Let’s start with a history lesson. In the beginning, there was HintHunt. At least, in the beginning for this country.

The second exit local game project that this site ever knew about – the one that raised the suggestion that the exit game might be a genre, rather than a glorious one-off – was Live Escape Game of Brighton. If you investigate with WHOIS servers, the domain registrations for XIT of Dublin, clueQuest of London and ESCAP3D of Belfast precede that for Live Escape Game, and there may be others as well, but Live Escape Game was the second to catch attention here. Accordingly, it was one of the eight games listed in the first version of the Exit Games UK map. It was “coming soon” then, and it’s still “coming soon” now. Is it still coming soon in practice? Hard to say, but the domain was renewed in August, which points to at least a passing degree of aspiration. The site for Brighton Escape Room has come and gone and investigation at the quoted physical location showed no evidence, so that is to be considered to have been a misfire.

For a while, it looked like Brighton was haunted, when a city so cosmopolitan and creative must surely be as promising as any in the country. However, happily, it looks very much like a project has managed to stick. This may well prove to be a theme that crops up time and again; might Brighton prove to be the new Liverpool, going from no sites and an obvious gap to five in short order? Time will tell.

So, at last, Brighton is getting its first exit game, Escape Game Brighton, opening today on Regency Square, which is on the other side of the town’s big shopping centre to The Lanes and its gorgeous library. Be careful with the address; as you might hope for from Brighton, if you get the digits in the street name the wrong way around, you end up at a fetish bar. (No, the exit game site doesn’t have a room set in a dungeon. Yet.) More practically, it’s well within reach of car parking.

The location is opening with a single mission, Murder at Brighton Pier, which has a 60-minute time limit and caters for temas of two to five. A woman has been found dead. Her cause of death and her assailant are unknown. Your team will take on the role of a group of world famous investigators in this Agatha Christie style murder mystery. Hidden at the scene of the crime are the clues needed to unlock the truth behind this gruesome murder. Your task is to discover who is the guilty culprit before the time runs out. You will have to use a combination of logic, intuition and good old fashioned detective work to solve this case. Further missions are coming soon.

The site will start off by opening at weekends and on Monday evenings, then it will add Wednesday to Friday evenings as well in October. The price is £45 for a team of two, or you can add up to three more players for £15 each – so a full five will cost £90. However, it’s possible to beat that; bookings by the end of September will attract a 15% discount. Even better still, the limited availability of this Groupon social buying deal may not have expired by the time you look, and may permit a discount of over 50%; terms and conditions apply – notably that you must use your voucher within 14 days of purchase to book a game within 90 days.

Enjoy exit games, Brighton; fingers crossed, you’ll find them well worth the wait!