Transitioning Escape Rooms to a Virtual Environment

Abstract

Escape room

games have gained in popularity in both entertainment and education venues over the past several year. The global health pandemic put an abrupt end to in-person escape room programs due to the enclosed space in which they take place. In an attempt to continue to utilize the escape room concept we set about to create a

virtual escape room

using commonly available software and assessed its usability and participant feelings about the experience. The results indicated that the participants thought the escape room was engaging (88%), that they had to work as a team (95%), and that they overall enjoyed the experience (85%). Virtual experiences cannot completely replace in-person experiences, but there are ways to introduce important teamwork and communication concepts to participants and make online meetings and conferences more engaging.