Dark Escape Games Launches at IAAPA

Looking for something new? How about a whole new category of fun: arcade cabinet-sized escape rooms? That’s exactly what Dark Escape Games debuted in the AVS Companies booth at IAAPA Expo with two brand-new titles Clown Around and Pyramid Scheme. (Clown Around was an IAAPA Brass Ring Finalist in the Best New Product category.)

The business is the brainchild of Sean Tyler, who’s been involved with custom game room lighting manufacturing for the past 15 years (think those great, oftentimes branded, lights above pool tables). With his Dark Escape Games, Tyler is bringing to market “miniature” Five-Minute Escape Cabinets that occupy a 20-sq.-ft. floor space and offer spooky themes.

He came up with the idea and started the project about a year ago, spending his time inside the studio developing and physically building the prototypes.

“I’ve always been obsessed with Halloween, so I wanted to do a haunted attraction,” Tyler explained. He first wanted to create a dark ride but soon realized the extensive time and money that would take, so he challenged himself to make something in a small footprint and asked, “What can I achieve in the next year?”

The result: “I achieved the same detail and the same visceral experience I wanted to have with the dark ride. Every square inch of this is a piece that moves a story forward. These cabinets start to tell a story from across the room.”

Clown Around features a circus theme where 1-3 players step inside, close the door and watch it “lock” behind them. (The magnetic locks allow users to leave at any time by pressing the End Game button.)

Here’s the story… Local authorities are still trying to piece together the grisly scene at the Devlin & Drury Circus this past week. They suspect one of the world-famous circus clowns to be the culprit but are asking for your help to piece together the clues.

“You have five minutes to sort through the evidence in front of you to determine who’s who,” Tyler explained, noting that a radio DJ tells this story and gives players directives throughout the experience. Only one of the clowns can be the killer.

“Whether you win or lose, the killer pays you an unforgettable visit in the end,” the gameplay synopsis reads. “The game cleverly melds together crime scene investigation, a ticking clock and everyone’s favorite – clowns.”

Creepy circus music ramps up, becoming more frantic as time winds down. The only aspects that break a player from the game’s immersivity, Tyler said, are that End Game button to open the door and a Hint button that offers help along the way.

Prospective players and onlookers can check out what’s going on inside the game via a screen on the outside of the cabinet.

With Pyramid Scheme, you and a guest or two are stuffed in a sarcophagus. An archaeologist explains that you’ve stumbled upon the tomb of Amenhotep Ra, just moments before an ancient curse allows him to rise again.

A game synopsis continues: “Guests must return the mummy’s vital organs back to the sacred burial jars to ensure he sleeps for another thousand years, but they will need to decipher the hieroglyphs to solve the puzzles to know which organ goes into which jar. Win or lose, the animatronic mummy will come to life to offer a few choice words to the meddling guests.”

“This game is more like a typical escape room and puzzle-based and it’s more difficult,” Tyler said. “Players reach into the mummy’s chest, literally, to pull out the rubber props and touch them to a jar, which will light up certain colors based on whether that’s the correct one or not.” 

For both games, each scenario has one correct answer, though expansion scenarios are planned annually in which operators will be able to “swap out puzzles in 2-3 hours and have a whole new game.”

While all of the prototyping work has been done at Tyler’s small space in Mishawaka, Indiana, within a few months, he plans to only be doing the woodworking aspects there, moving the artistic and electronic parts of the build to a facility in Chattanooga, Tennessee.

He said the games were initially designed to sell to existing escape rooms, for their lobbies. While that’s still a target market, he thinks a lot of FECs and tourist type destinations like Six Flags could benefit from the games.

“We just did an eight-week trial at a large national FEC chain, and it performed very well,” Tyler remarked. He also noted that AVS Companies came out and tried it, leading to their support as well.

“Eileen Schreiner and Tony Shamma have been very supportive,” he said. “I couldn’t be happier making the connection with them.”

Priced at $8, the unique experience is built for 1-3 players (the average came in at about 2.1 people per game on test). In fact, single players only got into the cabinet 5% of the time, according to the reports.

The games will ship early 2026 and a space-themed design with three built-in scenarios is expected to debut next summer. Learn more at www.darkescapegames.com.