fancy rescuing a kidnapped bollywood superstar from goons or saving the world from destructive chemical warfare if yes mumbais escape rooms are the right gaming arenas for you for years now bowling alleys go karting paintballing and arcade videos games have been the most popular goto adventure activities for thrillseeking mumbaikars who are looking for gaming options that dont involve staring at a computer or smartphone screen but in the past few months the city has seen the rise of a new form of gaming live escape roomsin this crystal mazestyle gaming experience players are voluntarily locked in a room prior to which their mobile phones are taken away from them filled with cryptic puzzles which they have to crack using logic and deductive reasoning most of these are based on situations and themes like solving a heist or recovering lost ancient artefacts from a museum the catch until the time you dont solve the problem you cant break out from the room shoaib punju who works at one such place in the city says you usually have 60 minutes to find the hidden clues if you are stuck and cant get ahead you can request for a hint and a clue will be provided to you though your time will be shortened there are different difficulty levels like easy medium and hard to choose from ketan chhatpar who has ideated and created 11 such escape facilities in the city adds everyone wants to be a protagonist and this lets people take role playing to a whole new level its intellectually stimulating when you see a timer ticking you get an adrenaline rush and it heightens the thrill of solving mysteryanybody can playanyone from eight to 80 years of age can indulge in it rahul reddy a supervisor at an escape room in central mumbai says you dont require any special set of skills just the ability to think out of the box unlike virtual gaming this is a fun physical activity for people who love adventures in escape gaming one indulges in brainstorming sessions to solve puzzles this is not only fun but also sharpens your mind and makes you think on your feetno cheat codesprateek dhruva who recently tried one such game where he had to locate an expensive painting that gets stolen in a heist shares his experience he says the most exciting part is that you feel like sherlock holmes because you are thinking logically and flexing your creative muscles also there are no cheat codes you can use to solve the riddles there are all kinds of situations one can choose from so theres a room to suit every persons acumen