Egressors - those who escape

Charlene and I have really gotten into escape rooms lately.  I mean, really gotten into them.  We did our first room in September of 2016, and since then we've been playing as many as we can.  So far we've done about 26 rooms in 5 states and 3 countries.  If you haven't tried them yet, I just can't recommend them enough.

We started a spreadsheet to track which rooms we've visited, and it wasn't long before I thought there ought to be a website for that.  I've seen at least one (escapetalk.nl), but it's mostly in Dutch and doesn't cover our area.  After a while I decided this was something I could do.  So after a few months of on-and-off coding while the kids were asleep, I'm finally ready to launch:

EGRESSORS.COM

Egressors Logo

Egressors is a directory of escape rooms in the New England area, and a place where you can sign in and track your own escapes.  We're starting simple and planning to build up features over time.  For instance, right now you can track your escapes but you can't see anyone else's.

Fancy graphics.

One of the first updates I plan for the site will be to see how many users have logged plays at each room, and see the escape rates.  I'm holding back on reviews and comments and other judgement-y features at first, because I don't want the site to impact any of the venues in a negative way.

Another early update I hope to include will be a tailored news system - so that users can sign up to hear about new rooms and events, but specifically ones in their area or for rooms they are "watching".  Some rooms have their own mailing lists, but you have to sign up to those one at a time.  There are mailing lists out there for general escape room info, but they don't have any way to filter to local information.

The other escape-room-related project we're working on is a "passport" for rooms in the North Shore area.  There's a great concentration of rooms along I-95 north of Boston, and if other "egressors" are like me, then once you're hooked you want to escape them all.  This passport provides a physical way to track where you've gone, and a goal greater than just one room.

Not valid for travel to foreign countries.

Plus, and of course, there's a puzzle on it.  To solve the puzzle you need to visit enough of the rooms (not necessarily all of them).  Each room will write something different that will get you one step closer to the solution.  Nine venues in the North Shore area have signed up to distribute the passport, all fine places to get out of:

• 8D Room Escape and Board Games
• Amaze Escape
• Breakout
• Escape This Live
• Escapology
• Key Quest at Laser Quest
• North Shore Escape
• Time Warp
• Wicked Escapes

At some point I might add a feature to egressors.com where you can enter the solution to the passport and thus get some internet points.  If the passport goes well I could see expanding it to other areas.

So if you're in New England and like escape rooms, check out the site and consider signing up for an account.  And if you're near the North Shore then keep an eye out for the passport.