Month: January 2022

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5 CNY Taboos You Must Not Do

Post author By Cheah Ka Wai
Post date 25 Jan 2022
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5 CNY Taboos You Must Not Do (2022)

Chinese New Year is often recognised as the Chinese community’s largest and most important cultural celebration. As a result, various customs and traditions have developed around the holiday, with many ancient restrictions in force. There are additional taboos that have been observed in addition to these norms, with superstitious individuals taking great care not to break them. Some of these taboos are well-known, while others are less well-known and practised in only a few households today. In the run-up to Chinese New Year, here’s a list of five CNY taboos to keep in mind that you might or might not know about.

1- Avoid taking medicine

This may not be the most relevant taboo during these times, but there is a belief that taking medicines or going to the hospital in the days leading up to Chinese New Year is unwise. Why is this the case? According to the taboo, if someone takes medicine on the first day of the new year, they will be sick for the rest of the year. People with ailments used to smash their medicine pots after the arrival of the New Year was signaled by bell-ringing. They felt that by doing so, they would be able to rid themselves of their ailments in the coming year. Even Though at Breakout we have Materia Medica which is related to Chinese medicine there won’t be any medicine consumed here so you won’t be breaking any taboos.

2- Avoid borrowing or lending money

Borrowing and lending money during the Lunar New Year is frowned upon, so remember that no money should be lent on New Year’s Day, and all obligations should be paid by New Year’s Eve. If you owe someone money, wait until after the New Year to pursue the situation. Anyone who disobeys this taboo is said to be cursed for the remainder of the year. Well you won’t be lending anything in Perpetual, instead you will be stealing.. Hmm we think there isn’t any taboo on stealing.. Is there?

3- Avoid breaking things

Breaking is a symbol of insufficiency and bad luck. During the Spring Festival, breaking a bowl, plate, glass, vase, or mirror is thought to bring bad luck, financial loss, or family split so be sure to adhere to Breakout rules and not break anything in the rooms. You don’t want to receive a year worth of bad luck now, right? When anything is inadvertently shattered, people customarily wrap the shards in red paper and exclaim “Sui sui ping’an,” which means “all year safe and sound.” In Mandarin, 碎 (sui, meaning ‘broken’) and 岁 (sui, meaning ‘year’) sound the same.

4- Saying bad words and cursing

Swearing, uttering phrases with negative connotations regarding death, poverty, or ghosts and badmouthing are all things to avoid on Chinese New Year since they will bring you bad luck for the rest of the year. For example, the term “si” for “4” is also considered a negative word because it sounds similar to the word “death” in Chinese so please do not curse when you are frustrated trying to escape our rooms unless you want to be best friends with bad luck.

5- Do not clean or sweep

A day of cleaning is held before the Lunar Festival. That’s how you get rid of bad luck. It becomes a taboo during the real celebration, However. The act of sweeping insinuates that you are sweeping away good fortune, cleaning or tossing out garbage may seem similar too. If you notice Breakout to be a bit messy in the first few days of CNY then just understand that we don’t want to break any taboos but if you must, start at the far edge of the room and work your way inwards. Garbage should be bagged and thrown away after the fifth day.

We hope you took away something from this local knowledge about things not to do on Chinese New Year 2022. Even if you are not Chinese descent and don’t have to observe these Chinese traditions, it’s good to know what color to wear or how to carry yourself. This is how you can blend in with Chinese locals when joining Chinese New Year festivities! Also playing Breakout, does not break anything or break any CNY taboo.

Posted on 25 Jan 2022

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mobile escape game vs real life escape game vs virtual escape game

Post author By Cheah Ka Wai
Post date 11 Jan 2022
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Mobile vs Real Life vs Virtual Escape Game. Which one do you prefer?

Which is better? We have listed 3 types of escape games: Real life escape game is the tried and true in person escape room gaming that we all love, virtual game offers an escape room gaming experience that can be set up from a remote location and played from the comfort of your home, while mobile escape game is simpler switch phone based game that can be played anytime, anywhere.

1- Mobile Escape Game

There are many wonderful mobile escape games. Many Games out there can provide you with stunning visuals such as The House of Da Vinci, which is a real selling point for the aesthetically minded. Mobile escape games also allow one the flexibility to game with friends easily. All you have to do is add each other in the game and just like that, it’s “game time” . The portability of a mobile phone means that a world of fun is literally at your fingertips, and can easily offer a fun escape during your commute. The top trending mobile games currently are Adventure Escape series that sucks players into a well crafted and original storyline. In ‘All That Remains: Part 1’ the game includes a camera function that you will use to take pictures of clues. This added interactivity has not been seen in other mobile games and bridges the virtual and the real worlds. In The Escapists 1 and 2, you play the role of a prisoner tasked with collecting items to help you eventually escape, plus other challenges. As immersive as mobile games are, the downside is that you will not truly feel immersed in the game. While mobile escape games are great to pass the time, you are still ultimately looking at your phone screen and playing by touch screen. It will not come close to the exhilaration of escaping a room as one would experience in person, not to mention that if your battery runs out, your time is essentially up.

2- Real Life Escape Games

Real life escape games allow you to physically touch the walls and handle clues and puzzles in a faithfully reproduced 3D space. Physical escape rooms are much more realistic, with the set like rooms immersing you in a setting that matches the theme. The hands-on feeling of solving puzzles with a baseline requirement of dexterity and agility to move around the room will give players a more embodied and memorable experience generally. By engaging all 5 senses, you may find yourself experiencing an extra kick or adrenaline rush while you’re completing the puzzles. The rooms you are placed in tend to be realistically recreated, for example you may find yourself face to face with a life sized Marionette on a stage alongside yourself, as if you are a character in a story that is unfolding in real time at Breakout. The downside to it is the number of players that can join in on the game is limited as well since the rooms vary in how many people they can accommodate. If you’re a big group of 30 people, perhaps physical escape games aren’t for you unless you don’t mind dividing your group into smaller fractions of people. Theoretically, it is not impossible for anyone to create a stadium sized escape room to accommodate that many people like Squid Game but generally, escape rooms tend to be limited to a few persons due to spatial constraints.

3- Virtual Escape Game

A virtual escape game is an escape room game that you can enjoy from the comfort of your own home. It is normally the go to choice of companies that want a fun time at an affordable price while working remotely. Instead of traveling to the escape room’s physical site, the escape room will come to you – virtually. The online games at Breakout are generally conducted in a standard duration of between 90 to 120 minutes. With conferencing tools like Zoom and Google Meet used across the board these days, communicating remotely enables virtual meetups instead of going with the usual in-person escape room experience. Breakout’s “Finding Chris” is one such interactive virtual game, a rescue mission that puts you in an immersive situation so you can feel like heroes in a movie as the game is conducted in real time and you can interact with live actors as well. An added bonus is that the virtual escape game called “The Intern” by Breakout can accommodate up to 50+ people in one session and is very popular among the corporate sectors for their online team building game.

In the newer virtual escape games, you can also communicate with your team through web chat. Having your group mates in front of you, on camera brings an added dimension of interactivity that translates to even more fun. For virtual games you will need a strong internet connection. If you don’t, you may get left behind and end up a burden on your teammates who will have lost a player.

There are many ways to experience an escape game, whether online or in person. There are pros and cons to all of them but having a variety of options opens up the experience to literally every person in the world no matter where you are and how far away you are from the closest human being. For sure, in person, physical games should be your choice as they are, in our opinion, the most fun. For those who are more cautious of covid cases and worried of close contact cases however, virtual escape games are a great option, whether you are home quarantined or if you just feel safer staying home. Virtual escape games are borderless too, meaning if you have colleagues/ friends/ family overseas, you can reconnect with them over 2 hours of interactive and immersive gameplay. Now that you have a better idea of the types of escape rooms available, go ahead and book your session here!

Posted on 11 Jan 2022

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5 Guaranteed Anxiety Triggers for Every Game Master

Post author By Cheah Ka Wai
Post date 04 Jan 2022
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5 Guaranteed Anxiety Triggers for Every Escape Rooms’ Game Master

Going to an escape room is fun but a lot goes on behind the scenes just so you can have the best experience ever. Game Masters (GMs) are your trusty guides who feed you clues, explain the rules and understand each and every theme room. We all love them, we all need them. They may come across calm, cool and collected but beneath their professional exterior, there are some situations that happen behind the scenes that can make their job pretty stressful. Below are 5 guaranteed anxiety triggers for every game master:

1- Prop Malfunction

Every time a session finishes it’s the game master’s duty to reset the room to its original condition for the next set of players. Every prop is carefully checked to ensure that the rooms are in prime condition for a seamless and smooth gameplay experience. However, this doesn’t mean props will not malfunction during games, causing minor hiccups. Prop malfunctions are a Game Masters nightmare. Do not worry though, if they happen, Breakout will intervene to fix it for you as well as compensate you for lost time.

2- Player Injuries

In Breakout and other in person escape games, you could potentially injure yourself, especially if you get too excited and start forgetting the GMs instructions. We normally advise all players not to run as the space in which you have to move around is very limited. But if you insist on running and jumping as though there is a ton of space when there isn’t, you will definitely be on the watchful radar of the GM who pays very close attention to ensure everyone’s safety. Don’t be the cause of a GM heart attack please!

3- Setup Errors

This could be considered the biggest no no for a game master. GMs have been trained to set up the rooms to perfection but as we are all just human, errors still do occur even though we try our best to make sure you have a hitchless escape room experience. Perhaps we forgot to push a lock properly shut, causing you guys to breeze past a puzzle without doing anything at all. Great for you but a failure for us, and something we really don’t want to happen. If there are any setup errors – and thankfully, they are really rare – we will compensate you in different ways to make sure you leave happy.

4- Prop Thefts

There is a reason why we ask you to check your pockets before leaving. In our years of running an escape room, someone will inevitably and accidentally – at least we hope it is accidental – bring a prop home. We are all human, it happens. But say if you carelessly slipped something like a small key into your pocket and forgot about it, it will cause a mad scramble behind the scenes to find a replacement in time for the next group of players. We’ve had instances in the past where people return props days and even weeks after, and many stolen props don’t even make it back! If you really want a Breakout memento, ask the receptionist. We may have something more suitable like stickers or pins or a quirky photograph for you to take home with you.

5- Late Customers

This is perhaps our number one pet peeve. There is a reason why our game sessions are slotted according to time. Breakout runs on a very tight schedule and we are normally fully booked for back to back slots. If a customer is late, we don’t want to cancel your booking but at the same time, if we allow you to proceed, it may cause a ripple effect and end up disrupting the following sessions, making for some very unhappy customers left in your tardy wake. It is always a judgment call on our part and can be quite stressful for the Game Master so please do us all a favour – MAKE SURE YOU’RE ON TIME OR 5 MINS EARLY!

Now that you know what our game masters biggest stressors are, please don’t use it against us even as a prank! At Breakout, we pride ourselves in our professionalism and our awesome, immersive gameplay. So now that you know the Do’s and Dont’s of Breakout, what are you waiting for? Book your session here! We look forward to seeing you at one of our outlets soon!

Posted on 04 Jan 2022