fascinatinghorror

The 2019 Escape Room Disaster

Added 2023-06-20 10:15:01 +0000 UTC

The escape room’s website

Thanks to The Internet Archive, it’s actually still possible to visit the website of the Polish escape game where the fire took place. Here it is. As you can see it’s fairly official-looking, even offering gift vouchers that people can buy for their friends. Nobody booking a game was likely to guess that it was based inside a residential building.

You can also see the different themes of the games. There are four: one set in a nightclub, one in a mad scientist’s house, one in a recently-inherited mansion, and one set in a crime scene. All classic escape game themes.

And, right at the top, added the day after the fire, a brief statement: “In connection with the tragedy that took place in our escape room, we join in pain and mourning with the families of the victims of the fire...”

Play some original escape room games

In this video I give a brief history of escape room games, and mention that they began as text-based adventure games, and then later as popular Flash games. Flash is, of course, no longer supported, but a few of the most popular online escape games have been converted to work in most modern browsers.

Here’s Crimson Room – one of the first escape games I played online. It’s simple, but something of a classic. The puzzles are pretty straightforward, and if you get stuck… well, clicking around randomly does often help. But, considering how old it is, it’s certainly not bad.

Some slightly more up-to-date escape room games I enjoy are those made by Rusty Lake. These are often quite surreal, and have a few unsettling horror elements… but the puzzles are also excellent and they’re very fun to play. At least one or two are usually free on the Rusty Lake website.