Escape rooms have become a popular form of entertainment, capturing the interest and imagination of people everywhere. These immersive experiences offer a unique blend of puzzles, teamwork, and storytelling.
When anyone mentions an escape room, commonly used phrases when discussing escape rooms are, “Oh. I’ve never done one before, or “I can’t do those.” Escape rooms can be intimidating if you’ve never tried one before, but they are great family fun and fun to do with your friends, and everyone works together toward the same goal. Escape!
Escape rooms do have many benefits, such as encouraging critical thinking, enhancing teamwork and communication, giving stress relief and entertainment, and stimulating problem solving skills, and boosting confidence just to name a few. Escape rooms encourage critical thinking skills because they use puzzles, riddles, and challenges to make participants think critically and use their analytical skills to find the answers.
To succeed, teams must work together to unravel clues, to decipher hidden messages, and to share the information to find the solutions. This can improve your problem-solving skills in various aspects of life, such as work, academics, and daily decision-making. Many times, in escape rooms, props and clues co-mingle and may lead team members down the wrong trail or make them fall into a rabbit hole, but many pairs of eyes are better than one.
Apart from the mental benefits of escape rooms, escape rooms serve as an excellent source of stress relief and entertainment, allowing participants an “escape” from everyday life. From the unlocking principal’s office to catching a thief who stole Grandma’s prized bread recipe, the immersive storylines transport the participants to a different world with a suspenseful atmosphere, giving the team an adrenaline rush and lasting memories with friends and family.
The Minot Public Library hosts escape rooms in the spring, summer, and fall. Some past themes were Harry Potter, Percy Jackson, and Grandma’s Kitchen. Sometimes, the escape room clues are written collaboratively between Pam Carswell, the teen librarian, and the students at Minot State University’s First Experience, and the students decide on a theme.
The base library hosts mini escape rooms, which last about 15 minutes, and regular escape rooms, which last about 45-60 minutes. There aren’t as many clues in a mini escape room as a regular escape room. Julie Reiten, the base library’s director, says that the mini escape rooms occupy a table in the middle of the library and an appointment time is needed, unless no team is scheduled for that time slot.
Some themes for the base’s escape rooms are Where in Time is Carmen Santiago, library history, and Harry Potter, which is once a year in February. They welcome families and kids. For any child under 12 completing an escape room for the first time, they must be accompanied by a parent. The base library also hosts escape rooms at the Minot-A-Con, and the themes will be Five Nights at Freddie’s and Mario.
In downtown Minot, Escape Point, owned and operated by professional player Danielle Duncan, offers a fully immersive experience. Escape Point’s games are a form of interactive escape rooms where everyone can use their talents and achieve their own specific moment to shine. Ms. Duncan has the perspectives of creator and of player. “Personally, I love solving puzzles, and it’s a positive outlet for my creativity because the games are so detailed. As a game player, I love being immersed in the game’s environment, and I hope players who play our games get to experience the same thrill as we do when we play in other places.” Ms. Duncan offers a 10% military discount, called Hero’s Discount. The promo code is give_back. Visit her website at https://www.escapepointnd.com/ for more details.
