Escape Team: A Super Fun, Interactive, Pencil-and-Paper Escape Game

A few weeks ago I discovered Escape Team. I absolutely love it and am so excited to share it with you! 

If you've been to an escape room, Escape Team is sort of like that, except you don't have to go anywhere. Plus, you can do all of the Escape Team missions for a tenth of the cost of one in-person escape room. To play, you access the game on your mobile device, print out the puzzles, and solve them on paper. Meanwhile, an audio narrative on your device sets the scene, the countdown clock runs on your screen, and you can see clues if you need them. You enter your solutions to each puzzle (always a 5-digit code) on the device. It's really, really fun.

It can also be frustrating, but in a good way. Because the puzzles don't have instructions, you really have to think and work together to solve them. Our team consisted of me (49), Steve (45), and Trevor (14), and the different puzzles required our different brains and varied ways of looking at things. Particularly for the later (and more challenging) missions, if any one of the three of us hadn't been there, the other two would either still be working on the puzzles or would have had to use all of the hints. By working together, we bounced ideas off each other and used our own strengths to take the lead on particular puzzles. I'd say the ideal team size is 3 or 4 people. 

Each mission consists of five different puzzles. They are solved on paper, with some requiring colored pens, scissors, or tape.   

You can play the introductory Training Mission and Central Station Mission for free to see if you like it (which you will). The remaining missions cost $0.99 each. 

After you've solved all of the current missions, you can either wait patiently for more to be released or you can try out user-generated missions. We haven't done that yet, but I'm eager to give it a go. There's even an option to create your own mission! We haven't done that yet either, but it would be really fun to work on together. I'm thinking something with a rabbit theme.... 

If you end up trying Escape Team, let me know in the comments. And if you make your own mission, let me know that too and I'll be sure to give it a try! Enjoy!