Stories make the world go round, and sitting down with a good book is the perfect way to waste away the hours lost inside someone else’s world. They challenge your thinking, show you someone else’s perspective and take you on a journey that is either far from your own or so similar it resonates. From alternative universes to world-class detectives, the literary landscape has it all.
But how does that translate to an Escape Room?
While Conan Doyle’s Sherlock Holmes is the definitive mastermind detective, we will go a bit deeper. From the more obscure to the fantastical, let’s see how these 7 literary heroes have inspired the Escape Room experience:
C Auguste Dupin: The Murders In The Rue Morgue And Others
Edgar Allan Poe is the granddaddy of mystery meets the macabre. His short stories, poems and other written works explore everything from supernatural horror in ‘The Fall of the House of Usher’ to reinventing the sci-fi genre in ‘The Balloon-Hoax.’
But it is Poe’s definitive detective tale, ‘The Murders in The Rue Morgue’, that launched one of his major lasting legacies as he became the inventor of the detective fiction genre.
C Auguste Dupin is the colourful protagonist that has a baffling way of solving riddles and enigmas through unwavering logic and analysis. In short, Dupin is everything you want to be when confronted by the mysteries of an Escape Room game.
Chief Inspector Reginald Wexford: From Doon With Death And Others
Chief Inspector Reginald Wexford is one of the most famous sleuths of the twentieth century. But unlike others on this list, he is a sensitive man with an uncanny knack for teasing out the truth with his masterful attention to detail.
Wexford is reliable, endearing and no-nonsense, but most of all, he is an intelligent police officer that solves cases in unfussy, non-complicated ways that are just as efficient as Holmes, just without the flare!
Created by true crime legend Ruth Rendall, her Wexford series place you right in the heart of the action as he wanders through the English countryside working out whodunit!
Robert Langdon & Sophie Neveu: The Da Vinci Code
The mystery thriller ‘The Da Vinci Code’ by Dan Brown has it all: suspense, intrigue, murder, and offers an alternate history. But more than that, it centres around the lives of symbologist Robert Langdon and cryptologist Sophie Neveu. They try to piece together the aftermath of a bloody murder in the Louvre. Then, bam! We’re on the hunt for the Holy Grail.
Despite the plot receiving all sorts of backlash for its historical inaccuracies and the like, what stands out is the fascinating ‘cryptex’ device. A cylindrical, hand-held vault with a few surprises up its sleeve! Line up the five concentric lettered rotating dials correctly, and you get to see the hidden message inside. Get it wrong or force the cryptex open, and the message dissolves.
Dirk Gently: Dirk Gently’s Holistic Detective Agency
Douglas Adams might be better known for his comedic sci-fi series, ‘The Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy’. But his time travelling detective Dirk Gently should not be overlooked.
Gently’s whole detective agency enterprise operates on the “fundamental interconnectedness of all things.” While he might specialise in missing cats and messy divorces, his quintessentially Englishness makes him stand out.
Whether Gently’s visiting romantic poet Samuel Taylor Coleridge or taking on some of Norse mythology’s greatest legends, Adams’ whimsical sense of humour shines through every page.
Inspector Bucket: Bleak House
If you want a realistic depiction of what the lives and times of people living throughout the 19th Century were like, then Charles Dickens’ classic ‘Bleak House’ is well worth a look.
Inspector Bucket is a seemingly ordinary detective who ultimately solves the mystery at the heart of ‘Bleak House.’ Unlike others on this list, Bucket doesn’t rely on any instinctive flashes of deducible genius. Instead, he collects all the available evidence and observes the characters of the house.
Once Bucket has rounded up all the evidence, the solution is there for the taking!
Sam Spade: The Maltese Falcon
Dashiell Hammett changed the face of detective novels. He was amongst the first novelists to use dialogue that sounded authentic to the era. He was never afraid to expose the deception running rife through the political systems that were in power at the time.
Sam Spade is perhaps one of Hammett’s most enduring characters. Spade is a detective that his peers would love to be: complicated, unflinching, complex and silent. In essence, he is the embodiment of old school PI charm.
From page to screen, Sam Spade would become immortalised by Humphrey Bogart in ‘The Maltese Falcon,’ and to this day is still considered to be the “performance all other Hollywood tales are measured by.”
Miss Marple: The Murder at the Vicarage and others
Unassuming, petite and reassuringly traditional. All serve to create one of the best guises of all time: Agatha Christie’s Miss Marple. Underneath her façade of little old lady charm is one of the sharpest, investigative minds that can equal any of the detectives on this list.
She is fondly known as the ‘surprising detective’. For a woman who has spent her life in the small English village of St Mary Mead, is surprisingly worldly. But in her own words, “there is a great deal of wickedness in village life”. And thus, Marple has ample opportunity to observe human nature.
With her mixture of shrewd intelligence and her ability to blend into the background, Marple is often overlooked. As a result, has more freedom to pursue the truth. No one ever suspects the old lady knitting in the corner to have one of the sharpest, sleuthing minds in the room!
In the words of Sir Henry Clithering in ‘The Body in the Library, Marple is “the finest detective God ever made. Natural genius cultivated in suitable soil.”
Escape Rooms are a celebration of the cryptic, remarkable and downright mysterious. But without some of these leading literary heroes, our in-game experiences would look very different! Did any of your favourite characters make our list?