Think you can break out?

Breakout Dayton brings breakout room concept to Miami Valley


Want to go?

What: Breakout Dayton

Where: 8120 Washington Village Drive, Centerville.

Hours: Vary by room availablity. Reservations recommended.

More info: Website

OK, here’s the deal: Isaac Nichols and his team want to lock you in a room for an hour. They might want to handcuff you too, for the heck of it.

If you’re still reading, this is all in fun. People do this for entertainment. People like Maya Vyas, 16, and Lee Harmel, 82.

Vyas and five of her friends emerged Friday from one of the rooms at Breakout Dayton, where customers are locked in a themed puzzle room for up to an hour, challenged to use readily available clues — and some not so readily available — to escape or “break out.”

Don’t worry: Customers are monitored via cameras and microphones the entire time by Breakout Dayton staff. Staff — they call themselves “game masters” — encourage gamers over a speaker in the room’s ceiling, offering timely hints. If anyone needs to leave or has simply had enough, they can open the door in a heartbeat.

With that support in mind, the effect works. Just released from the room called “The Kidnapping,” Vyas, of Tipp City, testified that the room is aptly named.

“It actually feels like you’re in a little kidnapped place,” she said.

Her friends agreed. Joellen Heatherly, who accompanied Vyas and her friends, said Breakout Dayton appeared on her Facebook feed. She was intrigued.

“I clicked on it and read about it and it seemed like a good back-to-school activity before we head back to school,” the Tipp City resident said.

“It’s really marketed as a brain game,” Heatherly said. “They have to think and work together and follow clues.”

Harmel, of Centerville, has lived a full life. She says she has swum with sting rays and flown down zip lines.

But she won’t soon forget Breakout Games. Feeling a bit disoriented, she asked to leave a room early, where her son and others were playing Friday. The game master promptly complied, and Nichols quietly chatted with her.

“I liked it,” Harmel said. “For one thing, it was the strangest thing I’ve ever done.”

She laughed. “I’ve never been in handcuffs before. Handcuffed at 82. How about that?”

Nichols — who manages Breakout Dayton at 8120 Washington Village Drive — said the idea of breakout rooms dates back to Southeast Asia, spreading to Europe and now, the United States. He credited a group of entrepreneurs in Lexington, Ky. for giving the concept new life in this area. Currently, there are Breakout locations in Cincinnati, Lexington, Louisville, Knoxville, Tenn. and Birmingham, Ala.

With “The Kidnapping,” customers are blindfolded before being led into the room and being handcuffed to a bed frame. A video plays on a monitor overhead, setting the scene and giving participants enough information to start playing.

When the video is finished, they’ll hear four beats, signaling that they may remove their blindfolds.

They should notice soon enough that the door is locked.

“Then they’ll try to solve their way out of the room,” Nichols said.

There are other rooms with different themes. In one room, dubbed “The Heist,” players are challenged to recover stolen works of art by breaking into a “house” — a space they’ll soon have to escape. Another room, still in progress, will have a James Bond/casino theme.

There’s more to this than simply getting a door open. Players encounter puzzles within puzzles. Nichols didn’t want to give too much away, but there’s a step-by-step process to breaking out, he said.

“There are tons of things,” he said. “As you’re opening boxes, you’re getting more and more things put together. You put a puzzle together, that opens up another box over here.”

“It’s very challenging,” he added. “If people come in and they don’t want to be helped, they almost never break out.”

About 40 percent of participants manage to break out of most rooms, at all ages, Nichols said.

Of course, that means some 60 percent are stuck for the full hour.

“We’re not here to keep you from breaking out,” he said. “We like to think of ourselves as a Disney World vs. Hunger Games. We’re here to help you through the room.”

Alcoholic beverages are prohibited, Nichols noted. Fun is encouraged, but players are expected to spend their time in the rooms trying to escape, not partying.

“The focus here is on the game,” he said.

Rooms cost $24 for a certain number of people, according to the Breakout Dayton web site, where you can reserve a room. Nichols encourages customers to reserve online or to call first at (937) 401-8739.

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