Escape room enthusiast Sheryl Bon in a cartel-themed escape room at a 60Out in Los Angeles. Photos by Jamie Lee Curtis Taeto
Escape rooms have come a long way from their early internet browser game origins. It’s only been about a decade since the first IRL escape room was created in Japan and it wasn’t until 2012 that they reached the US. In the years since, they’ve spread across the country like wildfire, with ever-increasing puzzle difficulty and production value. In major metropolitan areas, they’re now as ubiquitous as Targets, and have transitioned from novelty to a staple of date nights and corporate team-building exercises. Firmly cementing their spot in the cultural landscape was January’s Escape Room, a horror film taking place inside an elaborate one filled with boobie traps.
Advertisement
Advertisement
Advertisement
If there’s a Mecca for escape room enthusiasts, it’s 13th Gate in Baton Rouge, Louisiana. The community reverentially compares the location’s production values to that of Disneyland, and Escape Authority was compelled to provisionally modify its five-key rating system with a 6th and then 7th key just to give its rooms—one spanning 3,300 square feet—their due praise.
Tactay tells me that he’s celebrating his 40th birthday by flying out there with some fellow enthusiasts to hit all five of their rooms in a day. Those room bookings alone cost him $700. Dangcil remarks that his girlfriend never had any interest in traveling to New Orleans, but after learning of 13th Gate, a mere 90-minute drive away, she planned the four-day birthday trip to the city with 11 escape rooms on the itinerary.It's not all sweetheart getaways for this culture, however. Every so often, a bit of drama creeps into the online escape room community where these folks swap suggestions for new rooms to try and grouse about bad puzzles. The biggest taboo is for an owner to promote their own room without divulging their connection to it. But by and large, it’s an exceedingly positive place where these fiends can geek out together, and every enthusiast I spoke to seemed thrilled to not only have found a new passion, but a group of like-minded people that share it.
“I didn’t think I’d ever be into something so much as I am escape rooms,” Bon gushes. “Now everyone knows me as Escape Room Girl. The first thing [friends and family] ask me now when they see me is: ‘What number are you at?’”Follow Justin Caffier on Twitter.Sign up for our newsletter to get the best of VICE delivered to your inbox daily.