Behind the Scenes of Jumanji: Designing LA's Best Escape Room

Since its debut, 60out’s Jumanji: Welcome to the Jungle escape room has been making waves. Regarded by players as the best escape room in Los Angeles, the Jumanji room gives players an unforgettable, dynamic adventure with challenging puzzles and an exciting storyline.

But what makes this room so popular? Find out how 60out’s scriptwriter made this extraordinary experience.

A New Adventure

The movie Jumanji: Welcome to the Jungle hit theaters in 2017 with resounding success, 22 years after the original film and board game. Immediately, old and new fans were swept up into a jungle-themed adventure. Partnering with Sony Pictures, 60out brought that adventure to life with the official Jumanji: Welcome to the Jungle escape room. The room builds off of the movie’s design, theme, and settings to create an immersive experience for players, while still giving them a new storyline to play through that goes beyond the movie.

In the game, players each embody a specific role and work together to make their way in and out of the jungle, just like in the movie! However, rather than recreating scene-by-scene experiences, 60out’s scriptwriter Pavel Z. gives players new interactions and continues the storyline of the film. There are pieces and Easter eggs from the movie that fans of the franchise can find, but they’ll be going on a brand-new adventure with their team.

“We want to let players feel immersed in a story they know, while still giving them something original and adding to the universe”, says Pavel Z.

Combining Technology with a Jungle Adventure

While the game is an extension of the movie and not a re-creation, 60out worked closely with Sony Pictures to ensure every element in the room was accurate to the film. Players get to see pieces of the iconic Jumanji board game and interact with props they might recognize from the movie.

“We actually got to see the script before the movie even came out”, Pavel Z. says. “We worked closely with Sony to make sure the environment we were making felt the same as the movie”.

A major challenge the engineers faced was concealing all of the technology that brought the room to life. In a room like Jumanji, players shouldn’t see the touch screens or sensors that make the puzzles run smoothly. Engineers had to turn their construction into magic tricks that were believable and real, while still being logical and themed.

Engineers who worked on the Jumanji escape room paid careful attention to the aesthetic design as they built the intricate puzzles that keep the game running. The end result was a technologically-advanced puzzle environment that feels like a living jungle!

As Pavel Z. explains, “People’s imagination will fill in the blanks, we just have to give them the story and the environment to let them do that”.

Check out this video for a behind-the-scenes look at the construction of our Jumanji escape room:

Surviving The Jungle As a Team

The game is designed with a number of unique puzzles and challenges that fit into the Jumanji theme.

“We want people to feel good about their gameplay”, Pavel Z. explains. “We design games to play to people’s strengths. Groups will have anywhere from 4 to 8 people in them, so we want everyone to be able to do something. Everyone likes different things — some players want to feel the story and the game flow, some like the physical puzzles, and some like intellectual puzzles. We try to separate the roles for people and turn it into a group effort. We let people embrace characters and their own strengths during the puzzle to create a sense of unity through immersion”.

The game was designed with teamwork in mind, giving players an exciting new experience that unites them and their friends. As a result, the game is built with dozens of diversified puzzles for players to solve.

Like any new escape room, the Jumanji room underwent a series of modifications based on trial and error to give people the best gaming experience. Players tested the room, and designers paid close attention to the puzzles that worked and the puzzles that didn’t and adjusted the gameplay from there.

Ultimately, what makes an escape room like Jumanji so popular is the effort and attention to detail put into something people already love. The popularity of a familiar setting like Jumanji combined with the a masterwork of set designers and scriptwriters provides a uniquely immersive experience that gives players memories that will last a lifetime.

Think you have what it takes to survive the jungle? Book your adventure now!