Have you tried to escape from prison? I hope not but recently I went to an escape room in DC. This escape room was called “Prison Break” and it was the hardest out of all. Since I had never been to an escape room before, I didn’t know what to expect. This is what happened.
Our group was me, my dad, and my 2 friends. Since it was a team escape room, we were separated into 2 rooms. The first items we saw were a mirror, a chart on the wall, a toilet, and 3 locks each leading to something. The first thing we did was exchange findings. They said they had 3 locks and so did we. After this, we looked for secrets and clues. My friend and I found a secret hatch that opened the mirror. There, we found a bar of soap and a flashlight. Since we knew the other side needed a code, I told them to try “s-o-a-p” so they could open a box. It didn’t work. The room also had a coat with a number on it which made me think, what if the other side had one too and we can create a 4-digit number? That was exactly what it was. When putting the code in, it opened a box. Inside was a pawn and a card. I couldn’t make any connections to this so we moved on. The next thing we found was socks. We didn’t see anything related to socks so we were stumped. Without asking, our guide gave us a hint. She told us to look at the charts on each other’s walls and discuss them. This also gave us a 4-digit code that we shared with the other room. Then we found something interesting. We found a laundry basket that said “dirty socks” on it. Since we had 3 socks we took a chance and threw the dirty socks into the basket. It unlocked a key to open their cell. Since we could use the same key, we got out but there was still a lock unopened. We couldn’t figure it out until we got another hint. The hint was, “Have you tried to break the soap?”. This made me slap my forehead because I should have thought of that earlier. Opening the lock, we got a notebook. We were out of our cells but there was nothing in the second room. All we saw was a telephone that had a keypad on it. We didn’t know what to do so we decided to read the notebook. On it, it said something about tubes. We knew that there was a tube that led out of each cell so we studied it. There were caps screwed on the front of the tubes so we took them off. There was nothing in them. We didn’t know what to do until my dad looked through the tube and it showed numbers. After putting the numbers in, the door opened. Heading into the second room, we only had 30 minutes left.
The second room went better than the first. When we went in, it was a room with 4 locks, 2 tubes, and a lot of switches. There were lights in the right corner. The first thing that caught my eye was the switches. Since there were tic-tac-toe games played by others in the 2 cells, I knew it had something to do with the switches. Since some of the switches were missing and in the middle, it said O=Left and X=Right it had to be the tic-tac-toe. After putting the 2 sections of the switches in, there were still 2 left. We searched around for the next 2 tic-tac-toes. We found one inside a tube. Now we only had 1 left. My friend was playing with the switches and clicked, it was correct. My friend had guessed the answer. Now the lights changed. Since there was a box that needed a 3-digit code, we expected it to be that. There were color-coded signs on the walls with numbers on them so we got the box open easily. Now we could get through a big tube to the next room.
In the third room, we only had 10 minutes remaining so we had to go quickly. In the room, we saw a bookshelf, a chess board, a puzzle, and equipment encased in glass. This wasn’t very helpful until my friend found out that you could take some books out. After taking all the books, we saw a map through the empty spaces. We didn’t make anything out of it until another hint popped up. It said, “Look at the middle row from a step back”. After doing this we found out that in the middle row’s empty spaces, it showed 1717. We put that into the lock and it opened a drawer. With 5 minutes left on the clock, we found 2 puzzle pieces and a message. In the message, it told us to look for N. Hospital and S. Office. This made no sense to me and with 3 minutes on the clock, I decided to work on the puzzle while the others figured it out. I did the most possible but it was still missing pieces. Within 1 minute the hints started coming. It told us that the N. and S. meant North and South. This still made no sense to us and the timer went off. We didn’t escape from prison.
After our guide told us the answers to the rest of the room, I wanted to smack myself in the face when she said something obvious, especially the N. Hospital and S. Office. I know you want me to tell you the answers to the rest of the room but that is something for you to figure out yourself. I would highly recommend going to this escape room and if you think this might be too advanced for you, they have different difficulties each with a different goal to achieve. Attempting to escape from prison was an exhilarating but fun experience and to this day I am still mad at myself for not figuring it out.
