Daegu | Trap Korea Escape Room

As soon as I discovered the Trap Korea escape room here in Daegu, I begged gently nudged Sly to go with me. It only took about two months of non-stop badgering convincing, but it eventually worked. Plus, it was either go or endure an entire summer of my annoying pestering.

Escape rooms have become really popular lately in Korea, and as someone who loves puzzles, mysteries, and bizarre interior design, I really wanted to see what all the hype was about. A couple years ago I watched a dumb reality show where the reality stars tried to escape from an escape room. First off, the room looked like a walled in cubicle from my very first corporate job and second, the ‘clues’ involved solving easy equations on scraps of paper. It looked like some weird homemade mystery theater type thing my sister and I would have concocted when we were teens. But even that didn’t deter me from wanting to go, if anything, it made me more curious.

Maybe those reality people just went to a really crummy escape room or maybe escape rooms have evolved in the past couple of years because TrapKorea’s website made their rooms look like Hollywood stage sets. To shut me up, Sly finally booked a spot online for the Egyptian room, the easiest of the escape rooms.

An escape room is a puzzle-based adventure game in which players are locked into a themed room filled with clues. Working as a team, players must analyze their surroundings, find clues, solve puzzles, communicate and escape, all within the time frame of 60 minutes. Sounds easy enough, right?

After checking in, we were led to the inside of the Egyptian room and handed a walkie talkie. Brief instructions were given in Korean along with a quick demonstration of what we needed to do in order to get to the next level. Basically we needed to solve clues, piece together a code based on those clues, push a series of buttons, and then finally open the sliding door to the next room.

And with that, the moderator left the room, locking us in for the next hour or so.

In retrospect, it all sounds rather logical, but that is only because I am able to explain what occurred after the fact. In actuality, we didn’t quite catch all the instructions in Korean and as neither of us have ever been to an escape room, we weren’t exactly sure what to do next. We knew that “everything could be a clue,” but we weren’t exactly clear on how many clues we needed, and what to do with the clues once we figured them out. In my head, I thought there was a sequential way to navigate through the escape room — like tunnel clue led to box clue led to table clue led to basket clue which revealed a singular code that we could punch into the door. It didn’t occur to us that we had to gather clues, or that some of the items in room one could be potentially used in the following rooms.

We blew through the first half of our allotted time in what felt like 5 minutes, sweltering in the sealed off, airless, mummy tomb, with barely any A/C. When it seemed as if we weren’t getting anywhere, and when we thought our heads were going to explode from the heat, we broke down and called in the room monitor.

The room monitor walked into a completely trashed room with two dummies standing in the center, clutching onto clues while sweating profusely. Once more she went over the instructions and this time it finally sunk in.

After she left, it took us maybe 15 minutes to gather all the clues and enter the code. Except now the door wouldn’t open and we were positive we had entered the code correctly. I tried every single combination of the code and still the door didn’t budge. Once again, we called in our room monitor, who by this time was probably thinking we were two of the stupidest people on the planet. She punched in the same code we had originally entered and magically the door opened. Turned out I didn’t push one of the buttons hard enough to activate the trigger. Grrrrr.

we escaped…eventually

Over an hour later, we finally escaped! I’m pretty sure we broke the record for longest time ever to escape from the Egyptian room. It’s not that the puzzles were difficult –in fact, some clues were so obvious that we started to second guess ourselves — it’s just that we had no clue what we were supposed to do. Despite our embarrasingly slow start, once we figured out how escape rooms worked, we easily solved all the puzzles. Go us.

DETAILS

TrapKorea Escape Room, Daegu | LOCATION: Trapkorea is located on the third floor of a multi-level concrete building near Suseong Lake. The sign is kind of hard to see from the road so keep a look out for their logo. Validated parking is available behind the building. Click here for map. COST: ₩50,000 for 2 people to ₩80,00 for 5 people. Discounted rate available for first time visitors during weekday hours  | DESCRIPTION: Players can select from five themed rooms: Ancient Egypt, Middle Age, Tomb of Secrets, Armageddon, and Crazy Garage. The easiest trap room is Ancient Egypt, and the most difficult is Armageddon. You don’t need to speak Korean to solve the puzzles as the clues are visual/physical, or at least they were in the Egyptian Room. While reservations are not required, it is best to book in advance online to secure the room and time that you want, especially on weekends. While TRAP Korea’s site is in Korean, you can easily translate the page in order to pick a date, room, and time slot. Enter your name, phone number, email, and any requests (for example, if you would like to have someone explain the general instructions in English), and then submit your reservation. You can either pay online or in person. Once you have booked a slot, you’ll receive a text message confirming your reservation. Outside of the escape rooms is a small cafe with plenty of puzzles to pass the time while waiting. | VERDICT: Fun, but kind of pricey. Considering that we went well over our allotted 60 minute time, we definitely got our money’s worth.