Visiting The Escape Game’s research & design facility in Nashville
The Escape Game invited me up to Nashville to visit The Adventure Factory, their full-service design and fabrication facility. While there, we had the chance to play a few escape rooms, see some of the sites, and experience a few extra special surprises.
Day 1
After flying up and checking into the hotel, I met the rest of the reporters invited for the media trip and our guide Mariana.
Our first stop was dinner at Black Tap and a little walk around Broadway Drive to Opry Mills Mall to do The Great Big Game Show. Impressed with how it’s changed. The wheel went from being pretty big to gigantic covering half the room. Still fun.
The rest of the group did Cosmic Crisis, but since I’d already done it they let me sit with the game master and watch from behind the scenes. Awesome to see how everything came together and watch how they kept the team on task. I loved the progress vs. time bars, full list of pre-planned tips, and other secret techniques they had for making sure everyone had a great time. Then it was back to the hotel to prepare for a very full day tomorrow.
Day 2
After meeting in the morning, we headed downtown for breakfast at The Pancake Pantry. The Pancake Pantry has been a Nashville institution since 1961 with an average wait of 20 minutes every day. We were escorted inside where we met the owner and enjoyed a spectacular breakfast. We tried some amazing biscuits and gravy with a kick and smothered hashbrowns so smothered we couldn’t see the hashbrowns under them. The main event was the specialty pancakes. I tried a sampler with banana nut bread, strawberry shortcake, and cinnamon roll pancakes. So, so good. Definitely don’t miss a stop at The Pancake Pantry in downtown Nashville.
Then we boarded a van for our next venture which would take us out of the city to The Adventure Factory, The Escape Game’s research, design, and construction facility.
In the van we met Kiera, one of The Escape Game’s puzzle designers and, to our surprise, we learned The Escape Game created for us a fully custom escape room in the van to pass the time on the drive. This custom experience featured a box locked with many different types of locks and we were each given a printed newspaper full of hints and clues along with other hints and clues hidden around the van.
Solutions involved finding scratch-off tickets to match a winning lottery number, tuning the radio in the car to a certain station to hear a clue, and then calling into the station to receive a different clue solving a “find a word puzzle” and more. We even had a stop at McDonald’s when the driver informed us that he hadn’t had breakfast yet. Of course the Happy Meal that came out contained a fun puzzle for the “toy,” which upon solving gave us another key to the locked box. Eventually we finished all the puzzles and unlocked the box inside of which we found our credentials for entry to the Adventure Factory just in time for our arrival.
At The Adventure Factory, we were given an overview of The Escape Game’s history by several members of the team. Then we met Senior Director of Production Dan who guided us on a tour to see where they fabricate everything for all The Escape Game locations across America.
The facility was an impressively sized scene shop with carpentry, painting, graphic design, electronics, mold making, 3D printing, CNC machine, and more. A fun part of the tour involved showing us a creation process from beginning to end where their CNC machine cut out foam keys for us which we took to the paint department for painting and sealing, after which we took to the graphics department for the finishing touch. All together an impressive way to show off the facilities capabilities.
We saw their merchandising department full of an impressive collection of shirts for each and every game and location of The Escape Game. I really liked the little 1920s-looking cartoon characters they had uniquely designed for each location, especially the guitar for Nashville, rabbit in the hat for Vegas, and of course, the flamingo for Orlando.
We had a chance to grab ourselves some souvenirs and then on to the prototype lab where we met puzzle designer Rachel and learned about an all-new game they were working on. Having been sworn to secrecy, I can’t tell you all too much about it, but it takes place in an Italian restaurant with a theme of “murder mystery.” It was really cool to sit and talk with the designers about their process, design philosophies, and more. This room also looks to have some incredibly impressive new tech they were working on that, if it all works how they intend, will introduce an all-new type of immersive element I haven’t seen in a game before. I really can’t wait for this one to come out so I can see a game from prototype stage to reality. I could have spent the entire time just chatting with the designers, but alas we eventually had to go.
At this point, we drove back to the city and visited The Escape Game: Berry Hill, one of the three Nashville locations, and what I came to find out was the very first The Escape Game location. Once there we stepped inside and met CEO Mark Flint and COO James Murrell, co-founders of The Escape Game, and got to chat with them inside “Nashville,” the first game they designed and created.
It was fun to talk with them about how they first tried escape rooms overseas and, with original games being very low tech, they saw an opportunity to make them their way. Again, I could have talked with them for hours, but a group had booked the room already, and besides we were here to play another game.
I was so excited that I finally got the chance to play Ruins: Forbidden Treasure, an immersive and physical game that I thought I might never get the chance to play. I was meant to play this room during my last trip to Nashville, but at the last minute it was broken so I did not get the chance. I was thrilled I got to try it this time, though, and had a blast finally getting to do a room on this trip.
After we finished, it was back to the city for dinner at Ella’s, a fancy Italian eatery right next to The Pancake Pantry from the start of our day. Dinner was family-style and consisted of classic Italian dishes served in an upscale style. Very delicious.
Finally, it was back to the hotel and we all said our goodbyes as we all had flights to catch the next day.
The Escape Game’s full-scale Nashville operation really blew me away with how The Adventure Factory being just one, albeit massive, facility that created every single scenic element and prop for every game at every one of the over 50 The Escape Game Locations across America. I was also a little surprised to learn that The Escape Game wasn’t a franchise and all locations were owned by the same company, meaning the Adventure Factory really was the nerve center of the entire operation. I can’t wait to take another trip to try some more games and see what else Nashville has to offer.
Special thanks to Mariana for organizing the trip as well as Teddy Cheek, Laura Cook, Eric Nogoy, Troy Armstrong, Ben Enosm and so many others I’m forgetting from The Escape Game team who made this trip to Nashville so memorable.
More Attractions Magazine stories:
Follow us:
No matter where you want to go, our trusted partner MEI-Travel will handle the planning so you can focus on the memories. They offer free vacation-planning services and have nearly 20 years of experience creating memorable vacations. Visit MEI-Travel for a fee-free, no-obligation quote today.
