Game Groups > Genre: Escape room

Escape The Room or Room Escape games are a subgenre of adventure games where the object of the game is to find a way out of a single room or location. The difference with traditional adventure games is that there is little to no story, no characters or dialogs, there's more emphasis on logic puzzles and in general the games are shorter. Most games are browser based created with Adobe Flash and use point-and-click gameplay with a first-person perspective. The player must find hidden items and clues, and combine them to find or unlock the exit.

The genre was popularized by the 2001 game Mystery of Time and Space and 2004's Crimson Room. The genre has proven very prolific, due to relatively short development times and a low threshold for releasing games through web portals. Hundreds of games have been released, in particular on Japanese websites. Some developers release their games episodically, for example The Happy Escape 1 through 12 and Christmas Escape 1 through 5.

From browser games to the real world, Escape Rooms have become a global phenomenon in the 2010s. Starting in Japan in 2006, real life Escape Rooms have been opened all over the world, offering family entertainment and corporate team building exercises. Just like in the browser games, participants must work together to find clues and items in order to escape the room, usually with time limit of 60 minutes.