Immersive escape room games come to Santa Fe
Couple bring immersive-adventure games to Santa Fe
You have one hour to figure out how to open the ornate, golden sarcophagus and escape from the pharaoh’s tomb. If you fail, you will spend eternity there. Not really. It’s supposed to feel thrillingly real, but it’s only a game. Lost in the Tomb, it’s called, and it’s one of three interactive, real-time adventures now available in Santa Fe that require you — and your friends — to solve one puzzle after another, using only the clues embedded in the locked rooms and your own brains.
This latest entertainment phenomenon evolved from the video game industry, and the settings include such situations as space stations, casino heists, haunted houses and jailbreaks, as well as Egyptian tombs. The immersive-adventure idea, which appeals to puzzle lovers and video gamers, got its start in Japan and China in 2007 and spread to Europe and now the U.S., where there are an estimated 1,500 “escape rooms,” including four in Albuquerque. And now one is Santa Fe.
Escape Santa Fe owner Mary J. Nungary and her husband, Bill Hernandez, opened their new business this month in a small shopping complex at 505 Cerrillos Road. It faces the former Talin Market (soon to become a kiosk marketplace), and its neighbors include an Ohori’s coffee shop, a cider house and, soon, a new restaurant/nightclub.
Nungary and Hernandez moved here from Los Angeles about four years ago but have ties to New Mexico. Her mother and his father both hailed from here. And Hernandez’s great-grandfather lived in Santa Fe. “We have chile in our veins,” Nungary said.
Hernandez, an insurance broker who now works from home, was introduced to the escape room at his company’s executive retreat. The minute Nungary, a former international litigation specialist, heard about it, she thought, “It sounded like my cup of tea, solving puzzles and mysteries.” Hernandez attended a trade show in St. Louis were he began making contacts and assembling ideas for their own escape room in Santa Fe.
Nungary formed a corporation, then found a building and hired architects and contractors to build the rooms in the old DeSoto dealership. They bought the games, but tweaked them to meet their needs, scaling one down to fit into the space available and adding things to “make them even more interesting and challenging.”
They acquired all the props themselves, scouring Craigslist, yard sales, haunted house suppliers and resale shops as well as the internet. For Lost in the Tomb, the sarcophagus came from a catalog, but they bought the statue of King Tut at a Canyon Road estate sale.
The first room in the tomb game, the office of the archaeologist, also is fitted out with his leather bag, books, Egyptian statuettes, an old globe with a stand, a desk, a chess board that might figure in to one of the riddles, a map of Egypt and a historic photo of Howard Carter, who discovered the tomb of Tutankhamun. Hernandez built the walls in the tomb room himself.
For another game, Situation Critical, the first room looks like an unassuming insurance company office, but it’s actually a front for the missing CIA operative who has been compromised and must initiate evacuation protocols. The object of this game is to defuse a bomb set to detonate. The interior room includes maps, computers, printers, clocks, a map of Manhattan and plastic firearms mounted on one wall — items that might help you solve the puzzle.
Fredo’s L’Ultima Cena, the third room, looks like a real restaurant with a bar, wall menus, coat rack and tables covered with red checkered cloths. Then you notice the police tape outlining where Fredo fell, a victim of mob justice. You have an hour to figure out where he hid the money he owes the criminal organization, because they are coming back to get it. Perhaps it’s behind the painting of the Mona Lisa, or even the one of Fredo’s mother? Or in the olive oil cans or boxes of pasta on the shelves in Fredo’s office.
Players, who pay $30 each, are required to sign a waiver promising not to disclose the secrets in these rooms — if they decipher them — but eventually the owners will swap them out for new games to maintain the excitement.
Up to about eight people can play each game at a time. Players say that it’s a good idea to go with people you know, especially those who are good at solving puzzles. And it’s always good when a leader emerges.
Controllers, in a separate room, monitor your efforts and sometimes offer some clues, often in exchange for a requirement that you do something silly, like a cheer or a dance. Although the equipment would voice these exchanges, mostly the controllers write their tips (some of them programmed) on a computer. The gamers can then read the information on monitors in each room. There are also white boards where players can take notes if needed. There’s normally one controller for each game.
The Escape Room already has become popular with friend and family groups and work colleagues looking for a teambuilding experience.
Arica Fresquez came twice on a recent Saturday with her husband, along with his younger brother and his wife and a couple of friends. They got stuck both times, Fresquez admitted, but she’s determined. “We have to beat it,” she said. “We’re going to keep coming.”
According to Fresquez, being “able to work together” was her group’s favorite thing about the experience. “We’re [a] headstrong, competitive family,” she added, that loves baseball and, “We just had a blast pinging ideas off each other.” But even in an hour, “We just couldn’t get it done.”
Not at first, anyway. Most people don’t, Nungary said, “but everyone has a ball.”