Mind Gaming
This is the first escape room world championship
The finals of Red Bull Mind Gamers take places in Budapest in March – and you can still get a place.
Escape room gaming is a booming new sport that's all about working in a group to solve fiendish puzzles. Going solo isn't an option: you need to operate as a team if you’re to stand any chance of escaping within the time limit.
But even though escape room gaming now has thousands of rooms around the world, the sport hasn't had its own recognised world championship – until now.
Nex month, Red Bull Mind Gamers brings together the world's best players and some skilled Wildcard entrants, all of whom will battle it out in four-person teams to become the first escape room world champions in the sport's history.
The Red Bull Mind Gamers platform will bring the Mission: Unlock Enoch World Finals to Budapest, Hungary, on March 25 (with semi-finals taking place on March 23 and 24). The event is set up to demand the utmost from each team, and only those with the widest range of talents will have a chance of succeeding, with a series of puzzles testing players' creativity, logic, visual thinking and strategy skills.
Many of the games feature thought-provoking interactive content and have been developed by industry-leading innovators, including the world-renowned MIT Game Lab and the Technical University of Vienna.
The Escape Room World Finals takes inspiration from modern escape room design, with an emphasis on team-based challenges: “Our goal was to create challenges that made sense within the world of quantum computing,” says Dr Scott Nicholson, who’s a guru in the field of escape room design and heads up the event’s creative team.
"We thought about ways to embrace the concept of challenging the body and mind with cerebral puzzles that convey a consistent story, reduce dependence on a specific language, and are engaging for viewers.”
There are still a few Wildcard places up for grabs for those who think they possess a winning combination of skills.
Earn a spot among the 24 teams in the World Finals via the Global Wildcard game, or the DxM Puzzle, inspired by MindGamers The Movie.
You can watch live coverage of the event on Red Bull TV on Saturday, March 25.