Have you ever heard of a college campus creating an escape room? With nearly two years of planning behind this current escape room, Finding Bigfoot has finally come to life in the Student Leadership, Involvement & Community Engagement office.
Completely free and available to all Colorado State University students, the SLiCE escape room was originally an attempt to amend how distant the CSU community was after the COVID-19 pandemic.
“There was a desire and I think a need for folks to be able to reconnect and lash together and have a good time and do it in a way that was hopefully low stress,” said Rachel Kiemele, assistant director for co-curricular engagement and the brain behind the escape room.
“It’s really easy when you’re in college to get tunnel vision and just be focused on that. Having an activity that’s super fun and kind of silly but also makes you work for it is really beneficial.” –Laura Bussard, SLiCE conference specialist
Those interested in giving Finding Bigfoot a try can sign up on the SLiCE website. Although only six participants are allowed at a time, SLiCE offers accommodations for larger groups that may have to split up.
“We can create a competition between the teams, like who can get out faster or stuff like that,” said Laura Bussard, conference specialist of SLiCE’s co-curricular leadership and engagement team. “We make it as inclusive for as many people as possible.”
Although the escape room currently resides in a temporarily designated space, it was not always contained to a particular room. Kiemele’s first escape room, Escape the Lab, began as a mobile event.
“I had a bunch of props and puzzles that I loaded into two big rolling tote bins,” Kiemele said. “I either found us a room in the student center and reserved it, or I would go to that group if they had a designated space and run the escape room for them and then tear it all down afterward.”
While the goal might be to escape the room, B Wuller, one of the first to participate in Finding Bigfoot, described the room as an escape in itself. Its immersive capabilities serve as a temporary pause from the outside world.
“I love how immersive it is whenever you walk into the room,” Wuller said. “The lights are off, the sounds of trees and animals are going and they really set the scene so that whenever you’re solving puzzles, it feels like you’re really in the world that they’ve created.”
Bussard emphasized the positive effect partaking in the escape room can have on one’s mental state, especially during the height of the school year.
“It’s really easy when you’re in college to get tunnel vision and just be focused on that,” Bussard said. “Having an activity that’s super fun and kind of silly but also makes you work for it is really beneficial.”
Regardless of which group one participates in the escape room with, whether that be acquaintances from a study group, close friends or coworkers, participating groups are forced to adopt a team mindset if they wish to succeed.
“The more you’re able to collaborate with one another and really work together as a team, the better you will do,” Kiemele said. “It is a mini lesson in communication and interpersonal dynamics and how folks work through conflict.”
SLiCE’s Finding Bigfoot room, although similar in difficulty to a professional escape room, is capable of providing more skills beneficial to development than other escape room experiences in Fort Collins.
“To be able to get an equivalent experience, but even more so focused on team dynamics and leadership, and that it is free for all students and staff, is pretty amazing and definitely a resource I think others should know about,” Wuller said.
Reach McKenna Van Voris at life@collegian.com or on Twitter @mckenna_vv.
