Today we’d like to introduce you to Tracie Whitacre and David Sebek.
Thanks for sharing your story with us Tracie and David. So, let’s start at the beginning and we can move on from there.
David and I are both 20+ year residents of Sugar Land and have been friends for over 15 of those years. Our families met when two of our children joined a creative problem-solving team and we have been close friends ever since. David and I both graduated from Texas A&M and 4 of our 6 children are either students there now or have already graduated from there in addition to David’s wife and my dad. Escape Again Rooms is definitely Aggie-owned and operated.
Ever since our families met we have spent countless hours hanging out, watching Aggie sports and playing games. Board games, card games, trivia game, dominoes, cornhole… there aren’t too many games we don’t like and there’s nothing better than getting away from the tv and smartphones to spend quality time together as friends and family.
We had been talking about playing an escape room for over a year and loved the idea of having to use teamwork, critical thinking and creative problem solving to escape from a locked room. It wasn’t until April of 2016 that we finally had a chance to try out an escape room. We were hooked from the moment we opened our first lock. In a little over 24 hours we played four rooms and were working on a business plan to open our own escape room.
From there it was a parallel process of planning the business, finding a storefront and all of the legal/IT/finance decisions coupled with the creative side of what our escape rooms would be. Escape rooms can be opened through a franchise, you can buy a “room in a box” that is pre-written or you can be completely independent and organically write and build the rooms. We chose to design, write and create our escape rooms organically. We wanted to be different from everyone else in the Houston market and make a fully-immersive game that is challenging and fun and keeps customers talking and wanting to come back.
Today we have three successful escape rooms open and are working on developing rooms four and five.
Overall, has it been relatively smooth? If not, what were some of the struggles along the way?
Step 1 in the process, before we signed a lease, was to build a prototype escape room in Tracie’s upstairs media room. We built out two temporary walls and recreated a laboratory that players found themselves locked in after the release of a dangerous virus.
We tested out the game flow and puzzles with friends and family just to see if we could really create our own rooms. It went well and we learned a lot about game design and puzzle flow. Our friends and family were supportive with their feedback and we decided to take the leap forward.
For the three rooms that we have created and are currently open, there are at least ten room concepts that have never left the planning stages of the dining room table. We have written, rewritten, tested and retested every idea and concept. It takes a strong sense of empathy for your players and a tough skin to test ideas that many times. You have to design the rooms with the player experience in mind and if they are not having fun or if the game does not make sense then you cannot let that bruise your ego.
Player feedback is humbling in that you are so appreciative of anyone who takes the time to tell you what went well but more importantly what could be improved.
Because there are so many different companies in the Houston area, we wanted to stand out, to offer a unique, immersive experience. There were definitely nights when we were exhausted and it seemed like all of our room ideas were terrible and we questioned if it wouldn’t be better to just go out and buy a room. Thankfully we persevered, fought through all of our bad ideas, and developed the rooms players are enjoying today.
Please tell us about Escape Again Rooms.
For people that don’t know what an escape room is, a group of people are taken into a themed room where they must find all of the clues to solve puzzles to get out of the room within 60 minutes. The rooms can hold anywhere from 2-10 people and the more people you have the better chance you have to escape. Children under the age of 12 are welcome to play but they will need an adult in the escape room to help solve puzzles.
We love the idea of an escape experience being immersive. The focus of our rooms is to create a space where players feel like they are separated from their everyday lives and playing a role in a real-life adventure.
So, if we are proud of one thing, it is players reactions when they walk into our rooms and appreciate how much work we put into creating environments that take the players out of the ordinary.
We will continue to push to make our experiences as immersive as possible, giving players something they will enjoy playing and they will continue talking about after they leave.
Our current rooms are…
The Hike, you are going hiking in the woods to find your uncle’s cabin to help him find clues to get him out of jail.
The Séance, you are going to a farmhouse in the swamps to help find a missing person.
Santa’s Workshop, you are helping to find Santa’s list so he can deliver toys.
If you had to go back in time and start over, would you have done anything differently?
We wish we had played our first escape room a year earlier and started this whole journey sooner. We have so much fun writing and creating the rooms and there is so much satisfaction when our customers have a good time. Bringing friends, family and co-workers together without TVs and cell phones and getting them talking, interacting, thinking, working together and laughing is very rewarding.
Pricing:
- $25/person
Contact Info:
- Address: 3564 S Highway 6
Sugar Land, TX 77478 - Website: www.escapeagainrooms.com
- Phone: 832-999-4572
- Email: info@escapeagainrooms.com
- Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/escapeagainsugarland
- Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/escapeagainrooms/
- Twitter: https://twitter.com/escapeagainroom
- Yelp: https://www.yelp.com/biz/escape-again-rooms-sugar-land
- Other: https://www.tripadvisor.com/Attraction_Review-g56723-d11868283-Reviews-Escape_Again_Rooms-Sugar_Land_Texas.html
Image Credit:
Shelby Kirk
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