My colleagues and I were cuffed and our faces were covered with black hoods. We were led down the hall of a dungeon (or so I felt) and I was separated from the rest. A metallic door opened and I was shoved in and the hood removed. After adjusting my sight to the room I was locked in, I realized I was in a cell which was not more than 15 sq. ft. The cell had metal sliding bars as doors and a wall separated me from another cell. And there was another wooden door after the metal doors locking in both cells.
I had scramblings in the next cell next to me and I asked who was there and realized one of my other colleagues was locked in the other cell. But where were the remaining 3? The wall separating us had hollow spaces with some sort of maze and a pulley system. I started searching through the cell I was in to see if I could find anything that could help me escape from the cell. After searching frantically, I eventually opened the cover of the wash-hand sink in the cell and there was a key. I tried it on my cuffs and puff…it unlocked. There was no way to pass the key to my colleague to try but there were some markings on my wall which later proved helpful. After deliberating with my colleague for a while, we realized if we could slide a golf ball we found in my cell into the hollow space in the wall, it would fall through the maze and unlock something…what it was, we had no clue. So we got to that and tried hard to guide the golf ball through the hollow space. Eventually, it slipped and it started rolling down the maze. We waited, hoping and wondering what would come out of this. Eventually, it hit a dead end and we had a click sound…my cell door automatically opened.
I got out but I could not leave as there was a wooden door which seemed to need a code to unlock. I went to check my colleague and was surprised to find out she had some form of wooden jigsaw puzzle on the floor which she was fiddling with. There was a missing part of the puzzle which was in a 3rd cell which I had to get for her. As soon as she put together the puzzle, it formed some 4 numbers. We tried the numbers on a code reader and her door opened. We still had to figure out how to get out through the wooden doon. Eventually we did and we got into a hall way with 2 doors. One was opened and the other locked! Through the opened door, we realized our colleagues were locked in other cells in there. I first handed them the key to the cuffs and they were able to remove their cuffs. There were some markings on their wall indicating a part of the wall in the hall. We went back there and we saw nothing. Hitting on the walls, we discovered a part of it was hollow and after shoving hard, we pulled a brick out of the wall which had a key; we used the key to open a locker in the hallway and found the code to open the cells of my colleagues.
Eventually, 5 of us stood in the hallway wondering how to open the main door to the hallway. We would definitely need a 4-letter code but how to get the code was the question. After fumbling around the hallway for a while, one of us evetually noticed there were multiple lighting system in the room. We turned off the yellow light and put on the purple light and all of a sudden, the wall of the hallway which was empty was covered with several mathematical equations. We pulled out a sheet of paper and started adding, subtracting, and dividing…it was mind-boggling! We got the code, punched it in and the door opened to us. We got out in 59 minutes and 14 seconds!!!
This was my first experience with the escape room game. It was the most awesome experience I had ever had as it challenged my thinking, enhanced how I communicated with my colleagues, questioned my assumptions, tested my wits and ultimately helped me realize how well I do under pressure as we had only 60 minutes to break out. Escape rooms are now the fastest-growing adventure games in the world.
It’s really great to know now that the first escape room game has opened in Nigeria. While its not a prison break like I did, this has a serial killer theme – a serial killer kidnapped and murdered 3 ladies and now has a 4th target. You have access to his crime scenes and his den and you have 60 minutes to identify him, his 4th target and what weapon he uses. If you have the opportunity, you should go with your friends, colleagues or family to really have a great fun time. Check it out at http://www.escaperoomnigeria.com
I am the author of Scaling for Success: Empowering African SMEs. I am a Partner at Sahel Capital, a food and agriculture-focused private investment firm in Sub-Saharan Africa. Sahel Capital manages the Fund for Agriculture Financing in Nigeria (FAFIN) and the Social Enterprise Fund for Agriculture in Africa (SEFAA).
I co-lead SEFAA, an impact-first fund investing in agribusinesses that provide direct or indirect benefits to smallholder farmers across 13 countries in Sub-Saharan Africa. I also lead investments and portfolio management for SEFAA and manage FAFIN portfolios, two of which were recently exited. I am a director on the board of one of the portfolio companies and serve in advisory roles for several startups and SMEs.