Escape rooms are reopening

Can you see it too, that return to something like normal life? With everything that involves in the middle of a health crisis, of course. I’ve been waiting 15 months for this — and I’m more than ready. 

The view from an events entrepreneur AND a thirtysomething craving human contact

For 15 months, as the head of a company that creates games for corporate events, I’ve been preparing how to welcome my clients: hygiene measures, face masks, capacity limits, hand sanitiser by the crate, and so on. 

For 15 months, as a thirtysomething, a mother, locked down and working from home, I’ve been dreaming up every activity imaginable. Entertainment, I’m calling your name! 

“Fancy an escape room?”

So for 15 months the notion of an “essential service” has turned our habits upside down. And it’s true: after all that time spent “shut in”, you realise that real social life is every bit as essential as a trip to the hairdresser. That going out, having fun, dancing, sharing a drink — treating yourself in good company, basically — is key to your mental health. Still, we kept our heads down… and dreamed of what came next. 

And here we are, with almost everything open again, savouring that rediscovered freedom. But where to start? 

At Arcane, if you’re craving an escape room, want to strengthen your team’s cohesion or simply fancy a good time together, we’ve got just the thing! Guided by our brilliant game masters, you’ll turn detective and crack a series of puzzles in life-size escape rooms.

Escape room

Thanks to Covid-19, you probably know your board games off by heart. We understand: you’re after something new, with a shot of adrenaline. With friends or family, come and try our Alma escape room in Paris’s first indoor leisure complex! Several rooms are open to all: people with reduced mobility, children, teenagers, adults, colleagues. Booking couldn’t be simpler — it’s all online. Just pick the slot you want. Can you escape? Will your eye for detail set you apart?

A health and safety protocol is in place so you can play safely within the 75 minutes on the clock. So come and make your escape, adventurers, and outwit the tricks Arcane has in store!

The outdoor escape game to enjoy with colleagues

Fancy a large-scale outdoor escape game with your colleagues? The weather’s good, so it’s the perfect moment to explore one of France’s beautiful cities with our game Apparences Trompeuses and uncover its secrets on a team break. This urban scenario has you solving puzzles from the clues handed to you along the way, while taking in the covered passages of Paris, Bordeaux’s architecture, the lanes of St Malo or the maze of Vieux Lyon. An unusual, immersive experience whose investigation adapts to the location you choose, and rounds off your corporate event beautifully. Ready to rack your brains and solve the mysteries of the City of Light?

Our games for company offsites

Planning a company offsite somewhere green and leafy? Give us a call and we’ll set up our game Biotopia, l’aventure sauvage anywhere in France! It’s a unique, playful experience that teaches you about protecting animal species. A chance to enjoy team building out in nature again, and to unite your teams around a great sustainability cause. 

Team building activity

After months of remote working, you want to energise your employees’ return to the office without being shut in a room all day? No problem — we’ll turn up with our escape box to strengthen team cohesion! Our team building sessions run right there in your office: an easy way to organise micro-events and make coming back to work, and working together, genuinely appealing. Every day brings its puzzle, its game and its own experience. 

Team spirit in the world that comes next 

After months spent — let’s be honest — cut off from the world, it’s worth imagining what tomorrow’s reunions might look like. 

Have you heard of cabin fever (sometimes called snail syndrome)? It’s the fear of leaving the place you’ve been shut away in. Who would have thought it? For months all we wanted was to get out of the room that cut us off from the world. In the context of the Covid-19 epidemic, this syndrome speaks directly to the fear of coming out of lockdown and facing the outside world.

I’ll confess: I went through it during the first lockdown. And yet I wanted that return to normal with every fibre of my being, which didn’t stop me feeling real apprehension about life again. It vanished as soon as I found my feet. 

So I suspect it works the same way in the city and in the workplace. Reviving team spirit at work can be helped by finding your bearings again. Or by building new ones with your team. 

On a purely personal note, since September 2020 our whole Arcane Experience team has been working remotely. 100% of the time. Let’s be honest: remote working is a real boost to quality of life, but it also pulls you apart socially. The coffee breaks, the lunches, the after-work drinks, the team building, simply the life of the company. Everything that created a bond with your colleagues — we miss it. That’s not the boss talking, that’s the colleague. So of course we call each other, but we’ve lost the informal side of things, and recreating it is a daily challenge. We’re working at it, though. And you know what? We’ve ended up becoming aces at virtual escape rooms and remote onboarding. Thanks to our friends at Les Coqs en pâte who let us test their new games!  

So what about the world that comes next?

We’ve got a list as long as your arm of activities we’ll be trying as soon as we can: the escape room atImmersia, “Les ferrailleurs de l’espace” for its retro steampunk feel; the escape room Mission Yakuza by the excellent One Hour because it’s built like a police investigation, and we love that! And finally, the escape room L’avion by the very famous The Game. 

And that’s before we mention laser tag and trampoline parks to burn off some energy, bowling to test your dexterity, or the theme parks we all know and love for the sheer thrill of it!

You’ve got the idea: from escape hunts to treasure hunts, Arcane’s puzzle games have something for everyone. Life-size investigations, brain teasers and riddles in exceptional settings — plenty of puzzles await, so come and live a few memorable moments.