Learning how to escape a locked room is but one of many talents fostered in FundiConnect’s ambassador team. Together with our bubbly Editor-in-Chief, our ambassadors ventured through Clued In – the latest brain-picker at Joburg’s Escape Room.
Getting locked in a room and how to escape a locked room sounds like something your mother might have done to you to get you to finish the mountain of work on your desk that’s due tomorrow. Getting locked in Clued In’s escape room, however, is quite a different story. You do have to put in effort and thought, but instead of feeling like someone is forcing you, you feel like you just have to! In this situation there is thrill, excitement and adrenaline that pushes you to the next answer, not a screaming lecturer or 40% final mark.
What is Clued In?
Clued In is a new live escape room game based in Johannesburg. In a team of 3 to 5 people you are locked in a puzzling room and have to uncover hidden messages and solve puzzles to find the final key that unlocks the door. To be clear the Escape Room is the name of the game, while Clued In is the company and venue where this game is played.
Although Clued In only started seven weeks ago, I strongly assume that it will still be going strong seven years from now (even longer, but you know what I mean).
Why an escape room? Jason Lu from the Clued in Team explains,
“We started Clued In because we love escape games so much. We had such cool ideas on how to build a South African flavoured escape room that we decided to design, build and run our own escape room. It has been such a cool experience building it from scratch and we are looking forward to more!”
How it Works
In a group of 3 to 5 people you are locked in a ‘puzzling room’ and have to uncover hidden messages and solve puzzles to find the final key that unlocks the door.
I went into this knowing only one person in my team, but by the time the game was over and we had scrambled out, I had the opportunity to get to know all the other players too – not on a deep and personal level, but on a straight-forward, human level. I had observed how they thought, what scared them, and what their strengths were.
We didn’t sit down and ask each other boring questions like:
“Where are you from?” or “What do you do? or “What are you studying?”
We got to see how each person worked and thought in such an exposed and unique situation. While one member of our group would jump at any noise she heard in the room, another two were finding clues.
We all reacted on instincts and strengths, and created a perfect combination of logic, creativity, curiosity and strategy.
As it says on Clued In’s website,
“Using lateral thinking, observation and teamwork, your team has one goal: escape the room within 60 minutes.”
One might even describe it as a life-sized board game.
Let the Games Begin
“You have an hour to escape and I’ll be watching you on a screen in case you get stuck. But don’t worry. There’s nothing too scary…”
These were the last words we heard from our ‘clue master’ Willem Esterhuizen of Clued In.
Shortly afterwards he locked us in a room.
With nothing but the objects inside of the room and a couple of hints, we had to put our knowledge and common sense together to find the final key that would lead us to freedom. For a minute we laughed and smiled at each other in awkward panic. Then, the games began.
We stared flicking, touching, twisting and pressing every book, button and switch in the room. We each took in as much as we could from the room, in an attempt to figure out our starting point. Once we did find it, we thought we were set.
Often we would be putting the puzzle pieces together with ease only to get distracted and hit a wall of confusion. A flicker from the corner of the room resulted in a hint on the screen from our clue master, leading us in the right direction again.
On we went with this pattern of thought, bewilderment, realisation and then action – until finally, the clue we’d been looking came into sight, and released us from the restraints of the locked room.
I must admit that after my initial jolt of joy at finding the key, I felt a bit sad that the game had ended. The constant adrenaline rush during the game due to the time constraint had you focusing on one thing; finding the final clue. When successful, however, I wanted more. I’ve always loved Sherlock Holmes, Inspector Clouseau and the like, so becoming somewhat of a detective myself was exciting and fun; definitely something I would do again soon!
A couple of things I’ve learnt from my Clued In experience:
- Being locked in a room can bring people together.
- There is nothing more satisfying than solving a mystery.
- It’s okay not to be the expert in every field because chances are, there’s someone else waiting to fill that role of expertise.
- Live games are not dead.
FundiConnect 2cents
Getting people to see eye to eye is not always that easy, however, you would be surprised at how being in a stressed situation brings them together. By having one goal that benefits the entire group, Clued In’s escape room is one that will show the importance of teamwork. Whether it’s for fun or for a group working on a project, this game compels individuals to interact with each other and work together.
For other fun activities in the area, check out our Top 10 article.
