Exit game media in early May

Jimmy Pardo, host of Science Channel's "Race to Escape"

(image via The Onion’s A.V. Club, with thanks)

Is this the media face of exit games? (Apart from being, very nearly, the face of an IT director this site knows…) This is the face of podcaster and comedian Jimmy Pardo, who is set to host Race to Escape on the Science channel in the US from July. The press release from channel owner Discovery Communications suggests that “Two teams of three strangers compete in the ultimate test of grace under pressure. Trapped in a locked barber shop, a bar, or a 19th century drawing room, the teams race the clock to solve clues hidden in their room to open the door to freedom and wealth. As the time ticks down, so does the money they stand to win. The first team to escape takes the prize and ultimate bragging rights.

This show could be really to this site’s taste if it has excellent, play-along-at-home puzzles and focuses on them. Alternatively, if it focuses on the interactions between the team members and the host being sour about the same, it could conceivably be, er, much less to this site’s taste. The world can but wait and hope. It’s certainly a lot closer to exit games in the mass media than the UK has got, other than the long-sought holy grail, two contestants competing at identical one-person exit games on episode 3 of Britain’s Brightest, which aired on BBC 1 on 19th January 2013 if you can make miracles happen.

The UK might get closer very soon, though: on May 12th, the latest series of Big Brother will start in the UK. This site has discussed the possibility of turning the show into an exit game; there’s half a thought that this show might turn itself into an exit game – at least for a while – because of its trailer and accompanying article from the Independent suggesting that this series will have a “timebomb” theme. You’d have thought that a time limit plus a confined space would be ideal territory in which to site an exit game, but the Independent speculates that the motif may be taken as an excuse to play with time in other ways.

Another contender for the title, which you’ve very likely already seen, is the exit game clip from Season 8, Episode 16 (“The Intimacy Acceleration“) of The Big Bang Theory, though you might not have seen the excellent Intervirals post about it, which includes Tweets with behind-the-scenes photos. The game bears considerable coincidences to Room Escape AdventuresTrapped in a Room with a Zombie. It’s arguable whether the clip paints exit games in the light of poor value for money, but suggesting that the team escaped in six minutes is a clear hint of the smarts of the team, not a complaint about the game.

4 thoughts on “Exit game media in early May”

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