A room full of mystery and suspense

Over the weekend I took the day off from playing games and actually participating in one in real life.

I went with a group on Saturday in Anaheim to a place called Mission Escape Games, a business with a unique service of entertainment I've never experienced before.  Here are the details: you and your group are placed into a room and have 60 minutes to escape.  No items are given to you and you must empty your personal belongings into a box for safe keeping (or to be used to cheat the game with).  So to get out, you're solely dependent on what you find in the room in order to find your escape.

The theme of the game we played is called Escape The Hydeout, and as you probably guessed, it's related to the story about Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde.  Here's a blurb of the theme from the official website: "The Hydeout is a Victorian-era mission inspired by the Strange Case of Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde. Be prepared to go into the good doctor's home but beware of his dark side. Dr. Jekyll has been acting strange and gone missing. It's up to you to find out what has happened to Dr. Jekyll before Mr. Hyde shows up..."  Spooky stuff.

The room is chock-full of items and it's up to you and your crew to scavenge for any clues that may be able to help aid in your escape.  A total of six can participate in the game, but we rolled with four.  Let me stress the fact that teamwork is essential for getting out of there.  No one person can be the hero.  In the end, we were able to escape and beat the game with only two-and-a-half minutes left to spare!  All of us contributed in solving the puzzles, so it was a team effort that got us out.

While exiting there were flyers for other similar escape games like this one all around Orange County.  One's in Tustin while two others were in Irvine, I believe, and a few others in neighboring cities, too.  All seem to have different themes, so you'll have a different experience at each location.  One had a haunted carnival circus vibe to it.  I'm sure that one will creep a lot of people out if clowns are involved.

This is definitely one experience I will never forget.  It was challenging, unique, clever, and just plain fun!  If there's one of these escape games around you, I'd recommend trying it at least once and hopefully get the same satisfaction that I got when we beat the game.  Resident Evil's got nothing on this!

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