Totem try to 'escape the room' ...
This year for our Christmas party we decided to do more than just a lunch and a few drinks and put our game solving skills to the test. Let’s face it, we know we can make great games, but can we win them? Especially when they are time limited, under some serious pressure and we are locked in rooms…. which we have to escape. That’s right!! We decided to try our hand at a couple of room escape games at Clue HQ Coventry.
The fascination of escape games.
This is something I personally have wanted to do for years, and digital escape games have been a staple of my gaming habit for an awfully long time, so to say I was a little excited could be the understatement of the year! Escape room games have always fascinated me due to their simple concept yet interrelated puzzle solving. They are beautifully intricate and really put your logic to the test.
Our experience of Dungeons of Doom and Sacrificed.
There were too many of us to do one room, so we split into two teams to do Dungeons of Doom and Sacrificed. Dungeons of Doom was a purely team-based room, whereas in Sacrificed we were pitted against each other in 2 teams of 2. I don’t want to give anything away for those who may well go along and try their skill for themselves, but oh my, the whole thing lived up to all my expectations. I totally bought into the concept, I wanted to win, to beat the other team and escape the room. Unfortunately we didn’t succeed, but nonetheless, it was a great experience and as a team, we had a blast!
Reflecting on the mechanics behind the game.
I can’t help but think of similarities to our own products, especially Unlock: Leadership where we put learners into an unknown situation in which you have to work out the solutions using your logic and problem-solving skills and we pit people against one another. The escape room game also had a facilitator to help us out if we really got stumped and that is something we hope to build into our product in the near future as well. Overall the game mechanics involved were very similar to Unlock: Leadership and it was great to know that they work well in virtual as well as physical experiences.
See it in action!
What I think is most important to the experience was the team interaction. We really had to communicate, plan, record our findings and be organised! Those skills are found in so many games, but especially in team-based games and, of course, those skills are critical skills for the workplace.
If you want to try a different approach to team building and training on soft skills give a multiplayer game a try: either a virtual one or a physical one. I guarantee it will beat any outwards bounds or ice breaker game you have tried before and result in an interesting experience where you learn a lot about your team.