This Is Why Escape Rooms Make Fun Virtual Events for Work

Work events are hard enough to get right in person. Hosting them on a remote landscape can prove even more difficult. However, one great way to make your virtual work events more fun is to set up a virtual escape room. These events are not only great fun, but are also fantastic exercises that build teamwork and critical thinking skills. 

At Puzzle Break, we embrace the challenge of trying to form meaningful moments online. Let’s start by talking about the new landscape of social events and how our company is adapting to the new remote workplace environment. 

Social Events Go Online 

Throughout the past couple of years, we’ve all faced unprecedented challenges and had to make changes to the way we live and work. One of the main changes wrought by the COVID-19 pandemic has been the nature of social interaction. With social venues closed down, many of us have felt isolated and lonely — to the detriment of our well-being, productivity, and job satisfaction. And while Zoom happy hours and Houseparty games have helped us stay connected, they’re not quite the same as having a good time in person. 

We all want to stay connected, but is the ‘fun’ part possible in a work setting? Yes! There are plenty of ways to make your next virtual work event even more enjoyable. One way is by setting up a virtual escape room. An escape room is a physical adventure game in which players are locked in a room and have to use elements in the room to solve a series of puzzles and escape within a set time limit.

 Recent technological advancements have led to the creation of virtual escape rooms. With so many people now working remotely, virtual escape rooms have become a popular way to host social events online and integrate with regular virtual office activities. These rooms can be customized to fit any theme or setting and be played by people all over the world. 

Some of the most popular virtual escape room themes include:

● Murder mysteries 

● Treasure hunts 

● Heist enactments 

● Fantasy adventures

Each of these themes can be tailored to be as easy or difficult as you want. And with a variety of puzzles and challenges, there’s something for everyone. They’re perfect team-building exercises that help you connect with your coworkers in an engaging way. 

Remote Work Has Made it Harder to Connect 

Working together as a team can be trying, especially if you’re doing so remotely. There are a lot of things that get lost in translation when working from home. It’s harder to build rapport with people when you’re not seeing them face-to-face on a regular basis. Thus, more and more teams are using virtual experiences to bring teams together.

Kahoot!, which is a favorite in schools, is a short but sweet way to learn new things and establish friendly competition among peers. Other online options include puzzles, camera games like Jeopardy and trivia night, artistic games like Pictionary, or teamwork games like Codenames. But if you want to take things one step further, consider virtual escape rooms.

Virtual Escape Rooms Bring People Together 

Virtual escape rooms don’t differ too much from their in-person counterparts. Visual and auditory elements in a properly made virtual escape room provide a very realistic and engaging experience. Take, for example, our Hackfiltration activity, a virtual escape room in which you and your team are tasked with infiltrating a coded system to fight a nefarious power while on a cyber adventure from a forgotten era. 

From the initial introduction to the completion of the game, the entire event will take about an hour. You and your team will engage with each other, think critically, explore, solve puzzles, and much more. No matter the size of the participation group or company, we deliver a fantastic virtual event that you’ll be talking about for months.

A New Way to Celebrate 

Virtual escape rooms are an exciting activity for birthdays, team bonding exercises, and virtual social events. If the person celebrating their birthday is doing so with their team, why not have them choose their favorite story from our wide selection? Plus, we’d argue that escaping from a forbidden forest, breaking a witch’s curse, finding a missing spy, or hunting down a priceless artifact are second-to-none team-bonding exercises. 

Virtual escape rooms are fantastic main attractions for virtual social events. They can be used as an icebreaker for people who haven’t met before or as a bonding exercise for friends and/or colleagues. No matter the purpose, they’re a unique way to get people working together and thinking outside the box.

Conclusion 

It’s never been easier to schedule an escape room as your next virtual work event. At Puzzle Break, we have features like pre-event demos and setups, as well as flexible times, stylized leaderboards, and group discounts. Reach out to our friendly team to organize the best possible experience for your group! What are you waiting for? Give an escape room a try for your next virtual team building event. For more information about in-person escape rooms in the Seattle area or hybrid escape rooms that can be brought to your venue of choice, visit our website.

Nate Martin

Dubbed the "Founding Father of Escape Rooms," Nate Martin is the Co-Founder and CEO of Puzzle Break, the first American escape room company. Puzzle Break is headquartered in Seattle with locations in Long Island, Massachusetts and on Royal Caribbean ships. Prior to Puzzle Break, he was a senior executive at Microsoft and Electronic Arts. He has shipped software used by billions of users as well as some of the most beloved video games of a generation. @GuyFromTomorrow on Twitter.

More posts by Nate Martin