If you're looking for a review, it's short: it is a travesty that Escape The Room's The Office is still open to the public. No one should be paying to play this tired relic. Our crew decided to revisit the very first escape room that I ever played, … Read on blog or Reader Room Escape Artist Read on blog or Reader Escape The Room's The Office… 10 Years Later… A Personal Journey David Spira March 28 If you're looking for a review, it's short: it is a travesty that Escape The Room's The Office is still open to the public. No one should be paying to play this tired relic. Our crew decided to revisit the very first escape room that I ever played, The Office, 10 years later... for research and comedy. 10 Years Ago, My Life Changed Back in late 2013, I purchased a dirt cheap Groupon travel voucher to visit Budapest and Prague with an old friend. When I was looking at TripAdvisor for things to do in Budapest, the top-rated "thing to do" was something called Claustrophilia. When I looked into it, I learned about the existence of escape rooms. I knew essentially nothing about escape rooms, but I was immediately enchanted by the idea. The next morning I woke up thinking about how my trip to Europe wasn't for 3 months... but I really wanted to play an escape room. This is when I had my entitled New Yorker moment, I thought: "If one of these escape rooms exists in Budapest, surely there must be one in New York City." As it happens, Escape The Room had just opened the first escape room in the United States outside of San Francisco: The Office. The Name "The Office" Was Literal Ten years ago when my team entered The Office, it was setup in someone's actual office. They had to set the game up and take it down every evening. I brought an assortment of friends. Some of them knew each other, some didn't... and I didn't tell them what we were doing until we got into the elevator to go to the game. All that I told them was that we were going to do something that: "It will cost $28 per person, take 1-2 hours, and that I was pretty sure it would be safe... and pretty sure it would be fun." Our game was run by Escape The Room founder Victor Blake, and a woman named Rita Orlov who was in training to become Escape The Room's first gamemaster. Rita would go on to found PostCurious and completely redefine the tabletop escape room experience with her catalog of masterful puzzle games. Time is weird, and it keeps getting weirder. Falling in Love Twice A few minutes into The Office, I fell in love with the idea of escape rooms. I saw the potential for a medium amongst the jank of The Office. A few days after playing The Office, I met Lisa in a bar after a snowstorm, and amongst other things, we talked about this escape room thing that I had just done. She wanted to play one, and I asked for her number. A few months later, I went to Europe and played some games that blew away The Office in terms of concept and execution. I came back from that trip feeling like I had visited the future and returned home with knowledge that no one else had. Early 2014 completely changed the trajectory of my life. Revisiting The Office As my 10 year escapeiversary approached, I started wondering if any of those early games were still open. Honestly, I was hoping that all of them had been retired, but I didn't have to search long because the literal first game on my list was open, and local. So I had the absolutely terrible idea to convince some friends to spend $41 per ticket to go play the oldest operating escape room in the United States. This time I promised everyone that: "This was a terrible idea, we were going to waste our money, but hopefully the experience would be funny... and it will be nice to see you." Together we set off like some dumbass fellowship to throw $451 into the volcano that is Victor Blake's bank account. The Office in 2024 I used to hold Escape The Room in high regard... but that died a slow death long ago. Nevertheless, I had some hope that maybe Escape The Room had something resembling respect for their customers. They must have made a few upgrades to The Office. Oh boy was that a bad assumption. To the best of my memory, The Office was a carbon copy of the original. I say carbon copy, because it was a degraded copy, without some of the details that added charm. In place of that charm, Escape The Room had thrown in some memorabilia from the TV show, The Office. Is it licensed? Probably not. But the biggest question that I was dying to answer was, "Did they change the final puzzle?" I wanted to know this because the final puzzle of The Office had infamously been essentially the same puzzle as SCRAP's Escape From The Mysterious Room's penultimate puzzle. Escape From The Mysterious Room was the first escape room in North America. The Office was the second or third game, and I can tell you that folks from SCRAP have long been salty about the alleged plagiarism. Now, here at Room Escape Artist, we don't like to spoil escape room puzzles for active games out of respect to the creators. So I won't spoil any puzzles from The Office, but I will tell you that the second to last puzzle in SCRAP's long closed, Escape From The Mysterious Room involved looking up the year of the Battle of Waterloo in a reference book, and putting that into a number lock: 1815. I wore the same shirt from 10 years ago. Both of us have noticeably aged. Anyway, we annihilated The Office with a speed that alarmed and confused our gamemaster. Any two of us could have blazed through this sad, old, mess of a game. It was a massive waste of money. Which Brings Me To... I'm not one to count pennies in escape rooms, but I suspect that with some careful thrifting, I could rebuild The Office for less than the $451 that we spent to go replay it. I'm not going to do this because the game is shit. And we like to spend the money that we make on worthy projects. With that in mind, thank you to our incredible and growing list of Patreon supporters. It costs a lot of money to run operations at Room Escape Artist, and we are deeply thankful to everyone who believes in us enough to help fund us. In case you were wondering, each person in that photo spent their own $41 to play this game in 2024. Your money did not fund this experience. Special shout out to those who joined this month: andie auna, steve stribling, Michael Song, Piyush from SEO ORB, Aidiel Afify, molly z, Megan Reichard, Priscilla Chen, branden sayarath, Amy J, Nekeisha Johnson Abi · Kwest Club Adam M Adrian Belzebut Aidiel Afify Alex Rosenthal Alexander Gierholz Alisha Patterson Alyssa Diaz Amy J Amy Koo andie auna Andras Gal Andrew Reynolds Andrew Sturridge Anna Lysova Anna Simon Anne Lukeman Anonymous Austin Reed Barrett Cervenka Barry Joseph Ben Enos Ben Rosner Bert Bill Chang Black Crow Productions Blake Hodges-Koch - Wild Heart Ranch Bogdan Dascalescu branden sayarath Breakout Games Brent Mair Brett and Kelly Johnson Brett Kuehner Brian Resler Bronna Butler Byron Delmonico C.J. Smith Cara Mandel Carol King Catie Catterwaul Chris Eberle chris gileta Chris M. Dickson Chris Post Chris Waters Chris White Cruise Monkey Curt Clark Daniel Egnor Daniel Kolb Daniel Riordan Darren Miller Darryl Anka David Longley Dawnward deadpan1113 Derek Tam Devin Sanders Dino Paulo Drew Nelson Elaine Eliviascape (Pat Toupin) Elizabeth Griffin Encrypted Escape Escaparium Eva Anderson Evan Broder Expedition Escape Farand Pawlak flo tha Fro Geneva Kaplan-Smith Grant Luecke Greg Marinelli Guy Ellis Haley & Cameron Cooper Hannah Landry Imagination Junkie Immersia Jacob Jacob Sager Weinstein James Shearer Jan-Luc Van Damme Janelle Gallagher Jared Butler Jason Adair Jeff Harper Jeff Keys Jen Merrill Jess and Troy Seidl Jessica Schoolman Jill Parisher Jim Williams John Wardrope Jon Kaufthal Jonathan Berk Joseph Friesen Joseph Messteri Joseph Stamps Joshua Rosenfeld Julie Buchheit Julie Burge Justin Nevins Karin Kathryn Katrina Lat Kelly Ken Zinn Kevin Burns Kevin Hammonds Kevin McKain Keystone Escape Games ( Mark ) Kristine Horn Kurt Leinbach Kyle P Curlett L Laura Burkart Laura E. 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Sean Molley M&C Saiewitz Marc P Marise Mark Denine Matt Beverly Matt Keyser Matthew Stein Megan Reichard Melanie Rice Michael Andersen Michael Song Michelle Rundbaken Mihir Kedia Mike Ringrose molly z Mrs Threepwood Nadina Espinosa Natalie Currie Nate Javier Nathan Walton Nathaniel Segal Neda Delavarpour Negina Kolesar Neil Patrick Harris Nekeisha Johnson Nick Moran Nico Cesar No Proscenium Omer Aru PanIQ Room Paul Tashima-Boyd Paula Swann Philip Ho Piyush from SEO ORB PJ Mann Priscilla Chen Puzzling Company Rachel Dunphy Rebecca Horste Rene Sorette Rex Miller Rich Bragg Richard Burns Richard Chiou Richard Malena Rita Orlov Rob Tsuk Ruud Kool Ryan Brady Ryan Hart Ryan Lee Samantha Koehler Sarah Zhang Scott Chua Scott Levy Scott Olson Sendil Krishnan Simon Edwards Steffanie Stephen Kowalski Steve Gaddy steve stribling Steven Rawlings Steven Valdez Stuart Bogaty Tahlia Kirk Tammy McLeod Team Bluefish The Ministry of Peculiarities The Wild Optimists Theresa Piazza Tiffany Schaefer Todd Todd Geldon Todd McClary Tommy Twisted Limits Escape Rooms Victor van Doorn Victoria Cassetta Vivien Ripoll Wil Blount Will Rutherford Yvonne McDuffee Zac Mackrell Zach Bradham To those of you reading who have the means, we hope you'll consider joining this wonderful group of supporters. 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