By Rosalia Jimenez
Escape rooms are very interesting. You have a group of people, most likely friends, who agree to lock themselves in a room and solve puzzles to get out.
I have gone through two escape rooms in my life. One with my brothers and the other at Grand Rapids Community College. On Oct. 31, the GRCC Campus Activities Board hosted an event where you could sign up to go through one of two escape rooms.
I did not know what to expect when our group was led into the waiting room with tables and accessories. CAB put a lot of thought into how they wanted the escape rooms to go, going as far as hiring a company called Campus Escapes to come to campus and create the rooms in the GRCC Applied Technology Center.
As we sat in the room, we watched a video explaining what brought us to the situation in the room and we were given flashlights and armbands to help us with our escape. The video we watched explained that we ended up in the escape room because there was a collision between our spaceship and an asteroid. According to the video, we were running out of oxygen and needed to override the main computer system to get the spare oxygen to turn on. While I was watching the video, my nerves were pretty much nonexistent. I was more than confident in my ability to get us through the escape room, with help from my group members, of course.
Naturally, my nerves got more jittery as we made our way to the assigned room. The rooms that were turned into those we had to escape were event rooms that have previously held the student leadership town halls. I was nervous for a few reasons, if I’m being honest. I was nervous because I was on a tight deadline, I was nervous because I did not know my group members on a level that I knew other people I went to escape rooms with and I was nervous because this room was going to be dark.
Walking into the room, I was startled by a woman standing just inside the door wearing a metallic robot outfit. Her voice mimicked that of a robot as well as she introduced herself to us as Tare and spoke of what happened to her. The actress maintained the way she spoke in the third person throughout the entire time she introduced us to the room. I was definitely not expecting that.
Looking around the room, various tables were set up. One table stood at the front of the room with whiteboards, a radio and an iPad. The other table stood across from the first with a cage on top of it. There were chairs around the room with various bags and clothing strewn on and beside them. There was the helmet and boots of a space suit, gloves on the second table, a bag that held “Geologist Tools” and a bag filled with a binder and journal. As soon as the timer started, we made a beeline toward the hamster cage on the second table.
Our group was given 30 minutes to escape, and as time ticked on we were getting really close to making it out. We had figured out the small dance we had to do to get hints and figured out the passwords to the various locks. The first lock we figured out was the lock on the hamster’s cage. There were QR codes posted on various objects in the room. The first one we found was attached to the cage. After scanning the code, we were given a letter. We found more codes around the room, scanning them to find the final letters. As we tried to piece together the possible words the letters could spell out, the actress who played the role of the ship’s robot, Tare, repeated the phrase “It is the hamster’s final reason for living.” After much deliberation, I threw out, as a joke, the possibility of the answer being “MEAT.” The letters matched up, we were given “M”, “E”, “A” and “T” so why not? We were shocked, to say the least, that “MEAT” was actually the correct answer.
The second lock we figured out was the passcode to override the system on the iPad on the first table. There were pictures on the keypad and a number of stars under each section of the passcode. With Tare’s help, we figured out that the pictures corresponded with each of our wristbands. To put the pictures in the correct order, we had to count the stars on each wristband. It was a little confusing when we only had three wristbands and there were four pictures we needed. Fortunately, Tare helpfully gave us a riddle to solve that predicament. With that, our second lock was opened.
Our time hit the 30 second mark, and we had one last lock to figure out. Those last few seconds were stressful. I sat under a table and stared at a locked, black box. I was so confused. The actress from the beginning played the part of ‘Tare,’ the robot on the ship we were made to be on. She gave us suggestions and hints regarding the box. Our time jumped down to seven seconds as we tried to figure it out, and soon, the timer went off.
We did not beat the room like I had hoped, but we were so close. Tare told us that groups larger than ours did not get as close as we did, one lock away from winning, and that it was impressive.
I adore escape rooms. I love how they challenge your brain and test your teamwork. The escape room we did was an interesting one, and I sincerely enjoyed every second of it. Next Halloween, I hope CAB will bring back the escape rooms, so I can beat the next one.
