Could You Decode This Escape Room With Only Your Non-Dominant Hand?
A cheesy reward awaits winners at this one-of-a-kind escape room.
If you missed the Cheetos: The Other Hand Escape Game, in partnership with Thrillist, this past weekend, you missed a dangerously cheesy experience. Held at The Escape Game in DeKalb Market Hall in Downtown Brooklyn, the immersive multi-room puzzle gave groups just half an hour to unlock a vacation rental and quickly solve an ongoing mystery with the goal of finding a Cheetos stash before the clock runs out. And if anything motivates people to solve math problems, answer trivia, and collaborate as a team, it’s free snacks.
The mission started with each member of our six person group covering their dominant hand with a bright orange and spotted Chester cheetah paw, inspired by Cheetos’ iconic mascot. Since most people eat Cheetos with their dominant hand, leaving fingertips a bit powdery and sometimes unusable, the plush paw mimicked this experience, meaning only non-dominant hands were available to spin numbers on lockboxes, unfold maps and search for clues.
What's worse? The paw was not equipped with e-tips, meaning all scrolling had to be done with the opposite hand. This was important, as we had a special group phone to help navigate clues and look up some essential Cheetos-adjacent information, such as the founding year of the neon puff (1948, in case you were curious).
The multi-room mission started outside a rental cabin in Cheddar Canyon, a mythical land where everything is Cheetos themed and, of course, we were locked out. Using hints around the room, we unlocked box after box until finally hacking the code to tap a tree in a special pattern that unleashed the key to our pretend weekend rental.
Once inside, cozy Cheeto-themed quarters greeted us: Records lined the walls, an art deco style cheetah print was mounted over the fireplace, and, like any rental where mishaps continue, the WiFi was out. Our group had to use an outdated object called a phone book to call the cable company, which asked us to solve more clues via a radio (this rental, though stylish, could be a bit more Gen Z inclined) to reset the Internet. Once online, instead of scrolling in the comfy digs, we watched the timer count down the 20 minutes we had left to figure out our next move. While there was a button we could press to ask the front desk for clues, we doubled down on the information we had available.
After deciphering strategically placed Cheeto bags in four flavors, we unlocked a chest and discovered a tube slide, through which we could access yet another room of the vacation rental.
This space, furnished with an oversize plush beanbag (a decoy!), a terrarium, plenty of artwork in which Chester himself posed in various vacation scenarios, plus a device suspiciously similar to what Chester uses for his infamous Cheeto dust explosions, it was clear this was the last room.
The clock counted down as we connected the cables and all of a sudden, the mantle opened with a celebratory pop and Chester himself paraded in, offering Cheetos to all. Photo opps in front of a neon sign spelling out “Dangerously Cheesy” were offered and gloves were returned, so we could eat our cheesy rewards with our dominant hands, as it should be.
Melissa Kravitz Hoeffner is a Thrillist contributor.