Escape Room Experience Comes To North Bethesda

BETHESDA, MD — You're Robert Montgomerie, the sole remaining heir to a large family fortune who had just been framed for the murder of your grandfather. Before the cops come, you must find a way to prove your innocence.

Now you're a detective aboard the famous trans-European Budapest Express, where a man was murdered. It's up to you to catch the killer before the killer catches you.

You're Jack Lanman, the Secret Service agent tasked with protecting the President of the United States. Both you and the president are on Air Force One when, suddenly, the aircraft's engines fail. You soon realize that this isn't the result of a mechanical failure, but the work of a mastermind who wants the president dead. Safely land the plane and quickly find the person behind the attack.

Now you're one of several scientists investigating an abandoned laboratory that once belonged to a high-ranking chemical weapons specialist for the U.S. government. A clumsy member of your team bumps into a shelf, sending vials of a contagious virus crashing to the ground. Everyone is infected, which means you need to find the antidote...and fast.

In all these very different, grim scenarios, your objective is the same: Solve the mystery and escape in 60 minutes or less.

Think you can do it? Now's your chance to put those skills to the test at Escapology — North Bethesda's newest escape room experience.

Located at 11572 Old Georgetown Rd., Escapology offers visitors a chance to find clues, solve puzzles, and pick locks in one of four themed escape rooms.

For $35 a pop, you and up to five friends will be "trapped" in one of these rooms and forced to work together in order to escape. There's a 60-minute time limit.

The escape room concept reportedly started in 2007 in Japan, where entrepreneurs wanted to bring the challenges of video games into real life. Now there are hundreds of escape rooms in the United States, including in North Bethesda's Pike & Rose development.