Many people ask what exactly it means that Időcsapda is child-friendly. Almost half of our rooms are set in the wizarding world, chosen mostly by children — alongside Harry Potter fans among the adults. These are the most family-friendly rooms, but they are a great hit with adult players too. Some think they are meant for younger visitors because they are easier than the others, but that isn’t true: the difficulty of the wizarding-world rooms doesn’t differ from that of our other games. We warmly recommend these rooms to adults-only teams as well, because they too can offer a serious challenge. For us, child-friendly means that the room isn’t frightening in its theme, atmosphere or sets. Teams arriving with children get extra attention from us: we try to help more and follow their game continuously so that the sense of achievement isn’t missing at the end. Frightening teams is not our aim during a game — we are first and foremost an escape room, not a haunted house.
Besides the rooms set in the wizarding world we have several other interesting ones. They are less fairy-tale in theme, but they count as family-friendly all the same — our newest game, Chernobyl, for instance, and Prison Trap, which we can recommend to families with a clear conscience. Beyond these we do of course have rooms we don’t usually recommend to teams with small children. These are the The Psychopath Killer's Trap and CSI – The Butcher. These rooms are more frightening than the others in their sets and atmosphere, but they contain no deliberate scares. It is not our aim for teams to be afraid, and we try to dispel such feelings in our players. What matters to us are the puzzles, the dexterity tasks and the teamwork.
In our experience so far, children’s other great favourite at Időcsapda is the marathon. Here teams can play two or even three rooms one after another at a discounted price. It is a brilliant option because the team has time to settle into itself: roles emerge, and you get to know yourselves and your teammates far better — who is good at what. That way an escape can become a whole afternoon’s programme.
At Időcsapda you have several options for how to combine the rooms. Harry Potter lovers can combine the wizarding-world rooms in a marathon (Wizard Prison – The Burrow – Chamber of Secrets). But the range of options is endless: you can combine any two or even three of our rooms, gaining experience across more styles of game. You can take a break between games, or, if you’re on a roll and don’t want to lose the rhythm, play them back to back.
An escape can also make a very cool birthday present for children. At Időcsapda, alongside the classic escape you can also hold a party. This is a traditional birthday party which you can combine with a game in one of our rooms. Then, once you’ve escaped, you can enjoy the delicious birthday cake — part of our package — in our Harry Potter themed party room.
A birthday party may sound at first like something devised for children, but adults regularly come to us to celebrate and play too. Older guests tend to choose our Chernobyl Trap, CSI – Budapest and Psychopathic Killer’s Trap rooms, while children prefer our wizarding-world rooms. Six of you can play in a room at a time; many celebrating groups, however, arrive with more than that. In that case you can play a brilliant parallel game: the two teams start at the same time and can compete with each other. Who gets out first? After the game you can celebrate the birthday and the escape together. You can also hold the party in one of our rooms if you come with more people than our party room can hold; in that case we convert the room after the game so that it can host your guests. That way, alongside the birthday mood, you can enjoy the atmosphere of our rooms too.
