Guess where I am! #attackontitan #realescapegame A photo posted by Muse (@subduedfangirl) on Mar 21, 2015 at 2:04pm PDT
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 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 pre-ordered 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!
I went to the 2:30PM 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.
MADE IT WITH TEN SECONDS TO SPARE BY THE POWER OF TEAMWORK #attackontitan #realescapegame
A photo posted by Muse (@subduedfangirl) on Mar 21, 2015 at 4:12pm PDT
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):
