It’s officially spooky season. If you’re looking for something to do that captures the spirit and sense of adventure of Halloween, look no further than Locked Manhattan.
Founded in 2015, Locked offers six unique escape rooms designed by co-owners Zach Droge and Jess Tegethoff. In an escape room, you work with a team to find clues, complete tasks, and solve puzzles, all of which culminate in finding a key that enables you to “escape the room” within a designated period of time.
Jess and Zach both have backgrounds as artists, which has been instrumental in their success as escape room designers. “Don’t let anyone tell you art history isn’t useful,” says Jess, as she shows us “Leonardo’s Last,” a room themed around Renaissance polymath, Leonardo Da Vinci. In addition to her academic background in art history and sculpture, Jess has a professional background in hospitality management. Her skillset in hiring, people operations, and finance proved essential in the early stages of the business, when she and Zach were running all parts of the business themselves. Zach earned his Bachelor’s of Fine Art from K-State, where he studied Sculpture. He now also works as a software engineer, which no doubt sharpens his creativity and puzzle creation ability.
Each room at Locked has a distinctive theme and story, which requires months of planning and research before it is ready for the public. While many escape rooms purchase their puzzles from large companies, Jess and Zach design every last detail themselves. As a result of this time-intensive process, Locked reveals one new escape room (and retires one room) each year. Read on for details about each room.
The Witching Hour
-
Locked’s most popular room
-
Best room for beginners
You and your team are tasked with stealing a suspected witch's spell book and escaping her house.
The Dinner Party
-
Good for intermediate players
You and your team have been ordered to investigate the primary suspect in a string of recent murders.
Leonardo’s Last
-
Good for experienced guests
You and your fellow apprentices have accessed Leonardo da Vinci's private study in order to find an explanation for his mysterious disappearance.
Exit Strategy
-
Good for intermediate players
Exit Strategy and Enter Sequence share a storyline, but each room has its own set of puzzles.
You and your CIA colleagues have gained access to the warehouse suspected to house a suspected war criminal’s lab. You must infiltrate her criminal team and begin the difficult task of saving society.
Enter Sequence
-
Good for beginners
With the help of a shady hacker, you plan a stealth mission to find out exactly what weapons technologies are being crafted in an old ammunition storage warehouse.
Order of the Veil
-
Scary and dimly lit
-
Spider imagery present
-
May have jump scares
Since childhood, you’ve been taught to avoid the moss-covered cabin in the woods. There have been tales of strange beings sulking just beyond the shadows. At midnight on your 18th birthday, you gather a group of friends to venture into the woods. As you approach the threshold of the cabin, the air feels cooler, and as your hand makes contact with the doorknob, you all blackout… Discover what’s beyond the door in The Order of the Veil!