Even as most of us have little to no control over the coronavirus pandemic’s narrative out in the real world, there is a parallel universe where you do have a chance to save humanity from this invisible nemesis. There too, the clock’s ticking…Mission Timeline by Mumbai-based Clue Hunt is also about the race for a cure. But here the setting is futuristic and the time limit just 60 minutes.
If you’re going to a place like Mumbai, you’re an adventurer. You want to check out the main tourist attractions in the city, but you also want to have a more unique experience as well. And that’s great! But planning an adventurous trip can be daunting. So to make it easier for you, we put together a list of some of the best options for your perfect Mumbai getaway. Hopefully one (or more) of them will strike your fancy.
Ready to play Sherlock 2.0? Here’s what’s in store…Want to solve a murder or bank robbery? We’re not kidding. You’ll have to don the detective hat here to solve tough clues, but this takes place in a single room! That’s right. An increasingly popular format sees clue-solving taking place in a 250 sq ft closed area! So you and up to eight pals first choose a theme in different rooms — from a murder mystery to a bank robbery, jail break or even a pirate game, where your ship is hijacked. You then decode each clue to go from point A to point B.
For now, most escape rooms appeal to the inner Sherlock Holmes in players, giving them the chance to play detective for a few hours. Ketan Chhatpar, cofounder of an escape room chain present in more than five cities says that players vary from 10 years old to senior citizens too. “What appeals to the audience most about this games is the experiential factor where there is a mix of the physical activity and virtual reality. When you play the game in a playstation or Xbox there is no tangibility,” he says.
Escape room games are getting more imaginative, using Indian themes, encouraging large groups to have themselves locked up for fun. Enthusiasts around the world have been bolting themselves inside theme-based, specially constructed rooms since the Real Escape Game opened in Kyoto, Japan, in 2007. In Mumbai, ClueHunt opened the first one in 2013 and operates 14 across Mumbai.
From evading mummies to defusing bombs, escape rooms allow you to live your video game fantasies. For millennials and corporates, they make for an unusual form of entertainment…One of the first escape rooms to open in the city was Clue Hunt in 2013, with outlets in Andheri, Bandra, Lower Parel, and Kurla. But the concept only picked up steam over the next few years. By 2015, two more escape rooms had sprung up.
The thrill of escape gaming has recently become part of the mall experience in Mumbai. Clue Hunt, India’s First Live Escape Game, opened its first outlet in Bandra in October 2013 and one among several in Phoenix Marketcity in Kurla at the beginning of this year.
Ten-Second Takeaway: Wannabe Sherlock Holmes, check out these live escape rooms – real-life mysteries in which, equipped with a ticking clock and a closed room, you have to solve a crime…A fake situation is created around you and you are not a character in a plot. You are stuck in a room, full of clues. You have to find these clues, fit the pieces of the puzzle together and escape for your pride.
Haunted tours, a temple trap, a prison break – urban Indians are embracing the thrill of near-real adventures, finds Moumita Chaudhuri. Across urban India, people seem to be taking a break from the virtual world and trying to re-connect with reality. And bridging the gap are different types of games.
Fancy rescuing a kidnapped Bollywood superstar from goons? Or saving the world from destructive chemical warfare? If yes, Mumbai’s escape rooms are the right gaming arenas for you. For years now, bowling alleys, go- karting, paintballing and arcade videos games have been the most popular go-to adventure activities for thrill-seeking Mumbaikars who are looking for gaming options that don’t involve staring at a computer or smartphone screen! But in the past few months, the city has seen the rise of a new form of gaming — live escape rooms.
Imagine yourself in a trench coat and with a magnifying glass in your hand, following clues to solve a mystery. Or getting into life-or-death situations and escaping by the sliver of a hair. Well, imagine no more! Thanks to Clue Hunt, India’s first live escape game, you can now awaken the Sherlock in you and get your brain waves tingling at eleven rooms scattered across Kurla, Bandra, Andheri and Lower Parel. Locked inside an unbelievably bizarre room, you have a few clues, your team and your wits to get you out of there.
If you want to put your deducing skills to the ultimate test after hours of binge watching Sherlock, Castle, CSI; then look no further! India’s first Live Escape Game is probably what you have been waiting for all your life. Started by Ketan and Tina Chhatpar, Clue Hunt guarantees you 60 minutes of cerebral fun. This game offers you a chance to decode a crime scene in a live-action sequence and control the course of the events. It may seem like any other room to you at first, but remember to hold your breath as you witness the mystery unfold.
Ketan and Tina Chhatpar, co-founders, Clue Hunt Remember the ’90s sensation Crystal Maze— Richard O’Brian’s shiny bald head and the thrill of wondering if the contestants will make it out on time? Ketan and wife Tina Chhatpar were similarly addicted, and, come 21st century, they moved on to live escape video games. When they realized that Tokyo and Silicon Valley hosted real-life escape games, the thrill-seekers knew they had to introduce the concept in India. They now spend their days creating “mystery adventure games where a group of people are locked inside a room and their goal is to find their escape within 60 minutes.” Clue Hunt is India’s first live escape game and they’ve already begun to spread their game rooms across Mumbai. They plan to open franchises across India by 2016.
Old studios, factories – even the race course – are being repurposed as entertainment options in space-starved Mumbai. Audiences are willing to experiment with their time, say the entrepreneurs who run these places. Clue Hunt, a real life escape game where players have to work with a set of clues to get out of a room, was started by Ketan and Tina Chhatpar. The concept was new and the couple had to spend on marketing it but in less than two years, they have opened three branches in Mumbai and are planning to scale up to seven in the next 12-15 months, says Ketan Chhatpar. “While the target market is pretty large, with anyone between 13 and 65 years, our main focus is on corporate teams, college students, and families.”
After completing a successful year in Bandra, Clue Hunt recently opened its second branch in Lower Parel. Yamini Walia visited the place to find out what’s new! Having visited Clue Hunt’s Bandra outlet, I was quite elated when I learnt about their new branch in Lower Parel. So, when I had the opportunity to try their new games, I couldn’t curb my excitement. The interiors of their new branch have a very Sherlock-inspired vibe. And so, as soon as you enter, you’re bound to feel like a detective! The one aspect that I really liked about the Lower Parel outlet is that the location is bigger, as it offers three new games. The Clue Hunt in Bandra, on the other hand, has just two.
Would you pay to be handcuffed and shut in a prison cell? Yes, say many thrill-seekers who are signing up for live escape challenges The outline of a dead body, marked in white chalk, glistened on the dark floor. Priyanka Minawala bent over for a closer look, pausing at parts which seemed to have been rubbed out carefully. She could feel the beads of sweat rolling down her temples as she picked up a piece of crumpled paper from the floor. “Don’t spare him!” it said. Minawala’s eyes turned to a painting on the wall. It was signed ‘Nancy’. The handwriting, a childish cursive, was exactly the same. She picked up the photo of a young girl lying on the coffee table.
After completing a year in Bandra, Clue Hunt has launched a new branch in Lower Parel with three different and exciting themed mystery rooms. With the addition of the Lower Parel branch, patrons can now experience five unique mystery games in Mumbai. Over the last 12 months, Clue Hunt has catered to over 900 groups comprising of around 3500 people.
Switching off the digital tsunami of online networking and social media, many like Rosalyn D’mello are logging out to plug into real life. At Clue Hunt, gamers play with real human beings, not cyber entities. “We decided to not allow mobile phones since we didn’t want people to get distracted.”
For the first time in India, a new gaming concept has been launched in Mumbai. Dubbed Clue Hunt, it is India’s First Live Escape Game. Do you want to spend an hour playing a fun, yet challenging game? Do you love solving puzzles and riddles? As we found out last week, for a successful escape you will need one power and two weapons… the power of teamwork along with your brain and common sense.
Tired of looking high and low for interesting things to do with your friends? Yamini Walia visited India’s first live escape game, Clue Hunt and tells you about her experience! Mumbai has pubs, bars, clubs, restaurants and a nightlife that swings from interesting to dull every couple of months. There’s never a scarcity of things to do — unless of course you’re talking about escape games. Confused? So were we when we first heard about Clue Hunt. But, as we read about the live experience, which involves brawn not bravery, we were determined to, head over and try out this relatively new concept.
DNA checks out Clue Hunt—an escape game format that attempts to bring to reality the thrill of playing a video game in a simulated yet real environment. Taking cue from Escape the Room format video games like Toshimitsu Takagi’s Crimson Room, Clue Hunt is a 60-minute, live escape challenge. Here, you get locked inside a room and attempt to solve a set of clues, puzzles and riddles to get to the key of the door that ensures your escape within the stipulated time period.
A husband – wife duo, addicted to the mystery solving genre, drew inspiration from a Tokyo based “live escape game” and after 2 months of extensive brainstorming and innovating, conceptualized “Clue Hunt” – India’s first live escape game, in December 2013. This new breed of games involves a 60 minute brain (and nerve) wracking challenge where players are locked away in a room and left to decipher, decode and break down a crime scene, relying solely on their abilities as a team. The goal: Solve the clues and escape the room in 60 minutes.
Boring team-building exercises make way for murder, mystery and fun thanks to two new start-ups: Clue Hunt – One room. One mystery. Sixty minutes. Being locked in a room and having to defuse a bomb doesn’t seem like a situation many corporates would find themselves in. But, Clue Hunt makes it happen. A new gaming concept, this is India’s First Live Escape Game, started by Ketan and Tina Chhatpar. Escape Room games is a worldwide gaming phenomenon where a group of people are locked inside a themed room and their goal is to find hidden clues to get out of the room within 60 minutes.
Picture this. You’re looked in a room with your group. The only way you can get out of there is to find the hidden clues. But you only have 60 minutes. These 60 minutes can make it or break it for you. Sounds fun? Head over to Clue Hunt then. Ketan and Tina Chhatpar, the founders of Clue Hunt, India’s first live escape game will give you the chance to live your own suspense thriller.
Mystery, Intellectual & Fun are the 3 words that epitomize the “never-heardbefore venture on Indian …
Knitting dolls, launching mystery parlours and authoring books, Sherlock fever hits the roof. He’s alive. While fans across the world were dizzy with glee that BBC’s television mini-series, Sherlock saw a third season put London’s favourite detective back in his 221 B Baker Street apartment, Mumbai loyalists are gearing up for the third episode, His Last Vow due to release today.
One of the many things Ketan Vinod Chhatpar and his wife Tina Chhatpar have in common is a love for ‘escape’ games — across various platforms, from mobile phones to Facebook. When they learnt that escape games were available in live, hands-on versions, in places like London and Paris, the couple decided that they had to be the first to bring it to Mumbai. “After some research, we can confidently say we are the only ones offering this in India at the moment,” says Ketan, though he agrees that a similar experience is available in the form of one-off treasure hunts that take place on a much larger scale.
Step into the shoes of Miss Scarlett or Hercule Poirot at Mr. Spylock’s Chamber in Mumbai. After popularizing recreational oddities like cat cafes (where a fixed cover charge allows you to pet and hang out with a variety of cats) and maid cafes and host bars (where patrons pay to chat with dolled-up strangers), the Japanese have a new kooky pastime that’s turned into a worldwide craze—the real escape game. Sort of like a real-life equivalent of the escape-the-room subgenre of video games, the real room escape game is exactly what you think it is: A group of people are locked in a themed room with only a set of random clues as a means to break out in 60 minutes or less.
Bring alive all your fantasies of playing detective, by solving a mystery at Clue Hunt, India’s first live escape game. Here, you can be Sherlock, or Poirot, if you wish to, for an entire hour. With the entire world waiting for the mystery behind the two-year cliff-hanger to be solved on the popular television series, Sherlock Holmes, why not get in the groove and try solving your own mystery? – See more at:
Tick-tock at Clue Hunt, a new mystery gaming arena in Bandra, you get hidden clues and 60 minutes to escape.
Whether you are obsessed with playing Say What You See on your iPad or prefer the more traditionalist board game of Cluedo – if you love puzzles – then be sure to check out India’s first live escape game arena called Clue Hunt in Bandra. What is Clue Hunt exactly? Imagine being locked in a room and your only way out is to solve the clues littered across the said room, using only logic and the power of deduction. Add a couple of friends to the mix, and what you get is 60 minutes of brain-stimulating fun.
Does the thought of being locked in a room with four of your friends and using clues hidden inside to find your escape within 60 minutes sound like fun?That’s Clue Hunt, a live escape game – and the first of its kind in India – that is now open in Bandra, Mumbai for those looking for a different sort of adventure.
Benedict Cumberbatch inspired you to turn into a sleuth? But if the missing spectacle of your grandmother is the only case you have got yet…
“Colonel Mustard in the kitchen with the candlestick!” Our reaction to our scout’s exclamation was mild bewilderment followed immediately by curiosity, so we followed him warily to Bandra. We wondered if we’d get any more clues until we received the motherload at Clue Hunt on 16th Road.