What if you only had 60 minutes to _escape from this podcast_? To unravel the puzzles of _Crimson Room_ or the (surprisingly) lucrative business of locking people in a room? Well, you'd probably fail (but so would we). Listen in as we talk about fans of an even more puzzling experience: Escape Rooms!
Next week, we wrap up the season with a Nickscast favourite (and a special guest) as we talk about fans... of the _Legend of Zelda_ series!
## Episode outline
### Fandom Facts
**Origins and history:**
Escape rooms, also known as _room escape_, _escape games_, _escape the room_, and so on, are physical adventure games where participants are required to solve a variety of puzzles using riddles, clues, and hints contained in the room within a fixed time limit. Sometimes, the rooms are thematically linked (e.g. a museum heist) or they can be a series of abstract puzzles with no linking theme.
The concept of an escape room is heavily inspired by the similarly named video game genre where players are required to escape a room by pointing and clicking around a room to exploit their surroundings. The earliest example of this style of game is likely the 1988 text adventure, _Behind Closed Doors_, where the player has to escape a restroom, but some better known examples might include _MOTAS_ (Mystery Of Time And Space, 2001), _Crimson Room_ (2004), and _Viridian Room_.
Arguably... fans of escape rooms are fans of this genre of video games, but that remains to be seen!
The first escape room was created in Japan by SCRAP in 2007 and the concept later spread to other parts of Asia, then Europe... then, the world! There are now almost 2000 escape rooms in the United States _alone_.
**Most Active:**
The concept of an escape room didn't really start to solidify until _Crimson Room_ was released as Adobe Flash freeware... which conveniently was released in 2004 (the first year where Google Trends data is available).
Examining that data, it is clear that the fandom is [the most active it has ever been](https://trends.google.com/trends/explore?date=all&q=Escape%20Room). While there was some spike in interest in the term around 2007, it has been on a meteoric rise ever since approximately 2015.
**Size of Fandom:**
Since escape rooms are more business-oriented, it's a bit harder to dig into the size of the fandom. Still, we have a few metrics we can use as rough estimators:
- The `escaperooms` subreddit has almost 2000 subscribers
- There are almost 2000 escape room companies in the US
- If the average group size is 4, and each room has at least one group a week, that would be about 416 000 fans (this is likely a grossly conservative estimate)
Complicating matters is that participation does not imply fandom.
[// Most in one city: 182 (Beijing, China); top non-asian city, Budapest (63). Top Canadian: Markam (36), Top US: LA (23)]: #
**Fan Demographics:**
From a variety of different surveys, we can get a rough idea of the kinds of folks who participate in escape rooms. We managed to find three surveys: Escape [Room Demographic Survey](https://escaperoomplayer.com/Escape_Room_Demographics.html) (~600 respondents), [Peeking Behind the Locked Door: A Survey of Escape Room Facilities](http://scottnicholson.com/pubs/erfacwhite.pdf) (~175 respondents), and [2017 Escape Room Enthusiast Survey](https://thecodex.ca/wp-content/uploads/2017/09/2017EscapeRoomEnthusiastSurveyV1.1.pdf) (~250 respondents).
Broadly speaking, these appear to be the demographics:
- **Gender:** Roughly equal representation of male / female genders
- **Age:** Largest category is folks between ages of 26-30. The majority of respondents are under 35 (approximately two-thirds; more or less consistent between surveys)
- Most groups who participate are mixed gender (70-80%)
- Largest group (48%) identify as ambiverts; 36% as extraverts, and 20% as introverts
[// most escape rooms only have one location ]: #
[// TOO MUCH FUCKING DATA; I COULD PORE OVER THIS SHIT...
