Update 10/10/23: Check out our interview with TERPECA creator Rich Bragg on The Reality Escape Pod.
This weekend, while Lisa and I were dancing at Club Drosselmeyer (our review), the results of TERPECA 2022 were announced.
See the Results
Read the complete TERPECA Top 100 for 2022
You can also watch the recording of the livestreamed awards ceremony. (Lisa and I, and many members of the Room Escape Artist team, make appearances to honor winning games).
Congratulations to the Winners!
Here are a few highlights:
The top-ranked game is from Lockhill in Athens, Greece. Their earlier game The Sanatorium was one of the most memorable games we’ve played, and we can’t wait to get back to Greece for Chapel & Catacombs.
The Netherlands is one of our favorite countries to visit for escape rooms. We are excited to see that others agree, considering they have 3 games in the top 10… and we haven’t played 2 of these yet: Molly’s Game and Stay in the Dark. We loved The Dome.
The Man From Beyond at Strange Bird Immersive remains the top escape room in the USA. It dropped to #14, but after taking over the top US spot in 2019, it has continued to hold on there.
Cutthroat Cavern comes in at #18, the second-highest ranked game in the USA. Stay tuned for the ranking results from our most recent tour to New Orleans (update: now available) to see if it also tops the charts for our tour survey.
The only facility in the world that has three winning games under one roof is Escaparium Laval. We love this company and we can’t wait to bring our next tour to visit them. Tickets to this tour sold out earlier this week, but we are looking at making more tickets available, so if you are interested in playing these winning games, reach out to us now via the ticket page.
Update: Tickets for Session 2 are now available:
We’ve loved interviewing the creators of so many winning games on REPOD. We’ve had 8 of this year’s TERPECA winning creators on the podcast so far including Alexander Gierholz of Logic Locks, Jeff Leinenveber and Jarrett Lantz of The Nest, Jonathan Driscoll and Sacha St.Denis of Escaparium, Sarah Zhang of Omescape, Gai Bosco from Israel, Chris Lattner from The Room, Lukas Rauscher of Crime Runners, and Dimitris Varelas of Paradox Project.
Some Advice on Using TERPECA Results
Lisa and I have been Board Members of TERPECA since its beginning. A lot of people put a lot of work into this beast of a project. This is how we use TERPECA results:
- TERPECA may be an award on its surface, but its true utility is as a tool. We use it not to compare which game is better, but to find amazing games that we want to play in our travels.
- Don’t sleep on the Phase 2 Results. The TERPECA list is a lot longer than 100 winners. The Phase 2 ranking results are available, and for us, this is the true list. Damn near everything on this list is well worth playing if you’re anywhere near them. And so many amazing games are deep into this list. These are just a few examples of games that rank very high on my personal rankings, and fell short of the Top 100:
- 156 – The Observatory – The Gate Escape (Leominster, MA, USA)
- 159 – Below Zero – Crypto Escape Rooms (Newmarket, ON, Canada)
- 238 – Inventor’s Attic – Escape My Room (New Orleans, LA, USA)
- 269 – The Honeymoon Hotel – DarkPark (Zoetermeer, Netherlands)
- Whether you’re a player or owner, these results are not an absolute truth. Don’t freak out if your game or favorite game isn’t higher. It is a hyper-competitive list.
Speaking as a Board Member, TERPECA as an institution is always striving to make a better, more useful list. We hope that you enjoy using it to find incredible escape rooms.
And seriously, don’t forget to use the whole Phase 2 Results list.
Congratulations to all the winners! And congratulations to everyone who made the Phase 2 list!
