A room escape location. Photo provided to Shanghai Star

To their surprise, after about a year of hosting the games, room escape started to become increasingly popular, but Chen and his friends decided they wanted to keep it as a hobby, and had no interest in capitalizing on the game.

"We hadn't thought of expanding it into a business, which required investment and risk control. None of us was willing to give up our full-time job for that, so we called that off," Chen says.

However, Takagism is still a hobby for Chen, as he is fond of solving puzzles and challenging his limits.

Now Takagism has become a popular social event among young people like Chen to meet new friends.

"It is a good method to get closer to people by setting up a similar goal – get out of the room, solve a problem and work together as a team," Chen says.

Chen no longer acts as an organizer but is a participant or experienced player who leads a team of people to find the solution.

The game is still very new to Alma Xu, who has played room escape for one year and finds it very exciting.

"Real-life room escape is a more interactive group activity that requires us to get to know each other better and learn how to cooperate as a team," says Xu, who organized a recent room escape activity inviting some friends including Chen to meet more people.