There are generally two reasons you need to escape a room. The first is you’ve been kidnapped by a foreign spy, are being held until you divulge all your secrets, and need to get outta there before you fess up. The other is you’re at an escape room, and it’d be silly not to try after you paid like $80 to be there. 

So how to train for one of these two inevitable events? Video game escape rooms! And not only do they offer this vital service, but they’re actually a lot of fun in their own right.

Thankfully the Epic Games Store is stuffed with escape room games. We’ve selected some of the best to hone your puzzle-solving skills and entertain you along the way.

Video game escape rooms have a couple of huge advantages over the real things. Firstly, there are no practical limitations on set design, to the point where they can literally be set in zero-g or in a bunker at the bottom of the sea. Secondly you can play a whole bunch of them in a row for less than the price of entry to just one real-life escape room. Also, many offer both local and online multiplayer, meaning you can still enjoy them as a team. 

Here’s a selection of some fine examples of the form that should keep you locked up for hours on end.

 

Escape First Alchemist

As discussed above, one of the disadvantages of real-life escape rooms is their pesky requirement to adhere to the laws of reality. Escape Room Alchemist takes full advantage of the removal of this limitation to create an enormous escape room where you brew magical potions, rewind time on objects, gain second sight, and even float to the ceiling.

You (and possibly your buddies) must rescue your sorcerer-alchemist boss, who is trapped inside his peculiar castle. You’re guided on this adventure by a sarcastic talking book, in an escape room that just keeps getting bigger the more you explore. Eventually you’ll even teleport to different areas, smashing down walls and casting all manner of potion-driven spells to solve the mysteries within.

Designed for 1 – 4 players, this single (but enormous) escape room can be played solo very effectively, but is more fun in co-op—or even played competitively, where you can race against each other to complete the puzzles first.

 

Escape Academy

In Coin Crew Games’ Escape Academy, you begin the game as a new student at the titular institution, where every lesson under every tutor is a themed escape room. On top of this, there’s a superbly daft storyline about missing faculty, internal subterfuge, and your role in solving the mysteries within the academy.

The game can be played solo, co-op, or even competitively in the Escape Race, where you and a friend attempt to progress through an enormous divided arena of challenges at the same time, racing to be the first to reach the final trophy. More recent content updates have added the Tournament of Puzzles, with more ways to play competitively, and even power-ups to boost your chances, lay false clues for opponents, and get extra clues to gain an edge.

Plus there's a bunch of DLC to enjoy once you’ve finished the main game—and later this year a full sequel is set to release.

 

Escape From Mystwood Mansion

Like Escape First Alchemist, Escape From Mystwood Mansion is in some senses one enormous escape room, albeit broken up into checkpointed chapters. In this case, it’s all set in a modern-day mansion that’s packed with padlocks, keyholes and suspicious-looking bookshelves.

Your reasons for being there are rather sinister. You play as a courier, dropping off a parcel at the building, when the front doors swing open. You step in to put down the package when the doors close behind you, and a sign informs you that you’ve been trapped—which is a bit creepy.

But the result is a bright and cheerful game, even if your circumstances are peculiar. You'll find familiar escape room challenges: spotting patterns in the scenery, constructing codes, and seeking out hidden buttons and secret cubbyholes, but on an elaborate scale.

 

Escape From Blackwood

If you’re looking for a tougher escape room, Escape From Blackwood is worth checking out. A more indie and lo-fi affair than the others, this is the work of a single developer, and more impressive for it. The castle from which you’re escaping is also packed with far more challenging puzzles, right from the start.

While you might be used to seeing color combinations on a padlock and then counting the matching colored objects in the room, what if one of the first puzzles you encounter seems to be doing this…but the colors on the padlock don’t match the burning torches in the dungeon?

Escape From Blackwood also takes advantage of Unreal Engine’s physics to create a more realistic sense of interaction than you might expect, even if the world itself is cartoonish. It’s a cheaper and somewhat less slick game, but really raises the bar for the required smarts.