Escape rooms are a gaming trend that has spread around the world over the last few years. In these analog games, teams of players are challenged to find hidden objects, solve puzzles, and accomplish tasks in about an hour with the goal of escaping a room. As is common with many phenomena in gaming, the question of “what was the single starting point of escape rooms” is one that many in the press desire to answer for their stories. As part of a survey I conducted last year, the owners of escape rooms were asked what their inspiration was to start an escape room. About 65% of the survey respondents said that their inspiration came from playing in or learning about another escape room.. The rest of the respondents were not aware of other escape rooms when they started. Their inspiration came from a variety of sources. Therefore, there is not one single origin for escape rooms; they are a convergence of other games and media. It is the purpose of this paper to explore six precursors to Escape Rooms that emerged from these survey responses and then present escape rooms as an exemplar of the problem in the current divide between digital and non-digital games in game studies.
- 1 view