Over two decades or so, escape rooms have become exponentially more popular, and today they are internationally, as popular of a group activity as scavenger hunts, laser tag or even bowling. With the rise in escape rooms, there is no surprise that the fun, challenging, team building activity has made its way to the digital world, especially with the recent pandemic.
There are some key differences between escape rooms like Lock Busters and digital forms. It’s mainly the fact that you cannot have physical puzzles or that same sense of realness, fear or intensity from an online escape room, most of the important factors that make a great escape room are still available digitally and the benefits are for the most part the same.
Why People Love Escape Rooms in General
Contents
To understand the rise of digital escape rooms, it is important to lay out the factors that actually make a great escape room.
Firstly, escape rooms are so popular because they are an incredible group activity, debatably even more so than most traditional group activities such as going bowling, playing a sport, going swimming or even playing other video games. This is because escape rooms force the participants to work together, making the activity far more interactive than most other group activities.
Another reason why people love escape rooms is that, similar to storyline video games or choose your own adventure books, escape rooms have a plot that you can actively take part in.
Rather than sitting down and watching the story unravel in a movie or reading a mystery and guessing who’s guilty, escape rooms allow the members to actually accomplish tasks that allow them to be a part of the story rather than simply a bystander.
All of these factors make a great escape room, and since they all can be transferred to an online game, there is no surprise that there has been a massive rise in digital escape rooms. This is especially true because we live in a time where there are digital versions of almost all of our favourite games, and unlike online pool or video game FIFA games or other, digital escape rooms will allow you to work the same muscles (your brain muscles) and feel the same pressure as the real thing.
Benefits of a Digital Escape Room
Incredible Team Building Exercise
Whether you are participating in an escape room with your family members, coworkers, classmates or friends, there is no doubt that by the end of it, your relationships will be put to the test as all members will be forced to communicate, form fun memories and work together.
Forcing all members in the group to put their heads together to work towards one common goal will improve team morale and help form bonds that are incredibly difficult to build doing almost any digital activity. This benefit has led to the rise in digital escape rooms as employers try to encourage team building hosts company digital escape rooms.
Less Expensive
One big advantage to a digital escape room is it is less expensive and time consuming to put together. What this means is that if you were to hire someone to create one specifically for your group, or more likely, sign your team up for an already existing digital escape room, the cost would be cheaper than for a non-digital escape room.
No Limits
One of the most incredible things about the internet and digital creations is that unlike real life, there really are no limits, other than the fact that it is all occurring through a screen. Plots can be as extreme, exaggerated, fictional and fantastical as you want. That unique opportunity to immerse yourself in a world that is just not possible in real life has certainly helped contribute to the rise of digital escape rooms.
Another way that digital escape rooms can offer less limits than real life escape rooms is the fact that those who have trouble keeping up with a group in physical activities for whatever reason, do not have to worry in online digital escape rooms.
In this way, they are much more accessible than a real life escape room. There’s also the fact that those who do not have access to an escape room in their town or country can still enjoy the marvel of being a part of an escape room.
Conclusion
Overall, as real life escape rooms have steadily grown in popularity, the digital versions have followed the trend. However, during the covid-19 pandemic, the popularity of the latter grew exponentially.
Though digital escape rooms are not completely perfected, as there can be some issues usually due to common technological issues on the players’ ends, it would seem due to the rise of digital escape rooms would have occurred with or without the quarantine as the digitally accessible version offers so many benefits over its in-person predecessor. So if you haven’t tried an escape room, don’t worry about missing out due to the pandemic, log into an online version with some friends!