Escape the room

Escape the room, also known as room escape or escape game, is a subgenre of point-and-click adventure game which requires a player to escape from imprisonment by exploiting their surroundings. They are usually created as a freeware browser game for the Adobe Flash platform, but similar game mechanics have been identified in PC and console games such as Myst and 999: Nine Hours, Nine Persons, Nine Doors. Some examples include "Crimson Room", "Viridian Room", "MOTAS", and "Droom". The room usually consists of a locked door, objects to manipulate, and hidden clues or secret compartments. The player must use the objects to interact with other items in the room to reveal a way to escape.

The popularity of these online games has led to the development of real-life escape rooms all around the world.

The basic gameplay mechanism of having the player trapped in a single location dates back at least to John Wilson's 1988 text adventure Behind Closed Doors, in which the player is trapped inside a restroom. The term originated in 2001 from the MOTAS game, though there are many older examples of the point-and-click variation, such as Noctropolis, and even earlier examples from the text adventure canon. The genre was further popularized in 2004 by the Japanese "Crimson Room" game by Toshimitsu Takagi, which has spread throughout the internet and can be seen on many gaming websites.

While a single-location game may not be set inside a room, and while the player's goal may not necessarily be escape, in 2002 the interactive fiction community first hosted a One Room Game Competition (attracting six entries, all in Italian), and in 2006 Riff Conner wrote Another Goddamn Escape the Locked Room Game, indicating that the genre is well known in the contemporary interactive fiction hobbyist community.

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