Escape the room

Escape the room is a subgenre of adventure game,^[1] usually created as a browser game for the Adobe Flash platform, that utilizes a point-and-click style of play. The object of the game is to find a way to escape from a mysterious room. The room usually consists of a locked door, several objects to manipulate as well as hidden clues or secret compartments.^[2] The player must use the objects to interact with other items in the room to reveal a way to escape.^[3]

Origin

The basic gameplay mechanism of having the player trapped in a single location dates back at least to John Wilson's 1988 text adventure Behind Closed Doors,^[4] in which the player is trapped inside a toilet. The term originated in 2001 from the MOTAS game^[1], though there are many older examples of the point-and-click variation, such as Noctropolis, and even earlier examples from the text adventure canon. The genre was further popularized in 2004 by the Japanese "Crimson Room" game by Toshimitsu Takagi, which has spread throughout the internet and can be seen on many gaming websites. Another popular example is the Submachine Series which continues to add new installments. Strictly speaking, MOTAS is not strictly an "escape-the-room" game as it includes many levels, some of which include more than one location.

While a single-location game may not be set inside a room, and while the player's goal may not necessarily be escape, in 2002 the interactive fiction community first hosted a One Room Game Competition (attracting six entries, all in Italian), and in 2006 Riff Conner wrote Another Goddamn Escape the Locked Room Game, indicating that the genre is well known in the contemporary interactive fiction hobbyist community. Often, a game that features many different locations will begin with a prologue of sorts, in which the player must escape a cell or simply leave the player's apartment in order to start the main plot.

Structure

Most escape-the-room games play from a first-person perspective, where the player must click on objects to interact with them. Many games of the genre start with a small cut scene (which usually consists only of text) to establish how the player got there. The usual story is the player waking up and finding themselves in a mysterious room from which they must escape using the household itself, but sometimes also unusual items left in the room.

During gameplay the player must click on objects to either interact with them or add them to their inventory. If the object cannot be collected, the player is usually informed of what it is (as if the player was instead inspecting it). The player must collect items and use them with various objects (or other items in the inventory) to find a way to get out of the room. Some games require that the player solves several rooms until reaching the end. Escape the room games often require significant amounts of pixel hunting.

References