Now that escape rooms are well-established entertainment many additional services and initiatives arose around them. Competition between companies and player groups grew stronger and took many shapes. Today we show you a list of noteworthy competitions and awards that are strongly tied to escape room business globally and locally.
The single most common request on every escape room enthusiast group is "which rooms in this area are the best?". While the question is simple and obvious, most of the time the answer is not. Between companies' advertisements and peoples' recommendations, there is no way to deduce which room really is the best.
Of course - the best room means a different thing for different people. One group might prefer rooms with many logical puzzles, while the other would favor good narrative and engaging scenery. That's probably the reason why during those years many kinds of escape room rankings were made. This of course includes lock.me ranking, that is well established in Poland and expanding to other countries. It is based on reviews from users and unbiased by personal preference of a single entity.
But personal insight is also important and where ranking algorithms might do well in the area of presenting offers, the escape room competitions and awards are what allows companies to shine and really show off. So today we present you the list of noteworthy initiatives and awards that are well established in the escape room market. Their order is completely random as we don't want to tell you which to trust - you can do that well enough without our help :)
TERPECA (Top Escape Rooms Project Enthusiasts' Choice Award)
This is probably the most known and established worldwide project. Its main idea is to take recommendations and votes only from experienced players and teams and then compute the ranking of most voted rooms and companies. Its categories include top rooms, top online rooms, and top companies.
Find out more here.
Bullseye Awards
Bullseye Awards are awarded by ESCAPETHEROOMers. For the last two years, they chose noteworthy rooms and products in countless categories, including best "set design", best "puzzle design", but also best "storyline" (our Escape Tales game won last year!) or even best "character".
Check it out for yourself here.
Escape Roomers Top Rooms
Besides regularly posting reviews of escape rooms this blog from Germany also compiles lists of best rooms. Their categories are "Best Live" and "Best Remote" and are definitely not limited to the German market. While the live category contains rooms only from Europe, the remote one has entries from all over the world.
You can see it here.
Escape Authority
Just like other blogs Escape Authority is also here to help us in a quest to find the best rooms in many categories or areas. They are located in the United States and concentrate on rooms there. Their "Keys to Greatness" are awarded to outstanding games taking many factors into account. From "Best Game" and "Best National Chain" to "Best Home Game" and even "Best Horror Theme" you will surely find something for yourself.
More about escape authority here.
Escape Room Awards
This is a happening that takes place in Spain, but their judge panel contains some noteworthy international people. While not much can be said for now it's worth keeping an eye on it - nominees will be unveiled on March 7th and we will know the winners by April 12th. Fingers crossed for all participants!
Save to bookmarks and watch it here.
USA today 10best
While rather niche and not up to date it's worth knowing the press is interested in the topic. Their judge panel contains some names widely recognized in the escape room world, so we hope they will do this more often.
You can find 2019 winners here.
Room Escape Artist Golden Lock Awards
Lisa and David Spira are individuals that usually need no introduction to the escape room world. Their blog is well recognized in the United States and the world. To no surprise, they have created their own rules and methods to select the best rooms in a given year and have been doing so for at least the last 5 years.
Check out their findings here.
Escape Game Awards
Those awards are limited to french rooms, but that doesn't mean they're less important. It's always interesting to compare regional awards with worldwide ones or simply check them out when traveling to the region. Their awards date back to 2015 and content categories for best game, best setting, best brand, and best escape room board game.
What is good in France can be found here.
Skeleton Key Awards
This is another blog about escape rooms that managed to compile lists of bests of the best in the United States. While there are no awards for 2020 yet, previous years are noteworthy due to many specialized categories, like "best overall storytelling", "most innovative escape room" or "best escape room for the whole family".
Read more about last year's results here.
The Golden Keys
London-based blog The Logic Escapes Me has also some interesting entries from Europe. Their awards are based on their personal taste, so if their reviews feel authentic, you will surely find useful information there. Each award comes with strong reasoning and a description of strong points.
Don't believe us, check it here.
Escapetalk.nl Crowd Favorites
Besides acting as a place to review escape rooms from the Netherlands, website provides also compilations of favorite escape rooms in given year. They have been doing so since 2017 and this list takes into account only rooms that got enough reviews and with high enough average rating.
To see what they came up with go here.
The end?
While 2020 has just ended recently (to a huge relief by many), awards and competitions will probably keep coming. Did we miss anything? Let us know! We will keep the list updated :)