“I wonder which one of us he’s going to kill first.”
This comment came from one of our five-person team when it became clear that we weren’t going to find our way out of the maze of rooms into which our diabolical puzzlemaster had led us. As one of our number feverishly attempted to wrest a key from its hiding place, the seconds ticked down to zero and a customized iPad—the only piece of technology allowed into the maze with us—let out an earsplitting BUZZZZZZZZ that urged our hearts to equal disquiet. In the convincing confines of the neglected, bloody cellar, we awaited our fate: a serial killer coming to collect his prize.
Dwayne Sanburn sauntered in slowly, an impish—or maybe just pitying—look in his eyes. With the maze’s ten-percent escape rate intact and evidence of our bungling progress clearly visible via closed-circuit video, I am at least sure it wasn’t surprise that I saw on Sanburn’s face. We had failed to solve our way out of an escape-room game called The Collector in the allotted hour; and Sanburn, not a demented murderer, had come to escort us out.
Sanburn’s Midnight Productions is the outfit that produces one of the nation’s top haunted attractions, the 13th Gate. Located in downtown Baton Rouge, the haunt is a very popular entertainment alternative during the Halloween season that is convincing enough to carry the somewhat amusing, but also serious, disclaimer on its website: not recommended “for anyone who is pregnant, has a pre-existing heart condition, is very young, or has a weak bladder!” The game we had just unsuccessfully played was not part of the haunted house experience. Except for the high production values of the sets—production values that are, incidentally, provided to the movie industry during the off-season—13th Gate’s escape rooms are not designed to inspire fear … unless you’re afraid of logic games and puzzles.
This past June, Sanburn opened two escape rooms, The Collector and Death Row, in the building alongside the 13th Gate. Wildly popular in China and Japan, escape rooms are interactive games that challenge players to solve riddles and puzzles within an allotted time period in order to “escape.” Sanburn had been hearing about escape rooms as they made their way west, landing in Canada, where the populace took to them with explosive zeal. When Sanburn discovered that an escape room had opened in New Orleans, he knew it was time to act. He and a group of fellow haunters (that’s what they call one another in the biz) traveled to Toronto where they saw seventeen escape rooms in three days. (Sanburn noted that Toronto has over forty escape rooms, sixty if you include the greater metropolitan area.)
Sanburn said his escape rooms have already been a wild success. “It’s a great concept,” he said. “It’s really close to what we already do. The escape rooms are more interactive [than the haunted house], and people appreciate the detail we put in our sets.”
It’s a level of detail that assaults four of the five senses—taste is mercifully excluded. If my mind hadn’t been occupied with puzzle-solving tasks, I might have let my imagination get the better of me. As it was, the pace of the game was brisk and all hands needed to be on deck. In fact, part of our post mortem revealed that we had let slide one very important piece of advice proffered at the beginning of the game: divide and conquer.
It must be fascinating to be at the “big guy in the sky” position, behind the camera. According to Sanburn, to watch a team of gamers confront the escape room’s challenges is to watch the group’s dynamics unravel—or coalesce—before your eyes. In fact, Sanburn hosts many corporate groups, who appreciate the escape room’s potential as a team-building exercise that rewards lateral thinking and collaborative behavior. Diversity of talents—mathematical, mechanical, and literary—were definitely assets in The Collector, as were experience, curiosity, and an ability to appreciate the multiple, sometimes atypical, uses of things. Sanburn noted the game really can’t be beaten with just two people; four is the minimum, eight the maximum. And don’t count on a lone genius to lead you to freedom; in an escape room, it’s the cooperation of the collective that wins the day.
Details. Details. Details.
13th Gate Escape Rooms
832 St. Phillip Street
Baton Rouge, La.
(225) 389-1313 • 13thgateescape.com
Reserve your slot early as Sanburn expects to be booked solid in October.
Sanburn plans to open two more escape rooms by December and will follow another six months later with
an additional two.
New Orleans Escape Rooms
Escape My Room
Mystere Escape Rooms New Orleans
partyvenuesneworleans.com/home/escape-rooms-new-orleans
Clue Carré
