At one point in our life, we all have had the desire to channel the inner Sherlock Holmes within us and that is exactly what the Rotaract Clubs of Colombo Mid Town and Colombo brought to the table.
Project Escape the Room was a Professional Development initiative organized in collaboration with Escape the Room Sri Lanka on the 2nd of November 2019.
Before we take you through our experience with escape rooms, let us see what exactly an escape room is. In layman terms, an escape room is an amalgamation of theatrics and adventure games. Escape rooms are a themed live immersion experience in which players solve puzzles using clues to complete objectives within a set time.
It was a beautiful Saturday morning when groups of mini mystery and adventure enthusiasts reached the top floor of Cafe Noir Blanc with their thinking caps on and ready to huddle the task at hand. As the space only accommodated three teams at a time, the registered teams were taken in at five different time slots picked to their convenience. Vacancy, Staff Room and Detective were the three escape rooms, which consisted of a theme unique to its own where each team was given the chance to choose their escape room at random. Before each team was sent off to their respective game rooms, the game master of the house described the background story, rules and the challenge of the game, concluded by a small video clip that explained it further.
Once you enter, the rules are simple. Teams must unravel a series of combination locks, secret doorways, missing clues, etc. which will lead you to eventually stumble upon the “key” that will allow you to escape. Frenzy ensues and within a glimpse it is a race against the screen with luminescent numbers counting down 60 minutes. Piecing together puzzles, finding clues in unforeseen things, and just being plain observant and constantly curious was a reminiscence to all teams of the good old’ Scooby Doo and many other mystery novels we once loved as kids.
We do not know how the individual teams performed. But the laughs and the giggles the organizing committee heard outside the game rooms were a definite indication of a guaranteed good time. Also, it is safe to say no team was able to escape but some teams sure did come close and were only one clue away to escape.
Kudos to them! It was a fun and thrilling experience for all of us who participated in the project. It’s not every day you get to channel the inner detective in ourselves, but we sure did come close to replicate the actual Sherlock Holmes!
Written by: Rtr. Nelushi Perera | Email: nelushi.racnsbm@gmail.com
