The buzzer flashes red as time runs out, and it’s time to move on to the next challenge that will push teamwork and athletic skills in this new take on an escape room.
Level 99 is an immersive escape room with the local venue located in Tysons Corner Center Mall, though it also has locations in Massachusetts and Rhode Island. Rather than focusing solely on mental puzzle challenges, it also includes athletic obstacles that must be overcome. With over 50 different rooms to attempt to explore in a session, it holds a much larger assortment than escape rooms, which tend to only have one.
“I really liked all the different challenges it had,” junior Julian Carter said. “Some of them were really difficult and it was cool that we had to use our individual strengths and teamwork to get through some of them.”
Level 99 also works with local artists at each location, every room becomes its own world. The obstacle in each room is the focal point, but the artists work with it to make it into a unique experience at each challenge area. While normal escape rooms tend to be decorated to a single theme, each of the rooms at Level 99 is its own unique experience.
“The art was also a big part of what made it fun,” Carter said. “I loved the way it sort of made the obstacles a part of the room.”
A standard escape room has a different kind of allure. Escapology explains how standard escape rooms focus on the mental aspect of obstacles, leaning more into puzzles and clues than speed or athleticism. Standard escape rooms differ from Level 99 by only having one or sometimes two rooms that tend to require code or puzzle to enter.
Escape rooms also tend to take much longer than a session at Level 99. Because each traditional escape room is only one or two rooms it can take between an hour and two hours to finish. While at Level 99 there are so many rooms that there is only time for a few minutes in each, though the total time still arrives around an hour.
“I think I prefer a normal escape room to Level 99,” junior Quasim Burris said. “The timer was so fast that by the time we knew what we had to do it was practically time to go to the next room. The more focused and calm escape rooms are better, especially for groups.”
Both Level 99 and regular escape rooms have various levels or modes with different difficulties depending on the desired level of challenge. Level 99 has the added difficulty of having two to six players in each team, with the fewer players making it faster to get across but more difficult to figure out exactly what to do. It also has the added option of its Duels challenges, which have two players compete against each other in escape rooms. Many escape rooms also have different options for added difficulty, like less time or more puzzles.
“I’ve done both and I think they are both really fun,” senior Eyad Elgayli said. “Level 99 is better for a bit more of an athletic challenge and needs more physical teamwork, while normal escape rooms take more brain power and a lot of communicative teamwork.”
