Escape if you can, in an hour

IT starts like this: You wake up in an unfamiliar room, and the last thing you remember is trekking in the woods when someone knocked you out from behind. Now you're trapped in this room, and you have just one hour to escape before your captor comes back - starting now.

If you recognise this spiel, then you are no stranger to the "escape room" - the latest in reality game entertainment that's spawned a mini industry in Singapore.

From just one or two operators offering such fantasy role-playing scenarios in the middle of last year, there are now no less than 10 independent companies - some with multiple outlets - and more are being added.

The escape room concept is simple - for $20-plus a person, you and your friends are locked in a themed room filled with clues and puzzles you need to solve in order to escape within the given time frame of up to one hour. It's a real-life adaptation of similar computer games such as Escape The Room, in which a pla…