Blog

In recent months, we've been getting gradually more busy at WeEscape and we're so thankful for people coming and giving us such great feedback. However, with our popularity increasing, large companies have started using us more and more for team building, bonding and social events. This is great, but the companies employee hundreds or thousands of people and we can only accommodate for 24 at a time. With this in mind, we've been wondering what we can do to bring Escape Rooms to more people. Our solution? Pop Up Escape Rooms! The premise is simple: we build a quick, 10-30 minute game with less bells and whistles so we can deconstruct and transport the room with ease for smaller teams to play. This way, we can bring our Escape Rooms to more people. Our hope was to be able to set up at special events, festivals and conventions and also to come to companies so more people would get a chance to take a break and try a quick game on site. We piloted this new project with UCC in the Common Room for Freshers Week. We had been asked about making a George Boole themed story and I'll admit, I did think about it, but in the end we decided we wanted to present a lesser known story in UCC's history for incoming first years to learn a bit more about the college. We ended up designing a story and game where players were investigating possible suspects in the 1862 fire in the college's West Wing. We received fantastic feedback from students who really enjoyed the game and were fascinated by the history of the college most had never heard of. We were delighted with the results and look forward to working further on the project and hopefully we'll have more Pop Up Escape Rooms going forward. We'd like to thank David Condon, the Student's Union Commerce Officer and the Student's Union as a whole for giving us this opportunity and we hope to work more with UCC going forward. Currently, all students from UCC who use discount code 'UCCSTUDENT' will receive 10% off their game and 5% of proceeds are donated during Raise and Give week to the charities selected by the Students Union.

As we begin exploring the chambers within The Black Pyramid, we have been trying to decipher what the hieroglyphs mean. They appear to be telling a story of Seth, the Ancient Egyptian god of chaos and darkness and how he died. We recognise some of the symbols and from our research, we are getting a clearer view of the history of the gods. ''Osiris was the pharaoh who brought laws, farming, arts and peace to Egypt with his wife, Isis, who was believed to be a powerful witch. Both we're decedents of Ra, as were Osiris' brother, Seth, and his wife, Nephethys. Seth was envious of Osiris and wanted to be pharaoh himself. While his brother was away bringing civilisation to the world, Seth and 72 conspirators acquired Osiris' exact dimensions. With them, Seth built a beautiful box made with gold, jewels and sacred amulets. When Osiris returned to Egypt, Seth threw a lavish party then brought out the box and invited all the guests to try and fit inside, whoever fit perfectly could have the box. Eventually, Osiris requested a go and when he sat inside, he was delighted to have won the box. At that moment, Seth and his conspirators sealed the lip on with 13 nails and molten lead. Seth then threw the box into the Nile and watched it sail away. Isis, distressed and unwilling to part with her love searched all of Egypt to find Osiris. She eventually found him in the town of Byblos in Phoenicia. The coffin had been caught in the roots of a tamarisk tree which had then been surrounded by and consumed by the tree. Isis returned with Osiris after having cut him from the tree, but Seth cut up the body before she had a chance to bury it and scattered him to the four corners of the earth. Again, Isis searched and gathered up all her husband. Isis cleaned and prepared Osiris as the first mummy and used her magic to restore his life. Osiris thanked his wife for bringing him peace but said that he had to return to the afterlife to rule the underworld. Before returning to other world, Isis became pregnant with Horus. With Osiris gone, Isis fled with Horus to escape Seth's wrath. Seth sat on the throne for years, bringing dark tidings to Egypt. That is, until Horus came of age, empowered with the power of the sun from his ancestor, Ra. For 80 years, through battles, challenges and deception, Horus and Seth battled for the throne. Other gods attempt to intervene, claiming Horus to be the rightful heir to the throne. After many years of exchanging what would be mortally fatal wounds, Seth sought to steal away the power from the sun to make Horus vulnerable and seek revenge on Ra and the other gods. Seth tried to call upon Apophis, the father of all monsters, a monstrously large serpent born of darkness and evil to oppose Ra. Apophis would every morning in ancient times, attempt to stop Ra from bringing the sun across the earth in the hopes that if he could stop Ra for one day, his army of demons would consume the earth. Ra would need the aid of his prodigy, especially Seth as he was the only one Apophis could not hypnotise. Eventually, Apophis was banished using an annual ritual to keep him locked away in the temple of Ra. Seth, in exhaustion and desperation, began to summon Apophis through him in a temple of Ra. As he performed the ritual, the stone of the pyramid became black as night, as did the sand surrounding it. Horus was gifted the spear Ra had used against Apophis, infused with gold, the flesh of Ra, in the time before man and stormed The Black Pyramid. Taking the golden blade, Horus cut out his uncles heart where he stood. Horus then assigned his 4 sons; Imsety, Qebehsenuef, Hapi and Duamutef, to preparing Seth's body for mummification, but to trap him between worlds. Without his heart, he could neither return to life or pass to meet his brother as Anubis would have nothing to weigh against the Feather of Truth and Justice."' So here we stand, inside the temple where Seth attempted to summon the Sun Eater. All of it stories and superstition but we are cautious. The Pyramid appears very dangerous, and there is a heavy feeling in the air here. Many workers have already left, claiming fear of a curse. We also have concerns because we are not the first team here by the evidence. There was rumor of another archaeologist who vanished while searching for the tomb alone, and we have seen evidence of the tomb being disturbed previously. We are trying to find the burial chamber but the layout of the tomb is unlike anything we've seen. We will need time before we can determine anything else.

We always say that escape rooms are great for team building, so the WeEscape team likes to go out and try some other escape rooms every now and then. Twice now we've been down to Escapade Cobh, run by Hendrick and Rachel and both times we have loved it. On our first trip, we were a team of 'professional' bank robbers breaking into Cobh Trustee Savings Bank to transfer €1 Billion into an offshore account. The room was well designed and we got very into the game, falling for some classic mistakes we've seen players make but ultimately managing to transfer the money just in the nick of time and escape with seconds to spare! It was a very fun room that felt very immersive with the vault and teller counter being the original form the previous bank. So of course we had to come back, which we did this bank holiday weekend! We tried our hand at Sherlock Holmes' final case set in 1916 attempting to change history by finding a signed and witnessed codicil to the last will and testament of Sir Hugh Lane in relation to his valuable art collection. Once again the setting was fantastic and we were taking back a century with a captivating story and puzzles. A fantastic use of simple puzzles made difficult by our own overthinking (always dangerous, or so we warn). We found the documents and changed the course of history with a whole 10 minutes to spare! Escapade Cobh has games we at WeEscape would recommend to players who visit the area and staff we have only good things to say about. We'll be down again hopefully in the coming months to try their third room, Escape from Spike Island