Room Escape Artist

Way more than Squid Games

The capital of South Korea is a city with a bustling escape room scene, and though many of these games are only playable in Korean, some companies do offer their experiences in English for tourists to enjoy. If you’re planning to travel to the land of Kimchi and K-Pop and would like to work some escape rooms into your trip, this guide will provide some basic information so you can find, book, and get to some fun experiences. 자, 갑시다!

Use Those Searching Skills

Conveniently, “escape room” is the most effective search term for games in Korea. Even for games only in Korean! No basic search term seems to turn up all the companies though, because some of them barely have a web presence, at least as far as I could tell. Resources such as Morty can be helpful, but will feature non-English games and are not comprehensive. Don’t be afraid to ask locals for recommendations!

Then there is a little legwork to be done. Check out locations’ websites. If they have an obvious language option to put their website in English, most likely at least some of their games are playable in English. But don’t stop because there isn’t such a feature! There are some great games from companies who don’t translate their website. Use the translate feature of your choice to look around, searching for a FAQ or Q&A page. Language is often addressed there, where there may be a message saying something along the lines of “if you would like to play in English please email this address.” Lastly, click through to the description of the game you would like to play. Some companies put notes about language options on the game’s description page.

Short Advance Booking Windows

The games we played in Seoul were not able to be booked far in advance. Some locations had as few as 7 days available for booking, and the majority had somewhere between 1 and 2 weeks active. Most games requested a minimum 24 hours notice to play the English version. Nearly all games collected no deposit or payment at the time of booking, and those that had the option for pre-payment did not require it. 

Generally, players should expect to either have to choose an English option or be following special English instructions. If you’re about to confirm (or already confirmed, since there’s no deposit required) without designating English language somewhere, best practice is to email the company and make sure you’re squared away. All the games we played were private booking.

Confirm or Get Cancelled!

As a consequence of the lack of advance payment or deposit, the standard practice is for companies to contact players within 24 hours of their game, typically the day before, to confirm that the booking is still on. This is most commonly done through automated methods which are not usable by foreigners because the systems are not designed for non-Korean phone numbers. Do not disregard the emails you receive after booking, and pay attention during the booking process, as somewhere in there, the companies will communicate how foreigners should confirm their reservations. Some companies will request contact by text message, others email.

If you are unable to connect with the company, they will 100% cancel your reservation, as disclosed during the booking process. We were never able to connect with one company so we showed up early, but our time slot had been booked by another group since our reservation had been cancelled. We were forced to book a later game, which they took payment for on the spot, eliminating the need for the confirmation. 

Pack Some Socks

As is the custom for indoor spaces in many Asian countries, some locations require players to remove their shoes and exchange them for slip-on shoes which are provided in a range of sizes. Be sure to wear socks on escape room days. In general, smaller companies made us wear provided shoes, while the large chains allowed us to wear our own. If players wish to minimize trial-and-error shoe selection, they can prepare by looking up their corresponding Korean shoe size ahead of time since it is not printed on many western shoe tags.

Questions? Have Your Translation App Ready

Groups should anticipate the staff having just enough English ability to get players into and out of a game. These were trips where any communication that was outside of the standard routine, even simple questions like “Are the other games playable in English?” found us going straight for our translation apps. All the staff were friendly and patient with these awkward conversations, though, so don’t be afraid to do so. 

The games themselves though, including hint systems, were all nicely converted to English. This was typically accomplished by completely swapping Korean text objects for English ones, physically or digitally. Only in one case was there a Korean puzzle on a wall that we didn’t use. It felt like we were getting effectively the same experience Korean players do. All the audio for game content was also available in English.

Some Games to Check Out

Having spent a week in Seoul across a couple visits, after sampling experiences from about half a dozen companies, these are the games we enjoyed the most:

Deepthinker Escape Room – Ongyi’s Dream

Difficulty: Medium to High

This lovely story about a cat with a dream features beautiful, bright sets and puzzles that get all the little worldbuilding details right to tell a story along a journey. There is a high concentration of puzzles and story bits relative to the time limit, so bring your imagination and your A game!

Oasis Museum – Bæd Time

• Difficulty: Low
• Horror Level: Actively Scary

Bæd Time does an amazing job of putting players in the role of a child experiencing a nightmare. The set design, props, lighting, and scares were all top notch. There was a logical reveal which was deeper than expected and very satisfying. It’s Bed Time, and you’re gonna have a Bad (good) Time.

Room Excape White – B-Pollo 17

Difficulty: Low

In this game, though perhaps a bit unpolished, we felt like we were seeing the designers stretch their puzzle muscles, exploring 3D printing and digital formats with a remarkable variety of challenge types. The game wore its tech on its sleeve like few other rooms we’ve experienced.

Physical Post-Game Photographs

The post-game photo is an industry standard around the world, but Seoul is the only place in our experience where at many companies, those photos were immediately printed onto glossy photo paper and cut for us, ready to join our presumed collection of similar photos, which are popular in Korea.

Navigating with Naver

Getting from place to place in Seoul can be a bit challenging for tourists, because while the extensive public transit system is convenient, there’s no good navigation app solution for English users. The two most popular options, Google and Apple Maps, are okay at locating places generally, but unreliable for public transit, giving questionable directions with odd and incorrect localizations of subway stations. The most popular local app, Naver Map, gives great directions but its English implementation is threadbare and it often doesn’t correctly interpret English input. After a couple trips, we have settled on the following process: search the destination in Google Maps, go to the details and copy the address in Korean, and then paste that into Naver Map for navigation. 

Hongdae: An Escape-Filled Entertainment District

There are companies scattered across the city, but many of the English companies are concentrated in the entertainment district of Hongdae, just north of the huge Han River which runs through Seoul. This area grew up around the famous Hongik University art college and has a fun, artsy feel. It was neat to walk down streets and see “Escape Room” here and there among the buildings. It felt like a place where the industry is thriving. Be sure to check out the Red Road, home to street festivals throughout the year, more conventional games, entertainment, dining, cafes galore, and naturally, many, many photo studios.

The Soul of South Korea

The Seoul escape room industry, both English and Korean-only, seems to have weathered the pandemic better than some of its neighboring markets, where there was a lot of contraction. There is a nice range of approaches and styles across several companies, and though the market is less mature than many major western destinations, there are some great games to play. I’m very interested in watching these companies grow and evolve. In my opinion, Seoul is an underrated destination, and I hope that this guide is helpful should you choose to adventure there.