‘Room Escape’ fever has been sweeping across the country. Room Escape is an online game that we can easily find on the internet. It is a game where players have to use various kinds of things and get hints in the room in order to get out of the room. This game has even appeared offline recently. Room Escape cafes have opened in Hongdae and Gangnam, and it continued to spread to Suwon, Incheon, Daejeon and Busan. Lately, a Room Escape cafe opened near CBNU and is among the most popular. Plus, the game is second to none as an event in university festivals. The escape game was featured at the 2015 CBNU festival and it received a fervent response. What do you think is its charm? -Ed.




The craze of brain training games and ‘Room Escape’
 
  Men and women who are smart, eloquent and humorous are the most preferred dates nowadays. They are called ‘noe-sec’, which means their brains (Noe means brain in Korean) are sexy. It shows that person has not only an attractive appearance but also a distinguished intellectual ability. You can grasp this game trend on recent popular entertainment programs on TV. ‘The Genius’, ‘Hot Brain’, ‘Code’ and ‘Crime Scene’ have discovered lots of smart stars and have been serialized. These TV shows allow the audience to participate in the game and let them infer and think a lot rather than just watch the shows in their living rooms.
  Brain training games are also popular in other media. ‘Kakao Room Escape’, from Kakao, and ‘All New Room Escape’, from Gameday, have caught people’s attention. They are the hottest mobile games and have ranked 1st on popular application lists. There are also a lot of strategy sites on the internet, and this represents the popularity of the games. Now you can play the games on your mobiles as well as your PCs.
  Moreover, the remarkable thing is that there are Room Escape cafes in reality. People recommend the cafes on posts in SNS, and they say the Room Escape cafes are the best places for dating and hanging out. There are already more than 40 cafes throughout the country, and they are so popular that you have to reserve a spot two weeks in advance if you want to play the game. There is even an online site that shows where all of the Room Escape cafes are located and helps you to make a reservation.

The origin and evolution of the escape game

  The original escape game, named Origin, first appeared in Silicon Valley in 2006, and it became one of the best tourist attractions. Afterward, a Japanese entrepreneur, Takao Kato, held an event for the game, and tickets were sold out in an instant. More and more games have appeared since 2006, and now there are more than about 2,800 Room Escape games all over the world. There have been more than 50 games in Singapore after the first game appeared in 2011 in Korea.
  It is noteworthy that escape games with various concepts came on strong in Hungary. The games started in Budapest, Hungary in 2011. After the initial success of the games, which earned 130,000 dollars in 2011, games sprung up like mushrooms after rain. There are more than 120 escape games just in Budapest, even though Budapest is a city with a population of less than two million. Many enterprises are expanding their business franchises in Europe, USA and Hongkong.

The reason for its popularity and the use of escape games

  ‘The Flow Experience’ Theory by Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi, a professor at Chicago University, accounts for the reason of the popularity of escape games. The book says that if people concentrate so much that they forget the flow of time and space, they feel happiness and pleasure and they demonstrate their potential and creativity. Therefore, the founder of a Hungarian escape game, Attila, says that people are enthusiastic about the games because they experience a rush.
  On the other hand, Takao Kato views the popularity from a different standpoint. He says that you can have your own story while playing the escape games. The process of solving riddles and escaping can give you a story. Everyone desires to write their own stories because tales are indispensable for humans. It is also a reason for the emphasis on storytelling by companies and books.
  The Room Escape game was an unfamiliar culture to people just a few years ago. However, it already exceeded people’s recognition as a simple tourist attraction. Now, this game is taking center stage as a game for team building for staffs in companies.

By Lee Sang-yi
sy36@cbnu.ac.kr