume 4, from May 27 to June 7. To help you prepare for the challenge, should you choose to take it, here’s a sampling of puzzles from previous events.
- The classic scytale cipher is decoded by wrapping a ribbon around a spindle of the correct diameter to read the message.
- Another word challenge, “OPPOSITE OF HIJKLMNO” may be read “opposite of ‘H to O,’” as in the opposite of H²O, or water. The answer is “fire,” a word that opens an alphabetic lock on a box containing another clue.
- When three props are placed together just so and a flashlight is directed through the resulting moiré, the light illuminates certain words on a wall poster.
- By arranging shapes, players reveal letters in the negative space between them, and the letters make a word.
- Only when players stand on an “X” marked on the ground do they have the perspective required to read a word hidden in a sculpture.
- Painted slats are arranged to form an image, which lines up holes in the boards to reveal a word underneath.
- An old-fashioned rebus is made more challenging with images that must be placed in the correct order in the word puzzle.
- To solve the word puzzle “FORM ORC LOSE, BEES I LENT,” say it out loud. It becomes “For More Clues, Be Silent.” It’s supposed to make players come up with the word “Hush.” That word, in turn, opens a special alphabetic lock on a white box containing the next clue.
