There’s so many things to do in Edmonton but you’ll still find a lot of people saying there isn’t. I couldn’t disagree with them more! Now we’ve got a new addition to the city’s entertainment options – BreakOut Entertainment is a live action escape game that originated and is super popular in Asia, and has now made its way to Edmonton. It’s an awesome and unique way to spend your afternoon or evening out!
Live escape games work like this: you’re locked in a room with a group of your friends (or grouped with strangers if there’s only a couple of you). Each room has a different theme and storyline.
You’re given some backstory based on the theme you’ve chosen including your mission for that room. Then you’re given a certain amount of time (BreakOut’s is 45 minutes, other places are an hour, it varies), to complete the mission and break out/escape from the room. To do that, you must solve various puzzles placed within the room.
It’s a pretty great concept. BreakOut is brought to Edmonton by three friends from Vancouver – Jimmy, Allan and Sam. Three guys who love escape games and saw an opportunity to bring more entertainment options to this city. They describe the experience of BreakOut as “a new and unique way where people can interact and have fun… We challenge participants with their intelligence, their reasoning, and their teamwork.”
BreakOut, located at 16604 109 Avenue in Mayfield Plaza, is the first live action escape game in Edmonton. They currently offer four rooms: Secret Lab, 1408, Le Gala, and The Awakening. Two of those rooms are scarier than the other two. For my first time trying it on Friday, my group chose Secret Lab (one of the less scary ones!)
They don’t let you bring phones into the rooms – there are some magnets in the rooms that might affect the phones but also understandably they don’t want people taking photos of all the puzzles and room contents and sharing/spoiling it for others.
I went to try it with Mike and our friends Lisa, Denise, Tony and Brittney. None of us had ever tried a live escape game before! We had joked before we got there that we would be arguing, personalities would clash, and friendships would end because we are all pretty Type A would-be leaders who may not be great with teamwork, especially under pressure.
But in the end we all worked together quite well! Although we didn’t complete the mission and escape the room before time ran out, we all worked hard and were super excited with the puzzles we solved. Our downfall in the end was that we all are bad at math and the last two steps we needed to solve to win the game were both math-based. We also wasted a lot of item focusing on solving some puzzles that we thought were crucial to the game, but ended up not being (but how would you know which to focus on?? That’s part of the fun!)
Overall, we had a great time trying BreakOut Entertainment! We all thought it was interactive, fun, and challenging. It’s definitely a unique thing to do – over your typical dinner or movie for example. It’s great as a date night and even better with a group of friends. Each room can have up to six players. If you don’t have a group of six you might be paired with strangers who have also chosen the same game time. You can book/reserve a time online – and it’s not just at night either, you can do it during the afternoon if you want (but I feel like it’s more fun and intense in a nightly setting).
It costs $25 per person to play which I think is super reasonable for the amount of engaging/interactive fun that you get. My whole group wants to do it again (in fact we would’ve done it again that night if they hadn’t been all booked up already. Reserving in advance online is recommended).
Congrats and good luck to co-owners Jimmy, Sam and Allan! What an awesome addition to Edmonton. I can’t wait to try all the rooms and to see what new rooms/puzzles they come up with. The building itself is not that big so I wonder if it gets popular enough if they’ll expand to a bigger location.
In the meantime, I am lucky enough to have gotten free passes to give away for you awesome readers! (Thanks Allan!)
BREAKOUT ENTERTAINMENT GIVEAWAY!
I’m giving away three pairs of admission passes (valued at $25 each) to BreakOut!
There are multiple ways to enter (commenting in this post answering the question below is mandatory, everything else are additional/bonus entries.)
- Leave a comment on this blog post answering: Why do you want to try BreakOut Entertainment? This is mandatory. You must do this in order to be eligible to win.
- Tweet this exact sentence: I’m excited to try @breakoutedm live action escape game! Enter @lindork’s giveaway: http://bit.ly/YuYHfs #yeg
- Follow @breakoutedm on Twitter (let me know you’ve done this)
- Follow @lindork on Twitter (let me know you’ve done this)
- Like BreakOutEDM on Facebook (let me know you’ve done this)
- Follow @breakoutentertainment on Instagram (let me know you’ve done this)
Please note comments are moderated so don’t worry if your comment doesn’t appear right away! This giveaway closes on Saturday, Oct. 4 at noon. I will randomly choose three winners based on the entries.
Good luck and spread the word! :)
Also check out this great story about BreakOut from CTV Edmonton to get an even better feel of what you can expect when you go!
**** UPDATE (Oct 4, 2014)****
Congratulations to Jennifer, Chantelle and Stephanie (@jguan, @The_Tilly and @sk_gonzales), you were randomly selected as winners for the BreakOut Edmonton passes! Thanks to everyone who entered. There were 78 total entries.
Linda
38 Comments
Bteakout edmontn seems like so much fun!!! I can’t wait to try it!
Liked on Facebook and following on instagram! I want to try this with my boyfriend to see how well we can work together under pressure! And it seems a bit scary but super intriguing…
Breakout Edmonton: sounds amazing! I need to try this!
I could’ve sworn I followed you on Twitter. But it seems not. That issue has since been resolved! Bring on the food porn and cat posts. (Oh, and I NEED to go to this place! Where else can I test my inner MacGyver??? Appreciate the warning re: math. I will bring someone smarter than me)
I’ve gotta try Breakout Edmonton because it is a) a totally novel way to spend a night out and b) reminds me of a real life version of The Room which blew my mind!
I’m so excited to try this! I want to try breakout to experience a totally unique activity that doesn’t need to involve beer or the outdoors – such a cool concept!
I’d like to try BreakOut because my beau and I enjoy solving puzzles and I think it would be a fun double date with our friends. I follow you, and BreakOut on Twitter and Facebook
Think this will be a fun challenge to fail at with my girlfriend and her friends, with the reward being taking a sad photo with the failure sign.
I’m very excited to try out this place. always enjoyed these type of activities, especially the games on your mobile phone. Looking forward to come some day soon!
Would love to try this as a double date night! I think both couples would end up fighting lol I follow you on Twitter :)
“Why do you want to try BreakOut Entertainment?” Because you had me at problem solving – Math challenge, accepted! #Asianskilz
I’d love to win the pass to check out breakout. I think games like this can be a great team building exercise for my student volunteers. A chance to have some fun and learn something new!
I’m interested in trying it out because i’m somehow totally convinced I’d make it look easy,
I need to win this so that I can prove to everyone in the world that I could totally break out of a mystery room!
I want to try it for the excitement of a totally different kind of challenge!
I’m excited to try BreakOut Entertainment because it’s problem solving and adventure in real life with my friends!
I’m always find myself thinking that people in the movies and shows should have been smarter and that the answers to situations are so obvious. It’ll be interesting to see what I actually do when I’m put in those kinds of situations. I think its going to be fun and awesome way to spend a Saturday with friends!
This sounds like a really unique & entertaining experience
Earlier in the year I was able to visit Vancouver and try out the escape rooms they had over there. It is a really fun way to spend 45 minutes with your friends, trying to solve riddles and figure out clues to get out of the room (or multiple rooms).
Having been to E-Exit a couple times and having a blast there, I was really excited when I heard a similar escape room game coming to my home town in Edmonton! However, after being amazed at how intricate and well thought-out some of the puzzles were in Vancouver, this one feels lacking in comparison and I am really disappointed by the experience at BreakOut.
My friends and I tried the Secret Laboratory over the weekend. The first impression of the room when we walked in was a rather poor home-made kind of feeling. The room was sluggishly decorated with simple props, and thus not as extensive or elaborate as the E-Exit in Vancouver. Some of the props were even damaged by previous players, which kind of ruined the experience for us.
The tasks and puzzles were also basic and uncreative. E-Exit had us using lasers and other innovative tools to solve the riddles. Furthermore, the end goal of the game (which is to unlock the door and escape the room) was also ruined by the fact that the door was already unlocked to begin with — so we could exit at any time before we solved all of the puzzles.
Overall, if you haven’t been to any real-life escape rooms of some sort, this is a great place to have a unique bonding experience with your friends. However as of right now, this place is rather pricy for their lack in production value in comparison to others out there, but I do hope that they will continue to improve and develop more creative puzzles and challenges in the future. It is a great start!
I really am excited to check this place out! As a kid I’ve played a lot of games like Crack the Case, atmosphere and survival horror videogames. I would love to feel the suspension in real life!
I’m also very curious about one of the rooms, actually for all of the rooms!
Thanks!
I love puzzles and brain teasers, so I cannot wait to try Breakout!
I need to head back and redeem myself from our failed mission on their beta testing weekend! It was a lot of fun though and I do want to try out some of the other rooms.
P.S. I do follow all the accounts on social media. :p
I’ve heard so much about this and want to try it. I played an online flash escape game called the Crimson Room years ago and always thought it would be cool to do something like this in real life. And here it is!! Already arranging to go with some friends.
Warren and I haven’t been on a date more than 4 times in the entirety of our youngest daughters life. We both work opposite hours (he works days I work nights) and on weekends we’re often committed to catching up on commitments and chores and volunteer work. We both want to spend more time together and start enjoying the friendship that we had when we fell in love (a bazillion years ago) and reignite that spark! We BOTH have very different interests and it’s hard for us to even agree on a TV show to watch together when we have the time (we wont talk about radio stations!)….when I saw this idea (and I DO follow all of their accounts and yours) I emailed him excitedly and KNEW this was the thing we need to go and do! He agreed and we want to try this SO much. We can’t wait to solve the puzzles and chat about how we did and SOLVE IT. Oh yes we will! :D
As a lover of games, puzzles & mystery, I am super pumped to give this a try! Trying new things with friends in a city I love is one of my favorite things to do. :)
Because I am going to Breakout out of any room I get into, just like I did with my Team on Sunday, Breaking Out of La Gala room!
Following you (@lindork) and Breakout (@breakoutedm) on twitter (@DraekkesFire)
Liked BreakOutEDM on Facebook
Following Breakoutentertainment on Instagram (travis.whittingstall)
I want to try breakout because the bed looks pretty comfy and I can use a 45 min nap :).
I follow you and breakout on Twitter.
Why do I want to try BreakOut Entertainment? Because it looks super fun but also to to test my problem solving abilities!!
I am following you and Breakout (jguan) liked BreakOUTEDM on facebook, and is following Breakoutentertainment on Instagram (jenniferguan)
Hope I win!
I want to try it as it seems challenging and different as a form of entertainment! I follow you and breakout on twitter and Facebook already and plan to tweet.
I want to see how their challenges stack up to many of the contests and challenges I’ve participated in at various hacker conferences. I’m pretty sure I can teach them a few things. I look forward to them having to up their game; the cat and mouse game is half the fun.
It’ll be a fun and exciting adventure with my date! :)
Follow @breakoutedm on Twitter – Done
Follow @lindork on Twitter – Done
Like BreakOutEDM on Facebook – Done
Follow @breakoutentertainment on Instagram – Done
All done! :D
Good luck to me!
I want to try Breakout to do a challenge with my boyfriend. It will be an interesting test of our patience!
I love a good game and puzzle! Even better with a group of friends :) Great concept! Following all of the above as well!
I want to try BreakOut because it seems like a fun and unique activity to do with my friends!
I am following you and BreakOut on Twitter (@sk_gonzales) and I liked BreakOutEDM on Facebook.
I’m from Calgary and will drive up to Edmonton with my boyfriend this coming weekend if we win tickets to try to Breakout! It sounds like fun, we attempted 2 escapes in Prague and 1 in Richmond and it was super fun and exciting!
Seems like sooo much fun! My boyfriend isn’t from Edmonton so introducing him to fun date nights in Edmonton would be so much fun!! Can’t wait to try this!
My band and I are going June 16. We will do 2 rooms. Which two do you all recommend as the best? Thanks.
Hi Paul!
Held Hostage was a lot of fun, definitely do that first!
I would do Back to the Future second. We never tried the National Security one so let me know what you thought of that one :)