Escape Room NJ starts like a choose-your-own-adventure book: Would you and your friends rather be a posse of detectives, or a group of terrified civilians? As soon as teams decide, they're locked in a room to live out their choice. They have one hour to use the room's hidden clues, puzzles, and codes to escape.

Their experiences diverge sharply, though. Detectives experience the room as "Room 999," a mysterious place where inanimate objects move, the temperature changes more randomly than in the acclaimed TV show Surprise Fridge, and people sometimes go missing. Curiosity powers this version of the game. The scary version, on the other hand, is powered by the will to survive. In this incarnation, the room is an immersive take on The Ring. Groups aren't sure they're alone. They receive anonymous, sinister calls. A TV that shouldn't work turns itself on. Uh-oh.