Welcome to the exitgames.co.uk blog!
The focus of the site is exit games, which you might also know as escape games or locked room games. However, this blog will look a little further afield, covering related events such as puzzle hunts and also other puzzle games as and when news arises.
Exit games have been available within the UK, in their modern incarnation, since 2012, but it would be fair to say that 2013 saw a massive expansion, particularly towards the end of the year. Further afield, Japanese Wikipedia suggests that the first such games of this type were promoted by the company SCRAP, previously known for a free newspaper, in Kyoto in July 2007. The genre has spread around the world; at time of writing this post, the tremendous exitgames.hu site suggests there are over 60 such games (or, at least, rooms…?) in Hungary, of which 44 are in Budapest alone. Last December, the Wall Street Journal reported on developments in China, suggesting the existence of 120 games in Beijing – which, in the context of Budapest, seems plausible. Currently this site is aware of eight sites in the UK and Ireland offering a total of sixteen games, so we have some way to go to catch up.
Nevertheless, there have been interesting games with some degree of similarity in the past, more of which some other day. The degree of technology required to produce such a game is not necessarily particularly high, so it’s tempting to wonder whether Lord Baden-Powell, or other Boy Scout leaders, might have produced a comparable diversion as an alternative to the long history of wide games, scores of years ago. If there’s ever evidence to suggest this, this blog will be one of the first to let you know!