On a Friday night, a handful of language teachers decided to go to an escape room. You have never heard about that? An escape room is an adventure game in which players are locked in a room to solve a series of puzzles and escape within a set time limit. This is said to improve team working and communication skills. We wanted to try it!
Our escape room “Twisted Rooms” was situated near the harbour in front of the historical warehouse complex “Speicherstadt “.
During 60 minutes, we were not language teachers anymore, our challenge was not to explain German grammar to our students and to make language learning fun and effective. Our mission was even more ambitious: We were FBI agents in the early 80s and had to save the life of the President of the United States of America! A journalist had disappeared because he knew too much about a conspiracy…. We were locked in the journalist’s office and had 60 minutes to uncover clues leading to the prevention of the president’s murder.
Even though the story seemed really far-fetched to us, the journalist’s office was designed with great attention to the detail: with contemporary furniture, old computers, Morse apparatuses, photos, radios, books and, of course, a big clock on the wall counting the minutes left to complete our mission and reminding us that time was running. At the beginning, the situation seemed strange to us. How could we start? What information is important to share? What is our role in this team?
Quickly, we experienced that every detail could be crucial, that a lot of small pieces were necessary to complete the puzzle. We understood that we needed to communicate and to collaborate to escape this room. So, we started exploring the room and sharing our discoveries. Quickly, we were completely absorbed by the game against the clock and our initial doubts had vanished into thin air.
55 minutes and eight seconds later, our mission was completed. The riddle was solved and the president safe!
It was a great evening that will definitely stick in our minds. The experience of working in a group and discovering new things is exciting, fun and really brings a team together. Isn’t that a good idea for your next company party?