Mar 21 2012

Are You Game Enough to Destroy the Werewolves? Real Escape Games

16 villagers, 3 of whom are werewolves. Can you identify the werewolves and save the innocents, before they are picked off one by one? The clock is ticking. Find and solve the puzzles hidden in the village before it is too late.

Takao Kato has locked over 100,000 people in bars, clubs, cathedrals, and baseball stadiums so that they can participate in his ‘Real Escape Games’.

After five years in which he has operated in China, Japan and Singapore, this week Kato will host a tournament in the USA. If you going to San Francisco, be sure to wear some flowers in your hair participate in ‘The Escape from the Werewolf Village‘. But quick, it is selling out fast.

This video shows a previous Real Escape Game.

Takao Kato initially developed the concept of ‘Real Escape Games’ to encourage people to get out and about in his home town of Kyoto. He is taking advantage of the popularity of computer based  ‘Escape the Room’ games, a genre of Adventure Games in which players find and manipulate items they find in a room to solve a series of puzzles to allow them to escape.

‘The Crimson Room’ by Toshimitsu Takagi (2004) is a classic ‘Escape the Room’ game. Can you solve it? NB Like many of these games, this is a Flash based game and won;t work on an iPad, even your new iPad 3, Brendan.

More about Real Escaoe Games in Wired Magazine.