Game On ... The Great Escape!

Sometimes there doesn’t appear to be any escaping modern technology. Our children have mobile phones and Playstations and well gone are the days when the only box we had to worry about in the room was a TV.

Fortunately, my teenage son is football mad and there’s not many a moment when he isn’t kicking one around inside or outside the house … not that he wouldn’t stay glued to the screen playing FIFA 16 if he was given half a chance.

However, there is now an alternative to playing computer games and associated gadgets which is guaranteed to keep adolescents occupied for at least an hour (more, in our case, but we’ll get to that later) thanks to The Great Escape Challenge, an aptly-named attraction if ever there was one.

The game has been founded by two Hungarian expats, namely Zsolt Gall, 33, and Levente Loszman, 36, with some other investors from Bahrain, and it’s tucked away down the side of the first floor of Country Mall on Budaiya Highway.

“First of all, this is NOT a video game,” said Zsolt, who lives in Janabiya with his wife, Nora, and their two-year-old daughter, Emma. “This is an adrenaline fuelled real-life adventure game where you have to work your way out of the room with your team before the time is up. Leave your digital devices out and enjoy the team spirit and the excitement of playing together for a common goal … to escape!”

When a team, with a minimum of four and maximum of eight players, arrives, the members go through a briefing session where the Game Master explains the rules and the ‘do’s and don’ts’ of the game. As soon as they are ready, they enter into the room and the clock starts ticking.

Escape rooms are live-action team-based games where players discover clues, solve puzzles and accomplish tasks in one or more rooms in order to accomplish a specific goal (usually escaping from the room) in a limited amount of time. Given the rapid global growth and evolution of the concept, papers are now being written by leading university academics to serve as a way to document the current state of this phenomenon.

One has involved carrying out a continuing survey which has already been answered by 175 entrepreneurs from around the world about their escape room facilities to highlight the different themes, demographics of players, room features, and other design patterns popular in these recently-developed attractions.

It’s a move which neatly takes us to the Hungarian capital of Budapest, the hometown of both Zsolt and Levente, who now lives in Saar with his wife, Judit and their two-year-old daughter, Lili.

It’s also the new place of residency of Bahrain’s former British ambassador Iain Lindsay and his wife, Bridget, once a regular GulfWeekly columnist who will surely pen a piece about the phenomenon so prolific in their latest diplomatic posting.

Budapest has ‘a lot’ of escape games. Actually it is regarded as the No 1 European city and takes the ninth place on the global list of places with the most escape games. “There is really a lot to do in that city and tourists from all around the world appreciate this fact,” said Zsolt, who came to Bahrain in 2012 to set up a marketing company in which he remains its managing partner, alongside his latest venture with The Great Escape Challenge.

“After spending four years on this island, enjoying the great variety of eating out opportunities and the sunshine, it wasn’t hard to realise that there was still space for something new in the entertainment business,” he said.

“So, I went back to Budapest with the aim of filtering the entertainment opportunities and to find something that would make sense and could really work in Bahrain. The answer was right there on the first day of my visit to my hometown - ESCAPE GAME.”

At first the recce involved a tour of 20 different game rooms looking at the possibility of a franchise to bring to Bahrain. “We liked them in general,” he said, “but we thought that their experiences were not complete and that we had more and better ideas to bring to life,” said Zsolt, “so finally we decided to take the longer and harder road to design and build our own concept with unique games and its own ambiance.”

The duo came up with the brand concept and the location. Levente manufactured every element including the puzzles, furniture and design. “What makes us really proud is that we made every square metre of the room with our own hands without any external help or readymade solution,” added Zsolt.

The entire construction process of the first now fully operational Medieval-themed room took six months and almost five months for the futuristic Laboratory-concept room that will open very shortly.

“We have pulled 3,000m of cables into the rooms since they carry a lot of cuttingedge technological solutions that enhance the game experience and the game control as well,” he added.

“There are a couple of things that makes this place special. Firstly, is the true ambiance of the medieval room. You enter the room and you really feel yourself in a theatre in the middle of a genuine castle scene.

“Secondly, the games are designed in a way to motivate people to not only think but to work together to solve the clues and puzzles. Therefore, this game is not only fun to play but it improves various skills such as communication, teamwork, critical thinking and creativity, as well. That’s why I believe that this game will be popular with school and college students and companies for teambuilding exercises.”

There was only one thing to do and that was to put it to the test. I’d been warned that there was no specific starting point in the game. The logic and the creativity would tell the players where and how to start and then proceed.

Last Friday morning, I gathered my merry band consisting of my son, little Stan and his school friends Luke Williamson, Danny Thornley, Callum Dawson and Aiden Jones and bullied the latter’s mum, Camille, GulfWeekly’s fashion editor, to come too, alongside our photographer,

Honey Sharma, to capture the experience on camera. Don’t get me wrong, the boys are all bright, intelligent and caring but over the years I reckon I know their unique strengths and I was confident I had a good team to break out of King Arthur’s throne room and prove that we were all worthy knights capable of serving the crown.

Little Stan is tenacious, Callum, a born athlete, Luke has boundless enthusiasm, Danny has a delightful way of making you smile with his wicked wit, and, ‘all As’ Aiden, is one of the brightest boffins of Year 8 and his playground party trick is finishing a Rubik’s Cube in seconds… go boys, the adults will try not to get in the way.

In a desperate attempt not to give the game away for future participants, all I can confirm is that small hands and bright minds rather than brute force can truly win the day. Players should also not let frustrating blind alleys (this particular dummy spent an age trying to untie knots for no useful reason whatsoever) spoil the enjoyment and remember … there is more than one way to reach a goal.

I found my height played wonders on occasions with a little delicate sword play on the side, and, of course, the mother in the room, had her golden moment at the very
end when she found a missing piece of wood we needed which was, of course, starring right up at us, which she put down to years of answering the call ‘mum, where are my shoes?’.

When it seemed like only a few minutes had past our onehour sand clock had emptied but the kind-hearted game master gave us an extra 10 minutes because at the time we were so close to breaking out and completing our task.

It also got us talking about King Arthur and other aspects of history, an aspect not gone unnoticed by the academics mentioned earlier. “Escape rooms create a moment of passion around specific topics that then can be used as the spark to then ignite interest in something for a player to learn more about later,” said Professor Scott Nicholson of Wilfrid Laurier University in Ontario, Canada, as part of his ongoing project

His focus is on informal learning, and future research is focused on how to use escape room concepts for educational purposes and, more specifically, in places of informal learning like libraries and museums. We returned home joyous and exhausted.

We will be back, you bet, particularly as the new attraction set to open around Eid fully harnesses Levente’s skills. He used to run a company installing multimedia and other electronic systems into luxury cars, which is why visitors will see and experience a lot of different digital and electrical solutions in the rooms.

We had a sneak preview of The Lab where apparently a professor has disappeared from. It contains a hidden serum he had developed which will save the inhabitants of the world from
a deadly infectious bacteria released by a meteorite which had fallen to earth.

Will the special agents crack the clues amid a world of optical illusions and laser beams? Sign me up, please! l The rooms are suitable for children aged 13 above, and it is recommended that adults accompany those under 16. The Great Escape Challenge is open every day from 2pm till 9pm although games, priced BD12 each, can be arranged outside the regular working hours as well.

Players can book their games through the booking system on the website www. escaperoombahrain.com or by calling 39603490.