No, this isn’t an overplayed episode of Real World or Big Brother, but is instead the basic scenario that played out when me and a few of my coworkers decided to try out the Sherlock Holmes room at the Adventure Vault. You can guess who the writer is.

Like much of the escape room scenarios that have been gaining popularity recently, the Adventure Vault places participants in a room with problem solving puzzles and activities. Each step or activity, when completed, leads to the next step. In other words, one cannot advance from the first to third step without completing the second. Steps include codes, riddles and more.

The prime goal is to unlock the room in under an hour, a feat that proves to be difficult given the challenging clues at hand. Think of it as an interactive crossword, Sudoku and formula game come to life. Since the riddles and puzzles vary with the necessary skill sets, it’s best to participate with multiple types of people.

One would think that given our varied individuals and intellectual capacity that my aforementioned group would escape in less than an hour. Sadly, that was not the case. A thousand laughs, countless number of insults, and an hour and 14 minutes later, we finally escaped. To put things into perspective, the average time to escape Adventure Vault’s Sherlock Holmes room is an hour and 8 minutes.

First place for escaping that specific room is currently at 35 minutes and while the other two rooms’ first place is at 25 minutes. I find minute solace in discovering that Sherlock Holmes is the most challenging one there thus far.

Each room, aside from merely escaping, has a set mission. In the instance of Sherlock Holmes, participants must find out where the missing detective is hiding before oxygen runs out.

“Wait, really?!” Our video gamer’s eyes bulged and he clutched his hands to his chest, panicked. No, not really, but that’s the scenario at hand.

The other two rooms include Death and Breakfast, about a road trip gone wrong, and Prison Redemption, where players are framed for numerous bank robberies. In all three situations, a walkie talkie is placed in the room for participants to ask for additional hints. However, this comes at a cost: 5 minutes  are added to the end time for each hint requested. Before the activity, participants must put their phones in lockers.

The recommend number of players is 6-8, but more participants can be accommodated as need be. Admission is $28 per person and those that book the entire room receive an automatic 20% discount.

Adventure Vault is located at 3350 NW 2nd Ave, Suite A4 Boca Raton FL, 33431. Call (561) 922-3881 or visit adventure-vault.com.