Huge Puzzle Break Expansion in Seattle

January 2017 is a really exciting time for Puzzle Break.

Last year, we signed a lease on a massive space for an industry-changing expansion that will take the worlds of immersive live-action entertainment, escape rooms, and team building all by storm. Tipping the scales at over 6000 square feet, our new facility in the Belltown neighborhood of Seattle will be one of the largest escape room facilities in the world. And we are just a few short weeks away from opening our doors.

Eventually, our new headquarters will be home to 6+ escape room & team games. The first game to debut will be Puzzle Break: The Eventide Departure and I’m really excited about it for a few reasons I’d like to share with you today.

First, we partnered with some of the top fabrication, build, prop, sound, and light companies in the world to create a truly blockbuster experience. The budget for the Eventide Departure was off the charts. Featuring an unprecedented level of technology, players will experience Hollywood & Disney level of polish and immersion as they are thrust into the mysterious world of the dearly departed Professor Firestone.

Second, we built two copies of the experience. Teams of friends, family, and co-workers will be able to split up into multiple groups and race against each other to unravel the mystery and escape. This is a purely optional feature.

Third, the copies’ digital systems are connected! When you are dueling another team, your progress on puzzles will be shown to the other team. When you slam dunk that puzzle, the other team will know about it in real time! This is a truly revolutionary system and we are thrilled to bring some crazy duels to our players.

Fourth, we’ve turned the dial up to 11 on the story. In addition to our world-class puzzles and mental challenges, players will take center stage as the main characters as they unravel the exciting narrative in real-time. Not only that, each and every Puzzle Break game now takes place in the same universe. As our players experience each story, they will be living a chapter in a massive connected narrative that will be told over the course of years! Additionally, rooms will contain hidden easter egg references to other Puzzle Break experiences in the master story.

Fifth, The Eventide Departure will be Puzzle Break’s first small-to-medium group escape experience. The room itself is plenty large (with many hidden surprises), but the content is explicitly designed for groups of 2-5 players (up to 10 when dueling). This game will be an intimate experience for everyone involved.

Sixth, The Eventide Departure will be Puzzle Break’s first privately ticketed experience. Our older and current games are publicly ticketed. In order to be accessible to groups of all shapes and sizes for those, we’ve sold tickets individually to our large games. Due to the smaller group size of the Eventide Departure, the game will be purchased by the room. A single person/group will buy a timeslot in a single transaction and can bring anywhere from 2-5 players.

And to top it all off, this is just the first game going in our new location! Multiple new Puzzle Break experiences for our new headquarters are in development and we’ll be sharing info on those before you know it! Important final bits:

1.       Puzzle Break on Capitol Hill isn’t going anywhere. If you haven’t already experienced the depths of Escape from 20,000 Leagues or the magic of Escape the Midnight Carnival, you and your team can still do so any time.

2.       Tickets for The Eventide Departure should be going on sale later in January 2017. We will be formally announcing dates on our Website, our Twitter, and our Facebook. Stay tuned and get pumped!

-Nate

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.

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