At Escape Games Canada, we see players from all walks of life, each with different strengths and skills, that remind us every day of the importance of accessibility in escape rooms. Toronto is an incredibly diverse city, which means that our rooms must be able to accommodate differing needs. When it comes to accessibility, we’re always as transparent as possible about what our games will require of you, and our staff are happy to help with any questions or concerns. Here are just a few ways Escape Games Canada does its absolute best to keep our rooms accessible.
Space
Everyone who comes to play at Escape Games Canada has different needs, and how a group interacts with the space they’re given inside the room can either make or break an experience. We’re very conscious about space and the way we utilize it in rooms with what we do and don’t include. While some of the rooms, like the Haunting of Noriko and Mindshaft, require the group to be comfortable with mobility, the rest of our rooms have doorways that have been widened to accommodate wheelchairs or mobility devices. In most of our rooms, there are seats or chairs built into the sets so that someone who has difficulty standing for extended periods of time can take a seat if they need one. We’re also located on the ground floor of a building with parking right in front of our doors, which makes us accessible from the street! Overall, the space in an escape room will ultimately dictate how you’re able to engage with puzzles and will determine whether you have a poor or amazing experience.
Language and Audio
When it comes to the narrative videos for our missions, we make a deliberate effort to ensure the story videos for our missions all have subtitles. Plus, being fluent in English isn’t mandatory to solve most of the puzzles in our facility. We try to be as conscious as possible of language and audio when we create puzzles to make sure we’re keeping in line with good accessibility in escape rooms. For example, the Last Resort does not require the ability to understand English or the ability to hear to solve anything. Puzzles in the Last Resort will give both audio and visual feedback, so if you miss the visual cue, you will likely catch the audio cue and vice versa. While there is a puzzle that requires you to repeat a rhythm, you can easily feel the vibrations of the rhythm and replicate it. There are also opportunities in many of our rooms to participate in multiple puzzles simultaneously, so in most cases if someone in the group has difficulty with a puzzle, they can move to work on something else. We try our best to keep our rooms engaging and fun for everyone in the group!
Adaptability
Being able to participate in some way is an incredibly important aspect to accessibility in escape rooms. Whether that participation is memorizing part of a code or helping your team to understand how a puzzle works, adapting to the needs of your group is a fundamental skill–and we, the staff, take that to heart! The staff at EGC are enthusiastic about adapting your experience to make it the best it can be–if a group needs, we can hand out flashlights for persons who don’t see as well in the dark, provide chairs for those who have difficulty standing for extended periods of time, and help with any other request a group has! Overall, the experience you have will change depending on which room you pick because our games like Crossroads, Last Resort, or The Missing Will each have unique accessibility.
Accessibility is something we’re always striving to improve, and we’re always open to feedback. With so many different people in Toronto, it is hard to make something one hundred percent accessible to everyone, but we try our best with things like space, language and audio, and being as adaptable to the needs of each group.