“You can only go bowling or to the movies so much,” Mr. Aschoff said. “This is something different, and it’s fun and you can use your brain.”

Image Locks and puzzle pieces used at Trap Door, an escape room in Red Bank, N.J. Credit... Bryan Anselm for The New York Times

Escape rooms are substantially more complicated than, say, scavenger hunts. Before a group enters a room — which can be a single room or multiple rooms that players gain entry to through “Scooby Doo”-type maneuvers like pushing a trick bookshelf — an employee, or “game master,” debriefs them on a mystery they must solve to get themselves out.

For example, hours before arriving at Trap Door Escape Room, which opened in October in Red Bank, a party of three received emails detailing the circumstances behind “Escape the Architect,” the house’s dramatic theme. They were to think of themselves as agents infiltrating a facility run by “the Architect,” a dangerous criminal, and were assigned to recover an item left behind by an agent who had disappeared; recovering the object was key to busting out of the room.

Once in Red Bank, the participants were shown a two-minute video offering more back story on the Architect and the fallen agent. Then they were led to a dim room and locked in.

“One of the things that sets us apart is our level of attention to the story,” said Anthony Purzycki, an owner of Trap Door. Mr. Purzycki and one of his business partners, Frank Giglia, aspired to careers in immersive theater before opening Trap Door. “We’re writers and gamers, and we get the appeal of alt-reality gaming in a real-world setting,” he said.

That is not to say that escape rooms appeal only to gamers and mystery buffs.

“I’m not really a gamer, I just enjoy the experience of trying to figure out the clues,” said Mr. Klotzkin, whose Amazing Escape Room offers five experiences, each with a distinct story line; Trap Door offers one. Exit Strategy’s Montclair location also offers one, but a newer location in Wayne offers three.