This article is from WeChat official account:Entertainment hard candy (ID: yuleyingtang), author: Liu soil, editor: Li Chunhui, from the title figure: vision China
The way to plan an escape room script(pseudonym) has been very busy recently. October is approaching, and several escape rooms are preparing to launch new themes, taking advantage of the long National Day holiday to wash away the depression in the first half of the year.
In the past two months, Lu Xi has finished typing a script of hundreds of thousands of words in retreat. The story of “ancient style + suspense” can be participated by eight protagonists, which is very suitable for small team building. The framework is finished, but the partners feel that the organization, clues, and tasks need to be refined.
The script is completely finalized before the scene construction can be implemented. Lu Xi, who was reminded of the paper, nearly collapsed, and ran to chat with Mr. Hard Candy to vent. In 2018, the tax earthquake in the entertainment industry and the cold winter of film and television crushed a large number of film and television studios. Lu Xi, who was forced to switch careers, has since become a screenwriter for Escape Room.
In the two years of working in the industry, she felt the pain of creation strongly for the first time. Similar to the high-quality production of film and television dramas, after the rapid expansion of the room escape industry, users are also putting forward higher requirements, forcing creators to upgrade faster.
The escape room industry that has survived the epidemic is facing stronger internal challenges in the industry.
From understanding mystery to immersive experience
Although we often feel that this is a sudden fire, before the outbreak of the concentration, escape room has actually experienced industrial exploration for more than ten years.
About 2012, Shanghai, Hangzhou, Wuhan and other places took the lead in launching the first batch of real-person escape room stores. At that time, Lu Xi, a major in drama, film, and literature in Zhejiang Province, was very interested in film and television themed secret rooms such as “Prison Break” and “Chain Saw”. He quickly grabbed a friend and grabbed tickets for EXIT-club.
Before this, she had played many online escape games and was familiar with the routines. EXIT-club’s special “Chain Saw Fright” is actually to restore the original script to reality. The player team is trapped in a closed space and needs to gather clues at a specified time to escape the danger.
The real-life secret room seems new, but Lu Xi feels that the game experience is not satisfactory. “The script is simple, and it gets tired after playing it again. Moreover, the layout of the scene is so rough that few people are willing to repeat it.” Looking back at the secret room he played at that time, Lu Xi was full of disgust.
The experience of this batch of escape room products was basically similar to the market situation. Stores everywhere are designed around the themes of reasoning and decryption, and then use classic film and television works such as “Death Experiment” and “Top Secret Mission” to create momentum and attract traffic. The gimmick is full, but the lack of mature script and level design has caused investors to lose a lot.
Since then, werewolf killing and script killing have become popular again, further squeezing the room for escape. During this period, Lu Xi occasionally took on some original work at the board game shop. The script of 10,000 words can be delivered in two weeks, and the market can sell for 30,000 or 40,000.
Until 2016, escape room finally ushered in a new round of rapid development. With the accumulation of development experience and the supply of high-quality talents, China has finally developed a secret room creative team that adapts to the market. The broadcast of Mango TV’s real reasoning variety show “Star Detective” further boosted the popularity of escape rooms.
In addition to Beishang, Sichuan and Chongqing, a large number of escape rooms have also emerged in cities such as Changsha and Xiamen. Statistics show that the scale of the national escape room industry exceeds 4 billion. Secret room brands such as Di Fu Sen, Mystery House, and TFS Super Secret Room received financing, and Secret Room Escape has become a new consumer project that has attracted much attention from investors.
“In Beijing alone, I have evaluated 30 or 40 stores, and sometimes I have to line up to play popular themes.” As a loyal consumer, Lu Xi is often invited to participate in evaluations and feel the changes in the secret room.
The integration of concepts such as mechanics, role-playing, and immersive experience makes room escape no longer a purely brain game, but closer to comprehensive offline interactive entertainment. The design of props, organs, and scenes is getting more and more refined, and the construction technology is no longer a problem in the industry, and the pressure has shifted to the creative level.
The theme of Secret Chamber is core competence. Copying old stories from horror movies and suspense novels can no longer meet the needs of mature players. Secret room brands such as Dream Trail, Yarishima, and MAX Earl rushed to launch exclusive themes and seek differentiation. The industry has even formed alliances to develop a scoring mechanism for themes and plots, and conduct research and evaluation.
The screenwriters who were born in the science class have naturally become talents urgently needed in the secret room industry. The owners of several stores have come to find Lu Xi for long-term cooperation. But at that time, Lu Xi, a “signed film and television screenwriter”, could not let go of his insistence on the identity of a screenwriter and chose to continue to show his passion for creation in small film and television projects.
But soon after the film and television winter, tax increase and reform disturbances, the screenwriting circle is not as good as the day. Colleagues who resigned have started short videos, advertising planning, and picture book screenwriters. After struggling for a long time, Lu Xi finally made up his mind to go to the secret room field.
“I regret not changing careers as soon as possible, and once again missed the good time to make money everywhere.” Lu Xi sighed.
What stage is so addictive?
Lu Xi entered the escape room and finished writing three scripts in half a year. She believes that the work is not stunning, but it is standard work.
Before the participation of professional screenwriters, the writers of script killing and escape room were mostly advanced players. This group has rich practical experience and can provide brain tasks and creative scenarios for the script, but the narrative logic is weak.
“I have seen a lot of male engineering bosses who care more about the design of the venue. First take out the organs and props, and then put them into a certain story. The scene is really cool, the story line is slightly boring, and the user experience is very poor.” Lu Xi found out the user reviews of a store and handed it to Hard Candy.
In the immersive escape room, the realistic setting is indeed the key to creating the atmosphere. However, the value of these details needs to be based on the player’s desire to explore the task (story) itself. Just like a film and television drama, if the service is refined, the story is useless. In a large number of negative reviews of the stores, “lack of logic”, “plot mentally retarded” and “task incoherence” are high-frequency keywords.
In the early days of room escape, the theme often borrowed from film and television dramas such as “Prison Break” and “1408”. An isolated space often creates tension due to claustrophobia. Immersive room escape is based on this psychological basis, using role-playing to fully release the players’ drama needs.
In Lu Xi’s view, the immersive chamber is like an extension and evolution of an interactive drama. No matter how you chase drama