My friends and I recently had the opportunity to do a live in-person escape room, and I thought it was a really unique opportunity! We have all done escape rooms before, but never before with actors involved. It was also set outside, late at night, so there was a perfect atmosphere for spooky problem solving. I would definitely recommend it to puzzle aficionados!

Experience by Fort Edmonton Park

 The premise of this escape room was attached to the location of Fort Edmonton Park, which is a site with reconstructions of Edmonton at different points of history, including the fort in 1846, and city streets from 1885, 1905, and 1920. In the story for this escape room, there was a fictional curse gripping the village, and our job was to find the spell to break the curse. We were working together in groups of four, but I would say that the whole experience probably had 10 to 12 groups in total.

The experience was a bit different from previous escape rooms, as there was less reliance on technology, like high-tech locks or secret corridors, and more emphasis on word games and logic puzzles. There was also a tip sheet, and to be honest, our group made decent use of it, as we wanted to guarantee getting to the end of the game. We actually finished second of all the groups, and I think only three or four groups even got to that finish point, so the tips were definitely worth it.

Fort Edmonton also had actors in masks “chasing” us around as we worked on the tasks, and the jump scares alone almost killed me multiple times. The boys in our group also took pleasure in doing their own scares, so my heart rate was definitely elevated the whole night. Still, I couldn’t ask for better or smarter friends, because the speed that they whizzed through some of the challenges blew my mind. I think the secret is picking friends who think differently to give your group the best chance of seeing the solution!

Until next time, happy crafting!