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What this is and who we are.

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Escape the 1980’s™ is the first official room escape game from Steel Owl and the largest escape room game in the Philadelphia. It’s famed for a solid 5-star review rating across all review sites, and  frequented by corporations and offices for team-building — and individuals that “just wanna have fun”. Throughout the industry, Escape the 1980s is known as the bubble gum pop escape room game.

A team of players enters a “1980’s timewarp” and must work together to make sense of audio, visual and technology-based clues… and “get back” to the future. You do not need to know anything about the 80s to play and win this game.

Steel Owl was founded in early 2015 in South Philadelphia and is led by Elisabeth Garson, a Creative Director with 20 years of experience in advertising, UX and experimental events. Her independent projects have been featured in Time Magazine, KYW, CBS, The Philadelphia Inquirer and more.

Since opening, the group has published a book, given two seminars at Escape Room City, and presentations at MHC and the Chicago Escape Room Conference — the nation’s largest escape room convention (spring of 2016). They were nominated as a Top 10 by USA today and featured in various local and national publications. In addition, the group developed Steel Owl Tech and produced the nation’s leading interactive, escape game telephone prop.

The focus of Steel Owl is to create fully immersive, ridiculously fun experiences that end with (hopefully) a win. And we firmly believe there’s a need for it. To us, drinking gets boring and watching a movie is passive. Going to work is routine and hobbies get repetitive. The element of surprise is what we’re all about, and we’ve woven that throughout our first game.

All of our upcoming escape games are being built upon the same set of rigid standards with a focus on usability and communication, including an “every clue matters” rule. Communication, technology, and relatable (and fun) theming are at the core of who we are. We want to move entertainment to an interactive level — and this is where we’re starting.

In the end, it’s our goal to create something that will get people’s hearts pumping, get them excited and running around, engage a bunch of their senses, and make them work together in an environment that (just by design) is fun. Without getting too philosophical, we believe that kind of excitement is what keeps people young.

So, what will you find with our room escape games? A LOT of attention on UX — the user’s overall experience. Because of this, our games are big on interactive technology, set design, unusual themes and surprises. But also (if you’re working together), you have a much better chance at winning.

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