Do you remember Clue, the classic murder mystery board game, or the hilarious movie starring Tim Curry? Generations of puzzle solvers have loved playing Clue with their friends and families.
Now there is a new way to enjoy Clue, thanks to a new puzzle escape room by Trapped Puzzle Rooms. This interactive escape-the-room experience is called Clue Dun’ It? Teams of up to 12 players work together to solve the mystery of Mr. Boddy’s murder before the timer runs out. It’s the ultimate problem solving adventure!
Escape rooms have taken the world by storm as a fun, engaging activity for small groups to band together and use their problem solving and deduction skills to master a series of puzzles and clues. There are more than 2,300 escape rooms in the United States.
Usually, you have to go to the escape room facility to take part. Trapped Puzzle Room’s newest offering, Clue Dun’ It is a mobile escape room, which means the staff will bring the experience to your home or office.
What’s an escape room?
An escape room is an immersive adventure game that challenges players to figure out a series of riddles and puzzles using available clues as well as hints, strategy, problem solving skills, and collaboration.
Players have a specific time limit to discover the secret story hidden in the room, and they may ask for clues from facilitators a limited number of times.
If you solve all the puzzles before time is up, you succeed, and if not, then you are “trapped” in the room by failing to escape. Of course, everyone gets to go home after the experience; no one is actually cursed by the zombie or incarcerated as a result of failing to beat the clock. And at Trapped Puzzle Rooms, the doors are never actually locked.
Escape rooms require participants to think carefully and creatively. Problem solving skills are put to the test as they analyze information, recognize patterns, consider new information, evaluate its importance, make predictions and hypotheses, and test their theories against the information at hand, all while under the pressure of a deadline.
Success at escape rooms is often determined by how well the group of participants collaborate and communicate with each other. If all of these attributes sound like great professional development and team-building exercise, you’d be right!
Escape Rooms are gaining popularity as company team-building events, and Trapped Puzzle Rooms can bring our nostalgic and fun version of Clue to your office, school, workplace, or living room.
Benefits of Escape Rooms for Team-Building
Teamwork
Participants need to work as a team to succeed in an escape room. Hoarding information or keeping secrets from other participants don’t help the group solve the puzzles and escape the room. Participants need to work together physically, by finding clues throughout the room, and intellectually, by sharing, comparing, and analyzing information. The better a group works together as a team, the better their chances of success.
Problem-Solving
Escape rooms are mastered by solving the problems at hand. These may be ciphers that require pattern recognition and data analysis skills, or numerical puzzles that use logic and math to come to conclusions.
Players also make deductions about what a key or missing piece fits into. There is information throughout the escape room, but only some of it is important to the goals and objectives of the room. Other information is extraneous or red herrings.
As in life and business, solving one smaller problem often reveals a larger and more complicated one that now also needs addressing. Escape rooms flex participants’ problem-solving skills and reward them for a job well-done.
Shared Objectives
Escape rooms automatically focus participants on the time-sensitive and important objectives at hand. You must tackle these problems and solve them before time is up!
Escape rooms bring these shared objectives into laser focus and build in obstacles and setbacks that participants must rally together to overcome. Going through the experience together brings people closer and forms bonds that last after the experience is over.
Growth Mindset
One of the top guiding management and educational trends now is having a “growth mindset.” This concept means that you see problems as temporary and feel that you have the ability and resources to tackle them.
“Fixed mindset” people feel that situations and problems are beyond their control, too big to solve and that it is useless for them to try.
Businesses and schools want employees and students to have a growth mindset so that they will work hard with a positive attitude, believing in their problem solving skills and abilities.
Escape rooms are closed puzzles, so all the tools that participants need are right in front of them if they can only discover them, decipher them, and use them in the right place at the right time.
What is Clue Dun’ It?
If you know the Clue board game, you get the idea for Clue Dun’ It. You and your team members (up to 12 at a time) must figure out who killed Mr. Boddy, where the crime occurred, and with what weapon.
The escape room represents the nine rooms of the mansion, such as the library, study, kitchen, and more. You play guests in the mansion trying to solve the mystery as strange events continue to unfold.
Much like in the movie, Clue, you’re trapped in the mansion until the weather breaks, or the authorities arrive. You’d better figure out who dun’ it or you may end up accused yourself! Rather than holding cards, rolling dice, and moving pawns on a board, you walk around the escape room space yourself to discover clues and piece together the mystery.
Clue Dun’ It Comes to You
Unlike fixed escape rooms where your group must go off-site to participate, Clue Dun’ It is designed as a mobile experience. We bring the escape room to you and set it up across tables or cubicles to recreate the nine rooms in Mr. Boddy’s mansion.
You book the day and time, and we arrive with everything needed to make a great event. We’re responsible for the set-up and breakdown of the event, and our facilitator stays on site to explain and monitor the activity.
Since the escape room takes 45 minutes, teams can go through the experience consecutively, and even compete for the fastest time. Your employees and co-workers only have to go down the hall to the conference room, not to the other side of the city. Participants can work a typical day and include the escape room team-building experience as part of their day, much like any other meeting on their calendar.
If you’re interested in setting up Clue Dun’ It as a company team-building experience, contact Trapped Puzzle Rooms at events@trappedpuzzlerooms.com for availability and pricing. Remember to plan ahead! It could take several weeks to coordinate this immersive problem-solving and fun experience coming to you!