On March 21st, I joined 1,600 other people at Weingart Stadium in Los Angeles to take on an Attack on Titan themed Real Escape Game titled Escape from the Walled City!
When I first saw news reports of an Attack on Titan themed escape game that was running in Japan, my first thought was, "Wow, it would be cool if that ever came to the States." A couple months later, my wish was granted with the announcement that Escape From the Walled City would be going on tour in the US, and that the one closest to me (in LA) would happen on the one weekend that my insane school schedule wouldn't require all of my attention. I took this as a sign, and preordered my tickets as soon as I could!
The basic premise of the game is that everyone who shows up for the game are the new recruits of the Survey Corps. However, in the middle of the induction ceremony, Titans begin to attack. They will reach the Walled City (the stadium where the game takes place) in one hour. During that time, the game players, either in groups or by themselves, have to figure out the various puzzles to gather their gear, escape the city, and save the day!
Outside the stadium were life-sized cutouts of all the characters (that kept getting knocked down by the breeze, haha). I couldn't get a good shot of all of them since a lot of people were taking selfies with their favorite characters (myself included), but I personally got a kick out of seeing the height differences side by side.
I went to the 2:30 game, and I overheard staff stating that around 600 people showed up for that game alone. I'd picked that game in order to give myself plenty of time to account for traffic to make it out there, but I hadn't considered the heat. There was plenty of shade outside the stadium, which was okay, but once they put us all inside, a lot of the time was spent in direct sunlight. It got really hot after a while, especially after running around to collect clues.
It's hard to talk about the game itself, since the organizers have asked for participants to not post any spoilers to social media because it would ruin the experience for future events. A lot of the experience is wrapped up in the clues and how the game worked, so unfortunately I have to speak in vague terms. That's also the reason why I don't have a large amount of pictures in this post, since the majority of the photos that I took had game clues in them. The puzzles ranged from fairy easy to Myst-level hard. At one point I became convinced that if I just stared at the clues long enough, I could figure out the solution. Of course, that didn't work.
In the end, the real key to solving the puzzles was teamwork. While I imagine that there is someone out there who could solve all of these puzzles on their own, given the time limit it's much better to be able to bounce your ideas off of multiple people or build off of what others have already discovered. If you're planning on trying this out on your own, I highly recommend that you reconsider. Bring some friends, or ask to join a group when you make it to the game. The people at the LA event were very friendly, and it was a lot more fun figuring out the answers in a group. Plus, we made it!
Overall, I had a great time. If I had the chance to do this again I would probably pick an earlier time due to the heat, but I don't have any complaints about the game itself and had a lot of fun! The game is possible to solve without any prior knowledge of Attack on Titan (ample hints are given within the game for the series-specific parts), but I would mainly recommend this to fans, since being familiar with the series adds a lot to the experience (for instance, Erwin's speech about loyalty prior to the game starting is downright hilarious if you've read past a certain point in the manga).
Cosplay in America put together an excellent video that showcases what the game was like (spoiler free, of course):
If you'd like to try out the game for yourself, their last stop will be in New York City on April 11th! You can find more information on their website: realescapegame.com/sp/.
Cool, I didn't even know this event was going on, and I live in LA! XD Where exactly in LA was it taking place? Not sure I would have been able to attend either way (since I usually have class on Saturdays this semester) but it's awesome that they organized something like this =)
ReplyDeleteIt was in Monterey Park at ELAC. So not exactly LA, but in the general area. I really lucked out on being able to attend, since I've had a lot of Saturday classes this year too!
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