THE cell door closes with a loud clunk. Gazing around the cramped, dimly lit room, my eyes take in a narrow bunk with soiled mattress, graffiti-covered walls and a toilet that looks uncannily like the one Ewan McGregor’s character Renton climbs out of in Trainspotting. Welcome to Alcatraz.

Well, not the real prison in San Francisco. This is a replica version, built deep in the bowels of Merchant Square in Glasgow. Escape rooms – where players solve an array of puzzles using clues, hints and strategy – are a burgeoning global trend.

Over the past 18 months a plethora of new venues have sprung up across Scotland, among them Escape Reality which runs themed games with spine-tingling names such as Murder In Whitechapel and Misery (yes, it is a homage to the chilling Stephen King novel).

I’ve roped in my husband Sean and two friends, Sam and Martin, to join me (the promise of a curry afterwards helped cement their co-operation) and we have plumped for Alcatraz due to it being ranked as Escape Reality’s toughest game.

Anyone who has seen Clint Eastwood as a hardened con in the Don Siegel-directed 1979 prison thriller Escape From Alcatraz will have a good idea of what awaits. In real terms, the closest analogy would be Krypton Factor meets The Crystal Maze.

Our game master, Robyn Galloway, takes us through the briefing. We are a crack team of escape artists who have managed to abscond from maximum security prisons across the country. The authorities have sent us to Alcatraz due to its reputation for being impossible to break out from.

Except they have made a catastrophic error. The four of us have been housed in neighbouring cells and when an incident at the opposite end of the facility distracts the prison guards, we seize the opportunity to make a bolt for freedom.

The premise is simple: we have one hour to escape. To do so, we must find special items and decrypt codes that will allow us to unlock doors and move through different rooms towards the exit.

Robyn will be observing our progress via a closed-circuit camera and we can use a handheld computer to ask for tips, although each comes with a five-minute time penalty. Her key advice is to communicate with each other and don’t overthink things.

As we peer through the bars, Robyn runs through some final rules. “Please don’t use brute force to try and open any of the doors,” she cautions. Her pained expression suggests this has happened in the past.

Beside me, Sam is already pacing like a caged tiger. I can hear nervous laughter from Sean and Martin echoing in the next cell.

“Any final questions?” asks Robyn. Sam pipes up: “Is that toilet functioning?” The answer is a resounding no. Good to know.

Robyn exits the room and the clock begins counting down. What follows over the next 60 minutes is a bit like a boot camp for the brain as we flex our grey matter with mental arithmetic, riddles, hidden messages, ciphers and combination locks.

Exhilarating and fun, it is easy to see why the escape room phenomenon – which has featured on popular television shows such as The Big Bang Theory – is such an addictive pursuit.

There are those return to pit their wits time and again. Last month Londoners Sarah Dodd and Sharan Gill set a new world record for successfully completing 500 escape rooms in a year.

According to Robyn, she is used to welcoming repeat visitors too. “Almost every customer comes back to try one or two other games,” she says. “We have a couple of people who return regularly to re-play the games because they enjoy them so much and want to get a faster time. We sometimes change the puzzles ever so slightly to keep it challenging.”

It is a surprising setting for romance too. John Martin, 47, recently proposed to his girlfriend Amanda Brady, 26, at Escape Reality in Glasgow with the venue staff making up special clues that led to an engagement ring hidden in the base of an old sewing machine.

“Amanda couldn’t understand at first why the ring was in there, but then she turned around and saw me on one knee,” says John. “That’s when it dawned on her.”

The couple from Hamilton plan to marry in December and hope to tackle an escape room with family and friends the day before their nuptials.

But back to Alcatraz where the hour is flying past. Escape seems imminent, but then, on the penultimate puzzle, we make a crucial mistake.

Focused on the task at hand, no one notices a small compartment has opened. Afterwards Robyn will tell us that for four minutes she watched in disbelief while our group continued to labour under the misapprehension we had yet to solve it.

In fact, the next clue had already been revealed and was in plain sight. “I was shouting at the screen: ‘Look behind you!’” she groans. We exchange sheepish glances.

This costly slip would prove our undoing. We are mere steps from freedom when the clock hits zero and our attempt is foiled. Alcatraz has proved unconquerable.

Well, at least for us. The fastest completion time for this particular game is 28 minutes and 28 seconds. Although our team is by no means the worst. “There was one group who didn’t make it out of the cells,” says Robyn. “They sat in there for the entire hour.”

As I write this from my bunk, I’m already planning my next escape bid. In the meantime? I’m sure I will grow to enjoy prison food …

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