The Escape the Room craze that has swept the globe has made its way to Warrnambool with a new business promising to unlock the secrets to a good time.
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Between them, Melissa Harwick and Kaleb Hendrix have done 30 Escape the Room adventures both here and in America.
The couple said being locked in a room with your friends, where the only means of escape is by solving a series of puzzles before the time runs out, provided a major adrenaline rush and was addictive.
Despite having escaped perhaps less than half the rooms they’ve been locked in over the past four years, the pair are hooked.
Their obsession with the games inspire Melissa’s mum Sharon McGowan and her husband Steve to open their own business in Warrnambool called Lockology.
The Lava Street business has three themed rooms – The Jewel Thief, Bomb Squad and Dr Frankenstein’s Lab.
Melissa said she and Kaleb “completely failed” the first escape room they were locked in.
Having almost escaped the room before time ran out, they then found out they weren’t even close with an extra two other rooms still to unlock as part of the one challenge.
Despite the failure, they were hooked and whenever they had the chance would travel to Melbourne to play.
“Nowadays I’d say we could make it out of most of them, but back in the day,” Kaleb said.
“We love doing escape rooms, we’ve done around 30 or so around Melbourne and America. We kept talking about them because we’re obsessed with them,” Melissa said.
Kaleb said the escape room challenge was a great bonding experience.
“Most people don’t realise how much fun you actually have when you’re in a room with a group of people that you like and you don’t have your electrical devices with you,” he said.
“My favourite thing about escape rooms is that it’s a whole immersive experience. It’s like you’re going to a whole new place.
“You get an adrenaline rush. I think a lot of people enjoy that in our Bomb Squad room when you have to beat the clock before it ‘explodes’.”
To solve the puzzles, two to six players armed with torches enter dimmed rooms to the soundtrack of mystery-themed music and are given an hour to solve a crime, defuse a bomb or unlock a mystery.
Melissa said some people are able to solve the series of puzzles and free themselves without hints, but most use the walkie talkies in the room to ask for help.
“The Jewel Thief, because it’s our beginner one, a lot of people get out of that one,” she said,
“The Bomb Squad and Frankenstein are probably on par, maybe 60 per cent success rate.”
The rooms will be changed regularly with plans under way to redo one of the rooms after the May Races to perhaps an ‘80s-themed escape challenge, and later in the year a Christmas-themed room.
If the business proves successful, they hope to move to premises with more space to upsize the experience.
“A lot of people that we’ve had through said these compare to Melbourne,” Melissa said.
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