The Masonic Temple in Grand Rapids, where the Great Escape Room is housed. Courtesy of The Great Escape Room
The Library, one of two escape rooms in Grand Rapids. Courtesy of The Great Escape Room
The Great Escape Room in Grand Rapids. Courtesy of The Great Escape Room
Glen and Christine Brown (second and first from right) of Portage, and friends, after solving their puzzle to escape The Game Room at The Great Escape Room, Grand Rapids. Courtesy Glen Brown
The Game Room, one of two escape rooms in Grand Rapids. Courtesy of The Great Escape Room
The Library, one of two escape rooms in Grand Rapids. Courtesy of The Great Escape Room
Uh oh. A zombie apocalypse is upon us.
We all know what that means. The aftermath means no lights, no heat and no medicine. No water to drink and nearly no nourishment--save for the occasional murky stream and a yummy roasted snake or squirrel--quite the desperate situation for survivors scrambling for their lives through the elements.
Oh, and those pesky herds of staggering, starving corpses--they lurk around every tree, every door, every twist and every turn waiting for their next human meal to come along. Crazy wicked, right?
It sure would be... if this undead disaster lasted more than an hour. Luckily, there's a 60-minute timer on the apocalypse in the Zombie Roadhouse room at Breakout! The Room Escape Game in Ann Arbor.
Zombie Roadhouse is one of its three escape rooms, and Natalie Walsh, of Wyandotte, just celebrated her 16th birthday in the one next door.
She and a gaggle of friends chose The Ringmaster's Den--and stormed their way through a multitude of brain teasers under the pressure of a big clock tick-tocking its way down to zero and the watch of a moderator overseeing the room from a ceiling camera.
They began with a couple of simple instructions and rules.
"We started out with nothing," Natalie says. "Our instructions were to try to escape the room. We were supposed to solve a whole bunch of puzzles that would lead to a combination that unlocks the door to get out."
Staffers reminded the young partiers not to get too curious during their hunt, and told them what to do if someone happened to panic or just wanted out.
"If you left the room by the emergency door, you couldn't go back in. They told us not to take anything that was affixed to the wall, off of the wall, and to have fun."
They did.
"At the beginning we had no idea what we were doing. It was difficult to work together, because everyone kept talking over everyone else at first," she says.
Clues weren't simple, according to the birthday girl. She admits that she was a bit intimidated when the door first closed behind her.
"We were surprised by the complexity and intricacy of the puzzles. We would find numbers, and eventually we found folders."
Inside them were pictures, word scrambles and other clues that eventually would uncover a code to unlock a box that held a key to get out of The Ringmaster's Den. While a natural leader sometimes rises to lead the rest in an escape room group, this one worked and played as a team all the way.
"There wasn't a group leader; we broke out in smaller groups that just evolved on their own and worked that way," Natalie says. "There was a lot of chaos, especially near the end. There was lots of laughing and screaming because we needed to ease the stress. The clock in the room was counting down and it added to the sense of urgency. The time flew."
The Ringmaster's Den in Grand Rapids [there's another Breakout! The Room Escape Game in Royal Oak] holds up to two dozen people, and Natalie's sweet 16 bunch filled it to half its capacity. While you don't have to be a genius to escape The Ringmaster's Den, having lots of brainpower isn't an automatic clincher. Every teen who was locked in the room is a National Honor Society member, but the group fell just short of unlocking the door.
"We only needed about 10 more minutes," says Natalie's mom, Kelly Heier, who played the game with the co-ed group. "Ten more minutes and we would have been out."
That didn't put a damper on the party, though.
"It was a great experience and everyone had fun," says Natalie.
Her best friend concurs.
"Even though we failed to get out by the time the timer ran out, the most fun part was being with all our friends and running around panicking and just trying to solve the puzzle," says Mikayla Joy, 15, of Wyandotte.
They're not alone, says Paula Norder, who manages The Great Escape Room in Grand Rapids.
"Only about 22 percent of our guests finish in time," she says.
Glen Brown and his wife, Christine Brown, of Portage, are among those who have met the challenge and escaped. Alongside a handful of coworkers, they recently solved their way out the door of The Game Room, one of two rooms at the Grand Rapids location. There are 14 Great Escape Rooms scattered around the country.
"There were five different stations that led to clues," Glen says. "We ransacked the room hunting for words and numbers and other clues. We looked on walls, in books, in boxes, under tables and on shelves to find clues, and we did it in 50 minutes and 34 seconds."
Norder says that the games --part scavenger hunt and part puzzle game--are a popular date night excursion and an alternative to a bar or other traditional night-out activities. Groups of co-workers make up half of the bookings at The Game Room.
"It takes all kinds of people working together to successfully get out of an escape room," she says. "It's great for team-building."
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