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We’re excited to share with you our press release which officially went out today!  It’s been great to have such a wide variety of players partake in our game and give such great feedback!  

December 17, 2018 – Nassau – A worldwide phenomenon has reached the Bahamas, with a local husbandand wife opening the Bahamas’ first escape room experience.

The idea was the brainchild of Lee and Chrystonia McCoy, who have done many escape rooms around the world. The pair developed the idea for the better part of a year, and attended the international Room Escape Conference in July. This motivated them to finalize the design and business aspects of the room, and the game started testing in September and officially opened for business in October.

To date there has been a mix of participants playing the room. Many local Bahamian players have taken part in their first ever escape room, while some have done games in other countries. There have also been tourists playing the room, from large family groups to experienced enthusiasts who sought an escape room in the Bahamas. The overall response has been extremely positive, with great reviews on Facebook and TripAdvisor.

Kathy, a Nassau resident, wrote “This is an amazing and absolute MUST see and do experience! So nice to have something different and exciting to do in Nassau. Thanks for the experience!”

For those who don’t know what an escape room is, the concept is simple – a group of people are placed in a room, and they have a set time limit to “escape” by finding clues, solving riddles, and completing puzzles. The challenge is in working together to complete all the tasks in the set time limit. The experience is akin to going to the movies, except it’s an interactive game in which you becoming immersed in the scenario.

“The backstory to Blackbeard’s Escape really ties into the history of the Bahamas and the surrounding Pirates of Nassau Museum” describes Lee McCoy. “The year is 1718 and Woodes Rogers is rounding up pirates – you are summoned to meet Blackbeard in his hideout and have just one hour to escape before the British soldiers find you.”

For those that may be claustrophobic or weary about being locked in a room, Chrystonia explains “you’re never actually locked in and you’re free to come and go, the game clock just keeps running. It’s a great hour because people put down their phones and come together as a team.”

The room is designed for beginners and advanced players. The fastest time to escape has been 27 minutes, while many groups have not escaped and were fictitiously caught by the British soldiers. During the game, the “game master” is watching and each team gets three hints to help them along the way. Some groups have escaped with no hints while others require more than three – it’s up to the game master to keep the gameplay flowing.

Many escape rooms use technology to augment the puzzles and clues, but a purposely chosen low-tech room was created. “We wanted to tie into the time period authentically – it adds to the immersion and makes people feel like they are trapped in a pirates hideout” explains McCoy. “There were no blacklights in the 1700’s, so we don’t have any in our room”.

The only complaint guests have is they can’t do it again. Chrystonia responds “we’re already working on more rooms with different themes; we’re really excited to offer more things to do for locals and tourists alike.”

Pricing for the experience starts at $30 per person or groups can book a private room for up to 8 persons for $199. Gift certificates are available for purchase. Guests can get more information and book online at their website blackbeardsescape.com or call 242-813-3222 for reservations.

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Blackbeard’s Escape Ltd. is a 100% Bahamian company owned and operated by Lee & Chrystonia McCoy. The pair also own TMC Engineering Ltd, Harbour Safaris Ltd., PROMPT, and Jungle Float Ltd. More details on the various companies can be found at www.the-real.com

For more information, or to schedule a media experience, please contact Chrystonia McCoy at email@blackbeardsescape.com or 242-813-3222.

The Blackbeard’s Escape design and management team travelled to Nashville to attend the 2018 Room Escape Conference & Tour.  The three day event was composed of seminars, workshops, and escape room tours.

The all-Bahamian team was composed of husband and wife Lee & Chrystonia McCoy along with Samantha Allen & Margot Constantakis.  While the McCoy’s have previous escape room experience, both Allen and Constantakis had never done an escape room before.

Friday consisted of registration and seminars, followed by a bus-tour to two Escape Room facilities near Nashville.  The first location was Locked Games.  The Blackbeard’s Escape team joined with other players from the conference to play the game.  “Game Museum” was selected and played – a brand new escape room with a board game theme.  As this was a new game, the team was not able to escape in the alloted time, and there were a few design and tech issues.  The second location was Liveminds Adventure Escape.  These rooms are built by professional set designers and escape room enthusiasts, and are completely immersive in terms of the set design and gameplay.  The “Pacari” game was an adventure set to a Mayan theme, with multiple rooms and amazing puzzles.  This time, the all-Bahamian team and their coplayers were able to successfully find the ancient wonder and escape the room.  

Saturday and Sunday were filled with classes, seminars, and workshops surrounding the escape room industry. Presentations, most of which were given by experienced owners of escape games, consisted of initial design and planning, set and game design, safety, marketing, best business practices, and a myriad of other topics.

Networking and team building played a key part of the weekend.  Contacts were made with enthusiasts, persons just starting their own businesses, and key industry players.  The tradeshow floor was also filled with demonstrations of mobile escape games, puzzle and set designers, booking systems, and everything else escape-room related.  The team was also able to further develop the Blackbeards Escape room experience and bond together as a team with a unified vision for the company.  Many ideas were brought forward on how to expand the current offerings and develop the market in the Bahamas and the Caribbean.

The weekend was rounded off with a final escape room tour – this time at a downtown location called Escape Experience Nashville. The multi-room game “The Inheritance” was played, together with a recently married couple enjoying their honeymoon.  The team was able to succesfully complete the challenge with 2 minutes to spare – not an easy feat considering there is only a 27% success rate for the game!

Blackbeard’s Escape is currently being finalized, built and tested with a scheduled opening in August of 2018.  The company is currently interviewing and hiring Game Masters to bring this amazing new experience to downtown Nassau.