PLAYERS ARE GIVEN CLUES AND PUZZLES TO HELP THEM ESCAPE A ROOM, SOLVE MYSTERY
The Ultimate Escape Game, a new worldwide mystery game phenomenon has come to Dallas-Fort Worth. The game, which is composed of clues and puzzles, started in Europe, and then expanded to the United States.
The Ultimate Escape Game is based in Atlanta, and recently opened a location in Dallas at 4887 Alpha Road, Suite 275, in Farmers Branch.
ULTIMATE ESCAPE IS A LIVE ROOM ESCAPE EXPERIENCE
On its website, Ultimate Escape Game describes itself as an “intellectually stimulating labyrinth of clues and puzzles aimed to bring out participants’ inner sleuth in a live room escape experience.” It is aimed at company team-building events, for play by family and friends, gamers, and tourists.
Brittany Sandidge, manager of The Ultimate Escape Game Dallas, said that while there are other escape games across the Dallas-Fort Worth area, she sees them as a good rivalry.
“We’re all about having competition, good competition really helps us, bad competition doesn’t,” Sandidge said. “We have a lot of competitors in Atlanta, where we started. We’re still making great money every day here.”
In Europe, escape games are $200 a room, but at Ultimate Escape Game Dallas, it is $30 a person.
There are six rooms in The Ultimate Escape Game, in a 5,000-square-foot space.
TEAMS HAVE TIME LIMIT TO ESCAPE AND SOLVE MYSTERY
Themed rooms include Amnesia, where teams have to figure out clues to escape the insane asylum; The Vault, where teams have to be able to perform a heist and escape the room; Hackers, where the goal is to eliminate a computer virus and save the planet from a cyber war, and Dallas, where the goal is to figure out the 23rd ingredient in Dr Pepper by using clues.
Teams are given 60 minutes to escape the room and solve the mystery.
Setting up the rooms included going to antique shops to give the authentic feel of the game, Sandidge said.
“We want to go full out with our aesthetics in our rooms.”
Brittany Standige
“We want to go full out with our aesthetics in our rooms,” Standidge said. “We really make them what you’re really walking into, we want you to feel like you are in the 1900’s or a doctor’s office,” Sandidge said.
“We have some really cool factors, like big props.” she said.
Standidge said such games must abide by city codes to operate because of the level of intensity and complexity of the activity.
“A lot of the ones in Dallas were getting shut down because they didn’t meet up with codes,” Sandidge said. “It took us three months for us to get a yes from the city. It’s hard for escape games to get codes.”
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