An Oral History of Supervillains
It’s National Comic Book Day! We at Escape Room Arlington love comics just as much as you, so much so in fact that we have a comic book themed escape room! Have you played Supervillains yet? It’s arguably the best escape room Ravenchase has ever offered; it’s certainly been one of our most popular escape rooms of all time in Ravenchase’s history. Its larger space makes it perfect for fun team building activities or birthday party ideas. As part of our series on the oral history of our escape rooms, here’s everything you didn’t know about Supervillains!
Supervillains as it appeared in Richmond in 2016. You can see the Joker’s Room is set in a comic-book-style panel. There were four of these rooms lined up next to each other, with many puzzles to be solved!
Supervillains has a storied history with Ravenchase. Opened in 2015, it was one of Escape Room RVA’s first rooms behind the original versions of Mind Trap and The Cursed Crypt, and coexisted with an early version of Glitch and their version of a Poe themed room. While many puzzles have changed since its inception, its original vision has not; We wanted to build a large room that had many smaller spaces, so that larger groups (and groups who had been combined to play together) could split up and work separately, coming together to share their discoveries and their ideas. Of course, all of the supervillains’ lairs are intertwined, so cohesion and communication are mandatory. This makes it perfect for team building exercise and corporate events.
This design philosophy was reflected in the construction as such: Instead of one room, there are four smaller escape rooms, each representative of a different villain. Namely, the four rooms are the lairs of The Riddler, The Joker, Catwoman, and The Penguin. The four rooms were set in a line next to each other, and the entrances to each room was an oversized cut-out comic book panel, so that entering a room was entering the comic book itself. There ran a thin hallway the length of either side of the rooms, so that you could traverse between each room easily. While you had access to all of the space at once, there were still hidden mysteries and secrets to be uncovered.
The same Joker’s room as it appeared in Herndon in 2017. Herndon added a nice bit of polish to the set and the puzzles!
During Supervillain’s reign as one of the best escape rooms Virginia had ever seen, Ravenchase RVA had been in the works developing a new horror-themed room to fill the vacancy that Mind Trap left, planning what would soon become The Mystery of Room 213. Our Herndon room was retiring one of their first escape rooms, Mary in Black, (a conceptually fascinating room inspired by Pleasantville and The Giver), with space for something new. Therefore Supervillains moved to Herndon, where their talented staff put their signature touches on the rooms to add more of their signature style of puzzles and a few twists that intertwined the rooms even more. Visually, however, the rooms and structure stayed predominately the same. Thanks to their hard work and talent, Supervillains was one of Escape Room Herndon’s most popular rooms, drawing much attention and recognition as one of the best rooms in the DC/Maryland/Virginia area.
The Joker’s room, as was in Herndon in 2017. This is the view the players would get as they opened the door to this escape room. You can see the long carpeted hallway that runs the length of the room, the comic-book-panel style opening into the Joker’s room, and the skyline painted along the back.
It was fall of 2018 when our Richmond location set sights on retiring their Lost Jewel of the James room, a pirate themed room, to build Cake or Death, which was a killer-clown room featuring a ball pit. Our Herndon location had its eye on using the room’s set dressings but inventing new puzzles to create its Maritime Mutiny room, and they decided to retire Supervillains in September of 2018 to make space. We at Escape Room Arlington were still filling out our arsenal of experiences, having opened only four months prior, and happily inducted this already great room to our repertoire, improving it even more.
Recognizing genius as it is, we preserved our Richmond location’s vision and concept, and preserved the best puzzles that Herndon contributed to the experience, while adding our refined and sophisticated twists to make the room truly unique and our own. We replaced the comic-book-panel entrances with fully framed walls and doorways, more luxurious and on-theme walling and floors, and added a fifth room with even more puzzles to the comic book villain’s lairs. With a figurative fresh coat of paint and polish, and new puzzles to be unlocked, Supervillains has been a very popular idea for birthday parties and fun outings alike. We’ve been thrilled to have it recognized by the ESCAPETHEROOMers Bullseye Awards, and we’re honored to provide Arlington the best escape room in the DC area.