What is "Escape the BOOM"?

"Escape the BOOM" is a quick puzzle and communication game that appeals to people who like to play Escape Rooms or social games. It works best in groups of 3 to 6 players.

The game consists of a mobile app and a manual that can both be downloaded for free at www.Escape-the-BOOM.com [1].

It is a collaborative game, so the whole team wins or fails together. One player must defuse a bomb, shown on the smartphone or tablet, but does not know what to do. The other players have the bomb manual. They can figure out what to do, but they do not see the bomb. So, they need to talk it out quickly, because the timer of the bomb is counting down mercilessly.

How to facilitate "Escape the BOOM" in a team workshop

Besides being a casual game to play with family and friends, "Escape the BOOM" is a great game for team building activities, trainings that involve remote communication channels or in agile retrospectives. It provides a great opportunity to reflect on a team’s communication and collaboration patterns that will undoubtedly emerge during this exercise. But, because of the playful and (hopefully) not-work-related topic, these patterns are much easier to be discussed openly.

Preparation

• Schedule at least 45 minutes for the workshop. We recommend holding the workshop during the afternoon, so the team members can go on playing after hours if they want to.
• Prepare fully charged smartphones or tablets with "Escape the BOOM" already installed, so you can start right away. We usually split up the group in teams of 3-6 persons. Provide one device per team. If you don’t have enough devices yourself, maybe participants can bring their own. They don’t need to purchase the app – the first four levels are free to play, which is usually enough for 30 minutes of gameplay and 15 minutes of debriefing. The app is available for Android and Apple.
• Bring a printout of the manual for each participant.
• Prepare the room: We recommend setting up a group table for each team, with the bomb operator sitting on one side and the manual holders sitting on the other sides, so they cannot see the screen. Provide some pens and paper on each table, and a flipchart for the debriefing.
• Connecting the device to a speaker via Bluetooth adds a nice touch, as the musical soundtrack is adding to the tension.

Facilitating the workshop

• Prepare an introduction with a little bit of drama such as: "Imagine you’re living in the 60s, the times of Woodstock and the Cold War. Imagine that you are a member of the CIA, and you have just found a bomb. Unfortunately, you are a member of the cleaning personnel of the CIA, so you have no clue how to defuse bombs. But you have the phone number of the folks who have the manual, and you call them immediately. Now talk it out quickly and defuse the bomb!"
• Now let’s start with Level 1 and play. The first level is very simple - the purpose is to learn the navigation. Don’t worry, it will become harder.
• Some participants might argue that they need to read the entire manual beforehand. Insist that they will have to start immediately. Because the bomb won’t wait until they are prepared. The easy solution of the first level will convince them that the full knowledge of the manual is not necessary to start.
• Every time a bomb is successfully defused, the game moves on to the next level. The difficulty increases with every solved level. We usually tell the teams to rotate roles and hand over the bomb to the next person every time the team fails and the bomb explodes. This way, everybody has the opportunity to be the operator.
• Every time a bomb explodes, encourage the team to hold a short retrospective and decide on improvement measures. Observe how they improve, and also reflect this to the group.
• When you still have 20 minutes left, let every team finish its last round and then gather everyone for the debrief.

Debriefing the workshop

Plan at least 15 minutes for the debriefing. Some questions that we like to ask are: