A new mobile game that asks people to get out and explore their city is coming to Muncie.
Beyond the Walls, a scavenger hunt adventure game, was started by the owners of Room to Escape in Fort Wayne, Indiana.
“We have an escape room in Fort Wayne,” said owner Jay Hatfield. “A little over two and half years ago, we were finding out that people were coming in and playing all of the rooms and they were asking us when we could build another room.”
Creating a new escape room is expensive Hatfield said, so he got the idea of creating an outside game.
“We try to make all [the games] based around some history. We have had people play them and said, ‘I’ve lived here all my life and I never knew this about the city,’” Hatfield said. “We want people to learn about history.”
Hatfield, who was born and raised in Muncie, graduated from Delta High School. To him, the game is about getting people outside of the house with their family and friends in Muncie.
The issue, Hatfield said, was finding something that all age groups would find interesting.
“We have even thought about coming into college towns and just setting [the game] up on college campuses just so that especially freshman can become more familiar with what the college is,” Hatfield said.
His wife, Kim Hatfield, said the goal was to get people outdoors and learn, all while having fun.
“I think it’s a great way to be outdoors, explore your city, learn some history facts in a fun way by doing an activity outdoors,” Kim said. “It doesn’t matter if you’ve lived in a city your whole life or if you’re new to the city because there is always something you can learn.”
Kristi Drillien, director of operations, researches city history to help create the challenges.
“A lot of it comes from visiting the locations and seeing what’s there,” Drillien said. “I definitely do a lot of research before we visit a city and then I explore it, take pictures, and then back at home, we dig up all sorts of interesting facts about cities.”
The game, which can be played alone or in teams of up to five, is available on both Apple and Android. For a team of five, the cost is $39.
Contact Andrew Smith with comments at ajsmith15@bsu.edu or on Twitter @AndrewSmithNews.
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