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Together Together!

Together?? Together!

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When it comes to what defines us as a species, our interconnectedness comes first in many people’s minds. We live in a hyperconnected society where you can talk to anyone, anywhere, anytime, within a few moments, provided the two people have an Internet connection. People on various apps, websites, and social media platforms can glimpse at someone’s life without traveling massive distances. Even escape rooms are a great reason to get together with those you haven’t seen or talked to much. Yet these days, it seems that more and more of us feel lonely and isolated. How is this possible in such an intertwined world?

The more potential choices you have, the smaller your joy becomes. For instance, someone with no dietary restrictions can look throughout the entire store. They may, however, be stricken with indecision and uncertainty about what to choose. They may have fewer options than someone with an allergy or dietary restriction. In contrast, this facilitates a more in-depth and intimate knowledge of the food they purchase.

In the same way, those of us who have Internet and social media know that we can have many “friends” or “followers,” but they don’t often translate to authentic, long-lasting relationships. This often leads to feelings of isolation, loneliness, and discontentedness because a part of us wonders why more of those people do not wish to pursue more of a relationship than just a number on your profile page. On the other hand, those with fewer followers but more deep, genuine relationships report a higher quality of life.

But what’s the secret?

That’s easy: togetherness! This can be as simple as a job and your fellow employees, but nowadays, it is more common that people rarely speak to their employees unless required. When I first started working at Cross Roads Escape Games, I would eat my lunch and isolate in the breakroom until one day, I wanted to change that. I stepped out of my comfort zone a little and engaged with my coworkers, bit by bit. Through small, intentional steps, I’m lucky to say that I’ve made a best friend. This will not happen for everyone, but any connection kindled carefully and purposefully will likely last a lifetime!

But what if you don’t know your interests and likes?

Try everything! Whether it be cooking, painting, singing, drawing, hiking, cosplaying, gaming, or exercising, there are many activities to involve yourself in! To find like-minded individuals, go online and look up clubs or hangouts where these happen. Some are only online, and that can work for a time, but there’s something special about physically being together. Escape rooms are an excellent way for you and your friends and family to be together physically, and you choose which one you want to do based on the room’s difficulty and theme.

In our technological, individualistic age, we have learned that we must find our own ways to entertain ourselves. But we are designed to be in a community, designed to be together. You can do great things with those you care about, and that happens together!

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All Work and No Play

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Jackson Chavarria is a manager at Cross Roads Escape Games, has a Bachelor’s degree in Psychology, and is working on his Master’s degree. Here is his take on interesting things he sees in our escape rooms through his psychology perspective.

There is an array of names for those in any skill, hobby, or job who put in much more effort than is “required” for the task. Inside a professional environment such as the Olympics or televised sports, these people are praised and set upon a pedestal as pinnacles of greatness, dedication, and the epitomes of hard work. However, in everyday day-to-day life, these people are often criticized for their overworking habits and are called “try-hard,” “sweat,” “show-off,” or are known to take the activity “too seriously.” 

No one person cannot be the best at everything, hence why a wide variety of people from diverse backgrounds accomplish world records. While these people are often role models for us, it is unrealistic in most aspects of our regular livelihood. To aspire to be the best in all parts of your life is impossible and negatively affects you. Living this way has been shown to decrease self-confidence and lead to depression or isolation, putting all this pressure on yourself and feeling like a letdown when you can’t live up to impossible standards.

Acquiring a record is no easy feat, but many people strive for it. The trait of wanting to hold some form is usually seen in individualistic countries (i.e., USA and Europe) instead of collectivistic countries (i.e., China and India). Individualistic countries uphold the singular person so that everyone aspires for their success and individually gets the rewards or repercussions. Collectivistic countries focus more on the success and betterment of the entire family, as one’s success or failure is tied to the whole family.  


As members of an individualistic country, we can quickly grasp that the singular person must stand out. We all want to be highlighted, recognized, or unique, preferably in a positive light. Since we were little, it was all about what we could do, how fast we could learn, how high of a grade we could get, and doing our best to outdo those around us.

If you’re stuck under the pretense that you need to be on the escape room leaderboard, you’ve misinterpreted the point of a well-designed escape room. The phrase “too much of a good thing” realizes itself in this concept. It is not inherently bad or wrong to want to strive for any record. This mentality can often lead to incredible feats of human capabilities that could never be realized. However, some moments or memories are meant to be experienced with a flexible mind, not a rigid one.

All we have left once a moment has passed is the memory of it. That memory may be photographed, drawn, or symbolized in another way, but there’s no comparison to what it was truly like to live in that moment. There is something beautiful about escape rooms; they bring people together, accomplish a group task, and expand the brain’s potential for problem-solving, all in one place. Try not to be too preoccupied with getting the best time, end up missing it, and let that ruin what could’ve been a positive memory for years to come. Instead, embrace the escape room for what it offers, solve some puzzles, and congratulations if you get a record! If not, you became smarter, strengthened friendships, and balanced work and play!

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Bad Habits of Escape Room Players

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As an escape room enthusiast, I try to take every chance I can to play an escape room. I have played good rooms, bad rooms, and rooms that have almost melted my brain with the creativity and complexity of their puzzles. I have also game mastered here at Cross Roads Escape Games for several years now and there are a quite a few habits shared by both new and advanced players alike.  

If you’re like me, you are always looking to improve your escape room game. Here is a list of four habits that I have noticed cause even the most advanced player to fail from time to time.

1. SOLVING BEFORE SEARCHING

I see this all the time. A player will begin to search their room and the moment that they come across a puzzle they immediately start trying to solve it, before finishing their room search. Often times this leads to them not giving vital clues to their team mates in a timely manner or completely missing clues that help them solve the puzzle they are stuck on.

It is much more efficient to search your room and take note of all the puzzles that you find and gather all your clues before you even attempt to solve your first puzzle. This affords you the benefit of having all your clues in front of you and gives you the ability to determine which clues probably go to which puzzle. You have to search your room fully anyways, so don’t stop half way through just because you fall to the temptation of the first puzzle you see.

2. GETTING MARRIED TO YOUR FIRST SOLUTION

Now I don’t mean to break up any warm fuzzy feelings people have with the first solution they come up with for their puzzles, but like your first love… your first guess is pretty unlikely to be “The One.”

Of course, there is nothing wrong with getting the wrong answer to a puzzle, but if your gut reaction to a lock not opening is to assume that the puzzle is broken, then you might have this bad habit.

It is pertinent to double check your work and try the solution more than once, however if the answer just doesn’t work, move on! There are so many people that get a single idea stuck in their head and are then unable to look past it to find any alternative solution. They stop trying different ways to solve the puzzle and just assume that the puzzle is malfunctioning or outright broken. Trust me, save yourself the head ache and give puzzles the benefit of the doubt; especially if the room has already been open for a while.

3. NOT SHARING YOUR RESEARCH

This one seems like it would be common sense really, but you’d be surprised how often people don’t think to tell their team mates what they have learned from their attempts at trying to solve a puzzle.

If you try multiple times to solve a puzzle only to find yourself coming back to the same solution over and over again, then it is probably time to tag someone else in. That being said, when your team mate decides to give it a shot at least tell them what methods you have already tried and what codes you got. This will save them some time and help ensure that your team mate does just keep bashing their heads against the same wall that you have been. Let them try a different approach while you give a new set of eyes to a new puzzle.

4. NEVER PASSING THE BATON

I know we touched on this a little bit in the last one, but seriously gang… it is okay to admit that you don’t understand what to do with a puzzle. It is okay to ask for help. Sometimes what you really need to do is pass off the puzzle to one of your other team mates and step away from it. A lot of times this happens when someone gets stuck in a certain way of thinking (see getting married to your first solution above).  If this starts happening, just pass the baton and see if you can help one of your other team mates with something. Just make sure you share your findings with your team mate before walking away from the puzzle.

Of course, this is not an exhaustive list of habits that could hinder your gameplay, but I believe these are four of the most important ones to focus on. It’s important to step aside and analyze yourself from time to time, just like you would with any other hobby or activity you want to improve on.

Do you have anything that should be added to the list? Let us know in the comments below!

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Escape Room Life Lessons

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Ever since their conception when there was just an empty room with a couple combination locks and a blacklight flashlight, escape rooms have gone beyond just mere entertainment. You get to work as a team, develop your problem solving skills, and boost your self confidence, among many other benefits you don’t typically think about when playing. In this day and age, escape rooms have advanced exponentially to the point where you can now play games with strategy mechanics (The Psych Ward), or games designed to illuminate a group’s communication skills (The Hex Room); games that go far beyond merely solving puzzles in a room. I believe there is something you can learn about yourself and your friends in every escape room experience.

Escape rooms are a fantastic tool in teaching you HOW to learn. By providing immediate feedback (a code not working), you can jump right back into problem solving until you are successful, instead of waiting to find out whether you were wrong or not only able to fix a problem when it’s already too late. It is okay to be wrong, because that is how you continue to course correct until you are right. Generally, people are taught that failing is bad, and you need to get it right the first time, but that is simply not how the human brain functions. Escape rooms are an excellent way to teach you it’s okay to fail, and also okay to ask for help! That’s how we learn and grow. As the old saying goes, people who fail more, succeed more… or something like that.

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Pride affects everyone. It affects everyone differently, but it does affect everyone. Some people prefer playing games with little to no hints, and some groups want all the help they can get. I’m not here to tell you how to play your game, but there is NEVER anything wrong with asking for help, and escape rooms definitely reinforce this idea. After all, hint systems are designed to be a part of the game, so there is nothing wrong with utilizing it.

The human brain is fantastic at overcomplicating things and overthinking solutions to problems. Often times the solution is simple, such as simply having to communicate with another teammate what you are doing (side note: I see this ALL THE TIME in The Hex Room where a problem would become clear as day if one person in their room simply told another what they were looking at). Sometimes your brain will get so stuck on your original idea to solve something that even when it doesn’t work, you are unable to see it any other way and get frustrated. At this point, usually, is the time to ask for a hint, or at least get a fresh pair of eyes on it. Some groups prefer only asking for help when they absolutely need it. The key is figuring out where that line is, otherwise you’ll wind up stuck on a puzzle for twenty minutes all because you were so insistent your first idea was correct and you are unable to see anything else.

By approaching escape rooms as both a form of entertainment AND learning experiences, you might just surprise yourself with how much can be applied to everyday life. Ultimately, above all else, play escape rooms to have as much fun as possible in an hour, not to prove how smart you are. Trust me when I tell you doing so will severely limit the amount of learning you could accomplish in a game, as well as the amount of fun you could be having.

Happy escaping!

Zach Dahm
Game Master and Assistant Manager
Cross Roads Escape Games

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Tips on how to solve puzzles in an escape room!

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Being good at playing escape rooms is just like any other skill: it takes some practice. As you play more and more escape rooms, you will learn what methods work for finding solutions to puzzles and what habits just waste time. If you are a new player or are already an escape enthusiast looking to improve your gameplay, here is some advice and techniques I have found effective when solving puzzles in escape rooms!

#1) Look at the lock!

This is such an important step that I see a lot of players skip. Even if the puzzle doesn’t have an actual “lock” per say, look at what it is that you are putting your solution into. What kind of solution do you need: Does it require numbers? Letters? Directions? Colors? Look at what it is asking for even before you look at the clues that you have found. After all, once you know what you are looking for, the clues you need will stand out to you!

#2) Look at the clues!

Do not be that one person that looks at the lock and instantly starts guessing random codes. The odds are that you aren’t going to get the right combination and even if you do guess the right code… congratulations… you are still going to need to solve the puzzle to figure out which clues have been used and which clues haven’t. I can tell you from experience, if you don’t separate the clues you should have used and set them aside, your team will continue trying to use them on EVERY SINGLE PUZZLE they come across. You may have saved five minutes by hacking a lock, but you have wasted 15 minutes throughout the game just trying clues that no longer have any purpose. TRUST ME… just look at the clues.

Once you know what you are looking for, the clues will begin to make more sense. Once the clues start making sense, it becomes easier to deduce the correct answer. Remember, solving puzzles is a matter of deductive reasoning.You start with infinite ideas on how it can be solved and begin narrowing the possible solutions based on what the clues are telling you

#3) Talk it out with your team!

This is the point where your team mates become invaluable. If you are looking at the clues and aren’t coming up with a solution to the puzzle, bring everything you’ve discovered to your team mates. Tell them what the lock is looking for, tell them what clues you’ve found and what you think those clues are telling you. Once you’ve done that, tell them everything that you’ve tried so far so you don’t waste time coming to the same conclusions. Talk it out and brainstorm different solutions. Don’t worry about being 100% right on what you guess during the brainstorm. This is the point where everyone brings their ideas to the table and everyone talks about what works/doesn’t work and why. You and your team will narrow the possibilities down until you come up with a solution that uses the clues to open the lock!

#4) Try the solution twice!

Uh Oh! The lock didn’t open. You review your solution and you are POSTIVE that you have the right answer. But it didn’t work the first time! Don’t panic. If you are sure you have the right solution, try inputting the code into the lock once more. Sometimes you have the number on a lock slightly off, or you accidentally press an extra digit on a keypad. It happens. Just make sure everything is lined up perfectly and take your time inputting the code. If you want to be extra sure everything is done right, then have your teammate impute the code the second time; just in case you are doing it wrong. And don’t forget, you may need to give a lock a gentletug to open.

#6) Come back to it.

If you have tried everything to solve a puzzle but you are missing a piece or just aren’t getting it, come back to the puzzle later (if possible). Most escape rooms have multiple things that need to be done at any point in time. If you’ve given the puzzle your best shot, then perhaps you don’t have everything that you need to solve it yet. You might think you know the solution only to discover a clue later that changes EVERYTHING! So, don’t get stuck! Feel free to step away from a puzzle and come back to it!

I hope these tips can help improve your gameplay and make you more effective escape artists. Do you have some tips that should have made the list? Leave other escape enthusiasts your best advice in the comment section below! And be sure to test your escape artistry in either The Fun House or The Hex Room at Cross Roads Escape Games!

Jason Sakal
Manager and Game Master
Cross Roads Escape Games

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Who Are Escape Rooms For?

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So, you’ve been thinking about doing an escape room for a while now and you’ve looked around at all the different themes they have to offer. They look like fun, but you’re not sure if you and your group will like them or not, right? After all, how can you really know unless you jump right in and do one. Well, in this blog I will do my best to explain the different things that escape rooms have to offer and the kinds of people that enjoy them!

1. Puzzle People

The largest group of people drawn to escape rooms are the puzzle enthusiasts. These people enjoy exercising their mind and love solving riddles, puzzles, or brain teasers. If you fit into this category, you will love escape rooms. Escape rooms are centered around searching for clues and solving puzzles in order to advance. So, for all you Nancy Drew enthusiasts, Myst lovers, and Shivers maniacs we say, “Welcome to the wonderful world of escape rooms… what took you so long!”

2. Friend Squads

Then next most common type of person we see is the event organizer, aka the hangout enthusiast. These people are constantly on the lookout for new and exciting things to do with their group of friends. Escape rooms are perfect for people looking new things to try. Each escape room that you play is unique, with tons of themes to choose from and many different difficulty levels. You could play 10 different escape rooms and have 10 completely different experiences. And if you find a company that makes a room that you really like, or you find one that is conveniently located, perfect! Most companies have multiple rooms already open with more to come; so, you and your team can play several rooms before needing to look for a new company to try!

3. Co-workers

Another amazing thing about escape rooms is that they are incredible for team building! Be it sports teams, sales teams, or just for corporate events, escape rooms provide the perfect environment for team building and bonding! In most escape rooms the puzzles are designed to emphasize creative brainstorming, effective communication, and of course teamwork! So, whether you are trying to figure out how your sales team reacts under pressure or are looking for which of your team members might have what it takes to be a leader, escape rooms are a fun and innovative way to challenge your team.

4. Thrill Seekers

Of course, no list of escape room enthusiasts would be complete without mentioning the thrill seekers! If you and your friends are always on the prowl for new thrills, then escape rooms are a dream come true. Escape rooms are fully immersive experiences. Many games tend to increase their level of immersion by putting their players in an exciting, tense, or thrilling environment. Horror themed escape rooms are a great way to get both a steady fix of adrenaline throughout the game and the rush of escaping the room!

5. Cool Parents

And last but certainly not least, are the cool parents. Have you been trying to find ways to be the cool mom or dad? Are you trying to find a fun way to get your kids to disconnect from their phones for a while? Let me tell you, escape rooms are the way to go for both! Escape rooms are exciting and trendy, both challenging kids and giving them a memorable experience that they will want to tell all their friends about. Many escape room companies are now designing rooms for players of all ages making room accessibility for young enthusiasts better now than ever before! So, grab the kids, lock up their iPad, and plan your escape soon!

As you can see, there are many different aspects of an escape room that people connect with. Whether it’s the puzzle-solving, the immersion, or the connecting as a family away from phones and video screens, there’s something for everyone to enjoy. If you were on the fence about whether or not to do an escape room, hopefully this post has helped you get the confidence to dive in feet-first and book your escape room experience now!

Jason Sakal
Game Master, Manager
Cross Roads Escape Games

Detective in The Hex Room

What It Takes To Be A Great Detective

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The Hex Room at Cross Roads Escape Games is a unique escape room where you can star in your very own horror film. Before the game begins, each player takes a personality quiz to determine which character they best fit within the game. From there, they are placed into their own room where the goal is to work together through the physical barriers to escape each individual room and, finally, the game.

Being separated into individual rooms really tests each player’s ability to discover, describe, solve, and face fears. And even though The Hex Room requires every player to participate in order for the group to escape, the most weight is placed on one character in particular: The Detective.

When players come in and begin filling out their questionnaires, they often ask who their leader is. My shortest reply is; pick someone who is great at communicating and multi-tasking.

The best Detectives are actively social within the game. They are the ones who can go room to room asking their teammates what they’re working on and what they need help with. This means they also have to be adept at collecting a massive amount of information and processing it to determine what is important, what might be important, and what is just set dressing.

Detectives are often great puzzle-solvers. They can take fragments of a puzzle, visualize how the puzzle will be solved, and figure out what pieces are still missing to complete the puzzle. They don’t necessarily solve the puzzle, but they can figure out if the puzzle is matching, referencing, or physical.

On top of this, great Detectives are also great multi-taskers.  Not only will they be communicating with every player in the game and passing information back and forth, they will also need to solve their own set of puzzles at the same time.

Detectives are not afraid to ask for help. Good leaders know that you can’t always solve everything on your own. Recognizing your own strengths and weaknesses and asking for help is what can propel you from an okay Detective to a great one.

The greatest downfall of a Detective that I have noticed is that they don’t communicate well. Sometimes another player will tell them they are missing something, and though the Detective hears, they don’t pass along that information to the other players in the game. Detectives must act as a telephone line between the rooms.

Another great downfall is when a Detective is too focused on their own puzzles to offer assistance to the rest of the players. Too often I have seen a player locked in a room asking for help with a puzzle, only to have the Detective tell them to wait while they work on their own puzzle (often which can’t be solved without first helping the other player.) Sometimes they must take a step back to help others before their own puzzles start to make sense.

Though the Detective’s role is a demanding one, there is nothing quite like the satisfaction of knowing you helped your team to the best of your ability. There is nothing quite like seeing the pride and accomplishment on Detectives’ faces after they successfully helped their team escape.

The skills of a Detective extend beyond the walls of an escape room. Detectives will share many similar traits to effective leaders and managers. Teambuilding in an escape room can help identify the strengths and shortcomings of your employees while providing a fun, exciting, and new way to bring your team closer. That’s why Cross Roads Escape Games offers teambuilding experiences for company outings, celebrations, and workshops. To learn more about teambuilding at Cross Roads Escape Games, check out this blog, or our team building page.

What do you think makes a great Detective in The Hex Room? Leave us a comment on our blog, Facebook, Twitter, Tumblr, or Instagram to let us know what leadership means to you.

Geoff Durham
Game Master, Manager
Cross Roads Escape Games

Team Building at Cross Roads Escape Games

#1 Team Building Outing is at Cross Roads Escape Games

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Are you looking for a thrilling experience that will test your team’s wit, communication, and teamwork? Perhaps you are looking for an event that will allow your team to bond by working together to overcome obstacles? Or maybe you are just trying to be the coolest boss in the world. Either way, Cross Roads Escape Games offers a fun and exciting take on team building that will engage and excite every member of your group.

Our games offer unique challenges to test team cohesion, communication, critical thinking, and creative problem solving. With two different themes, we can offer two different experiences sure to thrill and include everyone on your team.

The Fun House is a kooky non-linear game that emphasizes the importance of team work, time management, and communication while brainstorming creative solutions to new challenges. Everyone starts out in a topsy-turvy room filled with hidden clues, optical illusions, and tons of puzzles that can be solved in any order. It is up to you and your team to work together to make heads or tails of all the clues and prove yourselves as Magnificent Magicians!

In The Hex Room, your team is split into six different rooms based on a personality test that is taken before the game starts. The Hex Room has an intense atmosphere and each room is designed to make the player feel like they are the star of their own horror film. It is imperative that your team works together and learns to communicate through the physical barriers separating them. Employing a clever use of stress and isolation, The Hex Room highlights the strengths and weaknesses of each team member.

Both rooms are designed to test your team’s communication and problem solving skills while also revealing a team’s true dynamic. In the Fun House, players are exposed to wacky ideas and are forced to think outside the box. Each player must add their brainpower to the group to find the solution to a challenge. In the Hex Room, communication becomes paramount and failing to do so could have dire effects. In both rooms, the dynamic of the group will become apparent; Natural leaders will rise to the occasion to lead their teams to victory and team cohesion will form around those leaders.

The Hex Room and The Fun House are both excellent tools for team building that allow players to identify their own strengths and weaknesses.

 

Team Building at Cross Roads Escape Games

Often, it isn’t until someone is put to the test that they realize their strengths to cultivate or the weaknesses that they can mend. It is through these fun and thrilling adventures that people discover their desire to lead.

Team Building here at Cross Roads is a thrilling experience for everyone. We have a friendly and enthusiastic staff that can offer a wide range of team building services including Game Master talk backs. During these talk backs, your game master will sit down with your team after the game to discuss the group’s strengths and shortcomings. They will offer advice on how to improve team work, communication, and overall cohesion.

Cross Roads Escape Games Lounge
Rentable private lounge area for team building talk backs

If you want a truly memorable and exciting way to discover your team dynamic, want to strengthen critical thinking and problem solving, or are just looking to take your team out for a fun and thrilling bonding experience, Cross Roads Escape Games can help with top-quality games and engaging experiences. For more information on what we can offer for your next team building outing, check out our team building page.

Jason Sakal
Manager and Game Master
Cross Roads Escape Games

Characters of The Hex Room

What Makes The Hex Room So Unique?

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Since The Hex Room opened back in January of 2016, it has received rave reviews from fans and critics who consistently claim it as their new favorite escape room. But what makes The Hex Room so unique and popular? Is it the room’s dedication to absolute immersion? Is it the set design perhaps? Though these aspects play a huge role in people’s experience, I believe that the number one reason for the Hex Room’s popularity is its unique style of game play.

Owner and creator of The Hex Room, Madison Rhoades, says, “My husband and I created The Hex Room because we wanted something new. We played about 50 escape rooms, and they were starting to all blend together. We wanted something that gave each player an individual experience and their own moment to shine, without having to battle over it with other players. We also wanted to create an escape room that was replayable. We love escape rooms so much, but once we played one we really enjoyed, it was impossible to replay it with new friends without already knowing all the answers. It was a huge challenge to create this unique design, but after a lot of testing, it all came together in the end!”

In a standard escape room, you and your team all start in a single room with clues to find and puzzles to solve. You are told to communicate and work as a team, but not everyone needs to participate. Sometimes there aren’t enough puzzles for the number of people in the room. Sometimes people are shy and let the more assertive players take the lead. Either way, it is possible for parts of your team to do all the work while other parts of your team do very little. This is the biggest difference between the standard escape room, and the Hex Room.

In the Hex Room, each person is divided into separate rooms based on a personality quiz that is taken before entering the room. Each person is given costume pieces based on which stereotypical horror movie character their personalities best match; such as the Detective, Rebel, Jock, Nerd, Prom Queen, and Virgin. You are then led into the rooms one by one. Once divided, it becomes each player’s imperative to try and escape their individual room. Though the team is divided, everyone must still work together to escape. Each player must search their rooms for clues to help themselves and their team mates.

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In the Hex Room, everyone must work as a team and effectively communicate between their individual rooms. They must be able to tell their team mates what they see and what they have; they must ask for and pass clues between their rooms; and they must actively participate throughout their experience if they are to have any chance of escaping alive.

When six players enter the Hex Room, they will leave with six completely different experiences; each of them feeling a sense of accomplishment for their contributions to their team. There are no passive observers in The Hex Room, only active players!

Once each player is inside their room, they are instructed to remove their blindfolds and are instantly immersed within their own horror film. Cross Roads is dedicated to making each player feel as though they have stepped out of their normal lives and into the extraordinary adventure. This engaging environment makes players want to participate and see more of what the room has to offer. I have, on several occasions, had a player admit to me that they normally just stand around and let their team mates do all the work, but in the Hex Room they felt so completely immersed and engaged in the experience that the thought of standing around never even occurred to them. This is the magic of the Hex Room.

As mentioned before, The Hex Room is also the only replayable escape room in SoCal. Because each player has such an individualized experience, you can come back and play again as a different character and enjoy the game all over again with new friends or family members. We have had multiple guests play up to 6 times because they wanted to experience every room.

The Hex Room has a stressful and demanding style of game play that requires each member of the team to push themselves to escape. When this is combined with our movie quality set design and immersive ambiance, players are compelled to suspend their belief for an hour and experience what it feels like to step into the shoes of a horror film character. This completely unique style of escape game is exactly why the Hex Room has become the #1 escape room in both Orange County and Los Angeles.

If you are a fan, or even if you have not played yet, make sure to check out our pinned post on our Facebook page for a chance to win 2 free tickets and an awesome box of horror swag by tagging who you and your friends would play as in The Hex Room! Contest ends September 4th. 

Jason Sakal
Manager & Game Master
Cross Roads Escape Games

Confessions of a Game Master

Confessions of a Game Master

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Have you ever wanted to get a peek into the life of an Escape Room Game Master? Wondered what goes on in the mind of that person locking you in a room? Thought about becoming a Game Master yourself? Get prepared for Confessions of a Game Master!

An exclusive look at what goes on in the minds of the people who run and reset the games you love playing, we want to give you some insight in to what it takes to be a game master and perhaps even get some tips from people who live and breathe puzzles.

Our game masters at Cross Roads Escape Games are skilled actors who immerse you in the world of the escape room, which is just one of the reasons The Hex Room and The Fun House are a couple of the most unique and exciting escape games available today. We pride ourselves on keeping you in the story from the moment you enter the room until the timer finally runs out.

For our first installment of Confessions of a Game Master, we ask our team to describe what being a Game Master means in just 7 words, the most important skill for a game master to have, and finally, one piece of advice they want to give players. Our Game Masters Jessica, Mack, Bradley, Tom and Zach share their opinions.

And of course, stay tuned for future episodes of Confessions of a Game Master, where we will reveal even more secrets from the minds of game masters, plus some tips to help you improve while playing your own games.

We want to know what you want to know! If you have any burning questions for our game masters, feel free to let us know in the comments below, on Facebook, Twitter, Tumblr, Instagram or YouTube! We will be releasing a new Confessions of a Game Master at the beginning of every month.

Geoff D.
Manager & Game Master
Cross Roads Escape Games

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