Channel Your Inner Sleuth With Escape Rhode Island

Compete to solve a nefarious (and fictitious) crime first.

I try to avoid activities of the cloak-and-dagger sort on the weekend. But duty calls: A new operation, Escape Rhode Island, set up shop in Providence and someone needed to see what they are up to.

Civilian teams are locked in a room (but not really, for fire safety reasons), then try to escape by following clues and solving puzzles. I enter “the Study” with two other unsuspecting strangers and am briefed on the mission: a reclusive billionaire is up to no good and several of our fellow agents have gone missing in his mansion. A team is sent in to investigate after hacking the security system, and they have one hour to find pieces of incriminating evidence and escape the study before the system comes back online.

Clues pile up quickly: Some documents hide behind a painting. There’s a chessboard with numbers scrawled under pieces; a cabinet secured with several locks; a clock with no numbers diagonally across from a mirror with what looks like a clock face drawn on it.

After a frantic hour of one puzzle leading to the next (clues change during each mission), we break into a hidden chamber behind the cabinet, and uncover documents indicating this billionaire’s nefarious doings, but we have not yet escaped. The operators behind Escape Rhode Island free and debrief us, but opt not to reveal how many other agents have been lost while we were indisposed. 385 Main St., 2nd floor, Providence, 572-3889, escaperhodeisland.com