Escape Rooms for Two Players
I believe many of you, like myself, often receive calls from clients who want to play an escape room game as a duo. However, as escape room owners, it's not in our best interest to let two people play. Firstly, most escape rooms are designed for larger groups, making it challenging for a pair to complete them. Secondly, it's simply not profitable to sell a prime-time slot to a team of two when an eight-player team could have occupied that same time slot.
Despite this, the demand for two-player games doesn't seem to decrease, and I genuinely dislike turning clients away. At the same time, I don't like it when clients can't complete a quest as a duo simply because I created it as a 3+ player game. That's why, in 2021, I decided to open not one, but two quests designed for two players or three if you're with a child. In short: the perfect escape rooms for dates.
We had two small 13x13 rooms available at our two locations, which were perfect for this purpose. I've always admired the game "The Room" (iOS, Android, PS, Xbox, PC), where the gameplay revolves around a high-tech puzzle box. This concept became the foundation for both escape rooms. In other words, the main goal in both quests is to solve and open the puzzle box, but to do so, you need to solve riddles not only in the puzzle box itself but also in the room surrounding it. Many of the puzzles I created require interaction between players, but I also made sure to include individual challenges so that each person could impress their partner.
It was crucial to obtain the puzzle box itself. Initially, I planned to place a custom order with Indestroom, but they specialize in larger rooms, and I wasn't impressed with their mobile solutions, which would have served as the basis for my project. That's when I discovered Produced, a company specializing in puzzle boxes. I ordered two puzzle boxes from them, one in a pirate theme and another in a magical style. These became the basis for the Cursed and Wizards Chest quests.
I must note that Produced's puzzle chests are some of the most obscure and coolest on the market. Each chest is filled with 10+ high-tech puzzles and can operate on battery power or via an outlet.
Of course, after receiving the puzzle boxes (within six months), we made numerous modifications. We created an entirely new voiceover, storyline, and effects. After one and a half years of work, we also modified the chests themselves, strengthening their construction and addressing dozens of various issues caused by our clients being less careful than the chest creators had anticipated.
Now, let's talk about finances. In short, both quests paid for themselves within two months. They generate exactly 50% of the revenue that larger quests do, while maintaining the same occupancy rate as the bigger rooms. On average, this amounts to about $6,000 per month. Most importantly, these quests serve as excellent advertisements for my other escape rooms. After players have tried our two-player quest, they ALWAYS return to our other quests with friends. That's the key takeaway. These two-player quests have become an introduction to my Conundroom escape rooms for many and continue to be so.
Alex