Why escape rooms have a lock on the U.S.

Carly Mallenbaum | USA TODAY

On its surface an escape room doesn't sound fun: You pay decent money to get locked in a windowless room.

But factor in quality time spent with friends, the chance to show off puzzle-solving skills, the adrenaline rush fueled by a faux-high-stakes game and a guaranteed photo-op, and you can see why escape rooms have become a popular American pastime.

According to the Room Escape Artist blog database, maintained by gaming couple Lisa and David Spira (who used an escape room as part of their engagement), there were only 22 escape rooms in the U.S. in 2014. By the summer of 2017, the Spiras calculated just under 2,000 escape room facilities. .

"Today, there are about 2,300 escape room facilities in the United States," estimates Lisa Spira. "The market is still growing (and) we are definitely still seeing new escape room businesses and new escape room games pop up all over the country."

Will Shortz, the crossword puzzle editor for The New York Times, says it makes sense that escape experiences have become the puzzling trend of the moment.

"Trends burst on the scene when new technology develops that make the craze popular and possible." For example: Crossword puzzles were tied to the explosion of newspaper circulation; the Rubik's Cube "had to do with the ability to manufacture and mold plastic" and Sudoku's success went along with the rise of the personal computer, he says.

Escape rooms' popularity coincides with the rise of social media and nerd culture.

"If you were a brainy person 20 or 30 years ago, it was looked down upon. Nowadays, nerds have some of the biggest incomes in the U.S. and want to get together to geek out," Shortz says, though he adds he's never done one. ("It's a busman's holiday.")

But chances are you or someone you know has paid approximately $30 to get locked inside a themed dungeon filled with clues. Solve the puzzles in roughly an hour and exit the room safely to pose for a happy photo. (Losers can still exit freely and photograph their experience, but with more somber expressions.)

This staged moment of corniness, complete with costumes, hard hats or signs, is the standard escape room photo. Instagram reports that there's been a 13% increase globally in posts with #escaperoom and #weescaped hashtags this year, compared with last year. And the trend of sharing pictures about these interactive experiences has steadily increased since 2016.

These days, escape centers with names like 60Out, Room Escape, Logiquit and Escapades have become places to celebrate corporate events, birthdays and, at least in Los Angeles, new films, with recent marketing partnerships for Jack Reacher, Tomb Raider and Jumanji.

On Google trends, the search term "escape room" had a huge increase in 2015. Searches doubled in 2016 and tripled by the summer of 2017. Since then, searches have steadily increased, with huge spikes around Christmas, presumably from families searching for winter break activities.

Ivan Leon, who opened Escape Hotel Hollywood in 2016, which employs actors to play undead hotel service people who "check in" guests, says the trend is here to stay because interactive games can evolve.

"When we opened, our (first rooms) had a bunch of locks and codes," says Leon. "But we just opened a game that doesn't have a single lock (and) is more interactive. One of the rooms is a boat: Turn it on and the engine vibrates and the floor beats up and down (to) feel like a wave." In the future, he predicts, "every single room has a custom-made story with specific sound and lighting."

However, high-tech equipment isn't necessarily required for a room to create an immersive experience. For the Spiras, who've played more than 500 rooms in 10 countries (not including at their wedding, which also had an interactive puzzle), trying to escape even a technologically simple room is a way to bond and feel like James Bond.

"They are small adventures," writes David Spira on the site. "When they’re really good, you feel like you’re a character in Indiana Jones, Oceans 11, Mission Impossible. There’s a range of quality, and all manner of different themes, but in a world gone digital, it feels so good to do something in real life."