EXIT West Broadway

Tis The Season Escape Artists!

December is here and we hope you’re all feeling the holiday cheer! It’s been a busy month for us as final exams are coming to a close for the winter break and staff parties in full swing, chaos is just around the corner!

This year we want to make sure we do our part for the community by giving back. In partnership with the VANCOUVER FOOD BANK SOCIETY, we are collecting non-perishable food items to help those in need. For every item you bring in, we will give you (1) extra hint OR (1) extra flashlight that could serve to be an advantage for your game.

Our next project, Butcher Shop 2.0 will make its debut in early 2016 as the designers have been working hard to make sure we deliver our most challenging room yet featuring a solid new storyline, puzzles, and exciting gadgets.  

On Monday December14th our boss took the entire team out for our very own and first Christmas party by doing what we all love, escape rooms! We visited our flagship store Garden City in Richmond to take on Ancient Egypt 2.0 and Prison. Then it was round two at Mr. J Escape Clue for The Lost Tomb and Vampire Hunters. And if you’re wondering… we managed to escape of course! As if we had any doubt. The event concluded with dinner and a Secret Santa gift exchange as we reminisced about the accomplishments and memories we’ve made during our first year open.

Having trouble finding that perfect gift? Now YOU can give the gift of adventure with our GIFT CERTIFICATES at $25 each (valid for all E-EXIT locations). The perfect present for players to try our location exclusive themes: Illusions: Awakening, Transylvania: Vampire Hunters, Circus, and Butcher Shop. Keep in mind, Butcher Shop will be the next room to receive a version 2.0 treatment so come play it before it changes!

In the New Year we will be accepting GROUPON offers for our location. You can buy them in pairs of: 2, 4 or 6 (valid only from (Sundays-Thursdays).  The good news is you may purchase them today but only redeemable after January 1st 2016. Check out the sweet deal online for all the details! https://www.groupon.com/deals/e-exit-vancouver-west

Even more great news, we will now have #EXITSTUDENTMONDAYS to help all you hard working students with all the exam craziness! Sharpen your brains and blow off some steam with a game at EXIT West Broadway and receive 20% OFF with valid student ID, so don’t forget to bring that along! You must book ahead of time online using the promo code: EXITSTUDENTMONDAY.

I encourage you all, especially our loyal customers who come to EXIT West Broadway to REVIEW us on FACEBOOK, YELP or share your moments on TWITTER or INSTAGRAM and use the hashtags: #exitwestbroadway #escaperoom #vancouver. 

From all of us here at EXIT West Broadway, have a safe and happy holiday with your loved ones. May 2016 bring all your wishes to life.

Love,

EXIT West Broadway

When we started brainstorming for this project, we all had different ideas as to what the room should be. One thing we knew was that we wanted to give it a solid story, similar to Transylvania 2.0 but that proved to be quite challenging as we had to try to work with what the room already had.

When we introduced a new gadget around Illusions 2.0’s launch, we tried to introduce an agent storyline but even then, it wasn't as fluid as we had hoped. It finally connected with our trailer and brochure description but it somehow felt out of place. We knew it was a long road ahead of us.

One of our original staff members, Patricia O. was the one to start with the groundwork. Then I began creating new puzzles that were fluid enough to fit whatever the theme was going to ultimately become. From there, we started piecing everything we had. Ideas for the theme bounced from left to right and overall it seemed like it was suffering an identity crisis! But then I realized that maybe the room’s greatest strength was that it was completely random and in a sense,

After many different versions of the game-play, we finally were able to finalize and proceed with cosmetic procedures for the room that spanned over three days. We ran into more obstacles than we had anticipated and the stress level remained high. 

Logistics of the game flow, puzzles, and interior design continued to change on the fly but looking back it all worked out for the best. Considering we had passed our initial deadline, we only really had one day for a draw winners for the BETA trial session. Sadly, it would have been ideal to have at least one week for promotion but regardless, we’re thankful since Transylvania 2.0 did not get that same opportunity.

Phoenix Labs and Hootsuite were among the first to play and we received praise for what ended up being a fantastic room that goes back to the core aspect of the 2D room escape game. We’re also really proud to be able to deliver a room that is appropriate for a wide demographic in regards to theme and difficulty with a huge emphasis on fun factor. We were able to achieve that by designing the puzzles to be more interactive with the room itself relying less on paper clues and going more the visual route.

The interesting to note about how we laid out the puzzles is that the first and last room is balanced with the heaviness picking up in the second room. Players who make it into the second room with about twelve minutes left on the clock players are able to catch up and escape therefore not feeling completely hopeless. Illusions have always been marketed as our easiest and most popular room and now we can really be satisfied on our end knowing what our customers can expect

Happy August! Can’t believe it’s nearly the end of the summer season. Time sure flies when you’re having fun. This is officially our first blog posting since we opened over three months ago! Since then, it’s been a rollercoaster ride trying to figure out what is needed to be done in order to keep operations running smoothly and just when we thought we had everything figured out; there always seems to a surprise right around the corner! However, we always found a solution at the end of the day.

We’ve made huge improvements overall in such little time, but of course it wouldn’t be possible without the collective efforts of the brilliant minds at EXIT West Broadway. Looking back, we’ve been given valuable feedback from our customers and that is essential to our growth as a business.

The creation of our “Checkpoint” promotion has proven to be extremely successful and a big hit. The feature allows you to play for 50% off within 2 weeks from where you ended off. That’s another 45 mins of gameplay plus two more hints giving you a higher chance of success! (small print: if booking is available; under the discretion of our staff) I can’t blame our players, escape rooms are addictive!

Transylvania is also our first room to be given a 2.0 version update. The wallpaper was aged and a fresh paint job made the room much darker than it initially was. The gameplay was drastically changed to tie in with a storyline revolving around “The Gem of Elias”. All our ideas came to life the way we envisioned it with Sarah spearheading the project. Our most popular room Illusions will be our next project to get revamped. Stay tuned!

Among the key highlights include Continuum actor Richard Harmon being one of our most enthusiastic and loyal returning players. Circus, our second hardest theme, has been the “most-escaped” theme yet!. Last week, our boss closed shop on BC Day to take the team out for our first official team-building event. Afterwards, we had a team-meeting where we discussed future plans to make sure our escape artists can have the best experience when they visit us. After some brainstorming, we were rewarded with games at EXIT BECKWITH and TIXE in Richmond.

Well… that’s all for now folks! Please enjoy the rest of your summer and we hope to see you all again soon!

Congratulations to Sheena (@s_town) & Sara (@smcKennaSC) for winning $250 worth of game play at EXIT CANADA!

CHECK out our new CHECKPOINT system! Load & save, then resume your game from the same point for just half price!