Sebastopol's SpaceTime Agency ‘escape room' gives fun, tangible adventure

In an old white office building on High Street in Sebastopol, a record player tucked in the corner of the entryway lazily plays as you walk in the door. You step into a small foyer and are greeted by two men in jumpsuits, where you learn about the mysterious disappearance of a scientist.

You step behind a door, and an adventure in time travel awaits.

The SpaceTime Travel Agency, opened? Jan. 25 by Sebastopol natives and brothers Galen and Aidan Forrest, is a new local escape room, designed from scratch.

For the inexperienced, an escape room is an in-person quest within a room or multiple rooms following clues and solving puzzles to ultimately “escape” the room within a certain time limit. A Japanese gaming company opened the first escape room in 2007, and the phenomenon gradually seeped into the U.S. around 2012.

“Adults rarely get the chance to play,” said Galen. “We work to tie in fantasy with truth so it blurs the lines.”

For the Forrests, who played their first escape room in London on a family vacation in 2016, it was the opportunity to blend their unique skill sets - Galen graduated with a degree in film studies from U.C. Santa Cruz in 2012, and Aidan graduated with a degree in robotic engineering from the same institution in 2017 - which became irresistible.

Galen noted that escape rooms were “low-tech” at the beginning, but have quickly emerged as an opportunity for technology and creativity to marry well.

“What drew us to it was if you have good ideas and you’re willing to be creative, it’s a pretty low upfront cost, although that’s quickly changed,” said Galen.

An escape room database maintained by gaming bloggers Lisa and David Spira estimated there were only 22 escape rooms in the U.S. in 2014, according to an article published in USA Today. The database calculated the number had increased exponentially to nearly 2,000 escape room facilities in the U.S. by 2017.

“The production value has increased to where many rooms are tech based or use tech to make the puzzle more dynamic,” said Galen.

A robot is involved in their escape room and seeing how the robot worked at an outside event is what first drew Sebastopol resident and graphic designer Sonya Warry to the experience.

She tested out the room with her boyfriend, Peter Koch, and two of their friends - noting the engaging type of experience it lended added to the appeal.

“Having interactive experiences brings us back into our senses and how to activate different parts of our brain with virtual activities,” said Warry. “Having to touch things, to feel a texture, the vibe of the room when people are getting stressed out and then you can all center back together - it’s a way to connect to your peers in a stronger way.”

Koch agreed.

“There’s more feeling and atmosphere to an escape room,” he said. “It’s not just trying to figure out the puzzle - there’s more that goes into making the environment.”

Why an escape room instead of a virtual reality experience?

“Virtual reality isn’t tangible,” said Koch. “An escape room allows you to have a tangible experience all at the same time.”

The tangibility of their escape room is exactly what the brothers are looking to provide their clients.

“We made sure to include stuff with texture, and really built the experience to include a variety of elements,” said Galen.

Santa Rosa High School freshman Anya Fouts, 14, played the game with her family and liked the tangibility aspect of the game.

“This escape room was more realistic and had more details in it,” said Fouts. “So it was more fun to figure out.”

Fouts had previously played an Egyptian “turn-key” escape room with her family above the Windsor bowling alley. While Fouts’ age group is often needled for an obsession with smartphones and screen time, Fouts noted this is the reason an escape room might have a different appeal for her demographic.

“Playing [the room] isn’t boring stuff like golfing or bowling,” said Fouts. “You have to do it with a group of people - communicating and working together as a team - which is probably good for my generation.”

The brothers started looking for space right before the 2017 fires hit in October, and their planning came to a halt as their community suffered through a major natural disaster. They had originally planned to launch a Kickstarter campaign just weeks prior to the event.

“It went from a fun idea to what it would take, to are we going to do this - to we’re doing this!” said Galen. “But then the fires happened.”

The Forrests put the Kickstarter campaign aside as their community reeled from the aftermath. They continued to work on transforming the medical offices on High Street into the Cold War-era themed series of rooms it is today.

“We always had an entrepreneurial spirit,” said Galen. Aidan agreed saying, “We always had lots of schemes.”

After over six months of construction and pre-construction on key elements like the robot, the SpaceTime Travel Agency opened at last.

For Fouts, the allure of the experiential piece of the game drew her to it more than video-style games.

“In video games you can sign out and cancel it really quickly,” said Fouts. “But you’re the person in this game so it’s more suspenseful and way more real, and it’s more of an experience than playing a video game.”

Warry compared the escape room to somewhat like living inside the Clue board game.

“My favorite part of the experience was how creative they were with placing the clues - they placed the clues - hidden in plain sight,” said Warry. “They put a lot of detail and thought into it.”

How fast did Faust and her family finish the escape room in? 53:35 - six minutes and ?25 seconds to spare.

Warry, Koch and their friends? 58:12 - just 48 seconds to spare.

For the Forrests, it’s not about the time spent in the room or about the puzzles solved. Instead it’s about the memories developed.

“We would have loved to have a place like this here when we were growing up,” said Galen. “So to get to do this in our hometown is pretty awesome.”