This document discusses escape room games that have become popular in Budapest, Hungary. It describes three escape room businesses - ParaPark, Szobafogság, and Pánikszoba Panic Room. ParaPark offers escape room games set in underground vaults where teams of 4-5 people must solve puzzles and clues within 60 minutes to escape. Szobafogság has rooms themed around crime scenes where players help investigate murders or stop assassinations. Pánikszoba Panic Room takes the escape room concept to a reinforced concrete bunker near St. Stephen's Basilica, creating a labyrinth-like experience for players.

1. DECEMBER-JANUARY 2012/13 Wizz magazine 11
I
n the quest for a life-enhancing
experience, being locked inside a
basement with an elaborate series
of puzzles and clues standing between
you and your freedom might not figure
prominently. However, if the freak-out,
calm-down, find-your-way-out scenario
tickles your curiosity, then next time you
and your friends are in Budapest, try the
enthralling room escape game.
Set beneath the Gondozó Garden ruin
bar, ParaPark (‘Fear Park’, Vajdahunyad
utca 4, parapark.hu) offers thrillseekers
a blend of urban puzzle solving, mystery
challenges and tactical team-building. In
each two-room vault, marked with courses
such as Studio 113, Experiment Number
5 and Passageway Number 9, a team
must unravel a series of clues, find hidden
messages and solve complex challenges
before the 60-minute timer runs out.
“There’s a child-like draw to the
clue-cracking detective work,” says Attila
Gyurkovics, the mastermind behind
ParaPark, and whose background in
psychology and group dynamics helped
create the unique obstacle course.
Out-of-the-box thinking and constant
info-sharing between the four or five team
members adds to the odds of breaking
out, he explains, but even players who
stay trapped find themselves completely
caught up in the moment. “It’s the focused
get-out-if-you-can rush that offers a
lasting sense of pleasure,” he says.
Since its inception in 2011, ParaPark
has now expanded into a nationwide
chain of captivity rooms – including two
new sites geared towards visitors set to
launch in downtown Pest in February –
but it has also inspired a dozen copycat
operations throughout the city. For those
who prefer their thrills with a high-tension
narrative, Szobafogság (‘Captivity’, Szinyei
Merse utca 15, szobafogsag.hu) is
an exciting alternative. In the Murder
Scene room, a group of crime-scene
investigators is tasked with helping to
save a girl from a serial killer, while in
the Party Secretary Office, a team of
agents must stop an assassination attempt
by collecting incriminating evidence
against the conspirators.
Pánikszoba Panic Room (Bajcsy-
Zsilinszky utca 2, paniqszoba.hu) takes
all the thrilleresque elements of room
escape games – a claustrophobic, off-kilter
set-up, impressively crafty quizzes and a
countdown timer – and transports them
to a reinforced concrete bunker near St.
Stephen’s Basilica. The result is a labyrinth
of twisted reality that is simultaneously
invigorating and fascinating.
the Budapest prison break
Words by Anna J. Kutor
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Illustration:VALERODOVAL/YCN