by It seems sense that escape rooms are making their way into shopping malls as they reimagine themselves to keep patrons wandering for longer.
Solving puzzles and difficulties to get out of a room that just leads back to the mall is a great strategy to keep customers coming back.
Thus, the Escape Game, a brand-new attraction at the Westfield UTC in University City, tests players’ cunning and inventiveness as they try to find out how to get out of a number of themed chambers.
Jonathan Murrell, a co-founder of the Escape Game, stated, “We think we found it in University Town Center. We wanted to find a store where both locals and visitors loved visiting and hanging out.”
According to an industry assessment, the number of escape games in the United States has increased from roughly two dozen in 2014 to roughly 2,000 in 2024.
The first obstacle for the newest location at UTC might be locating the attraction within the expansive shopping center. The Escape Game has multiple themes and is situated adjacent to Foot Locker and across from Macy’s entrance. Playground; Heist and Prison Break; Timeliner: Train Through Time, Cosmic Crisis; Ruins: Forbidden Treasure.
Players have up to an hour to solve the Indiana Jones-style adventure Forbidden Treasure, which has a difficulty rating of six out of ten. A film introducing the game’s objective—locating a forgotten temple—is shown at the beginning. Players have the chance to ask for hints along the route to help them complete the different objectives.
on order to escape a cargo area, players must, among other things, locate a key to open a closed bag, use a series of numbers to open a locked box, and decipher color-coded wiring. The game begins on a downed airplane in a jungle.
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They then proceed inside the temple to look for a safe exit and hidden gems. Large dice, hanging vines, a little ball, warrior symbols, statues, and even a snake protecting a crucial clue are all part of this considerably more difficult section of the game.
(Don’t be concerned. This snake isn’t real.
Early in July, The Escape Game opened in La Jolla. A number of its 50 locations nationwide, including one in the Gaslamp, are owned by this national franchise.
