Get out: 5 of Atlanta’s best escape rooms

If you’re feeling a little tired of the usual dinner and a movie, try breaking free from one of Atlanta’s top escape room experiences.

Not for the faint of heart, escape rooms are sure to give you and your friends an exciting, exhilarating and − at times − terrifying time. Escape rooms connect the elements of the theater with gameplay and special effects, and they are becoming increasingly popular.

Referred to as escape rooms or escape games, in each instance a team of people are locked into a room, usually themed around fantasy or horror, and the players must then solve puzzles and challenges in order to get out.

The appeal is that the participants are not just passively consuming entertainment (think movies or concerts). Instead, they are actively creating memories and experiencing something unique.

Whether you enjoy a little mystery, a touch of the paranormal or full scale horror, metro Atlanta has an array of options to explore.

Ultimate Escape Game

At Ultimate Escape Game, you can choose from various escape room scenarios that range in complexity and intensity. Find your way out of an underwater research station in “Submerged,” help locate an ancient tome in a haunted cabin in “Dead by Dawn” or discover a mental patient’s frightening past in “Amnesia.”

Location: Cumberland - 3200 Cobb Galleria Pkwy, Suite 150; Website: ultimateescapegame.com/atlanta; Contact: 770-629-0767

The Escape Game Atlanta

Located at The Battery Atlanta, The Escape Game Atlanta offers six different chances to test your escape skills, with rooms like “The Depths,” where players uncover the secrets of an undersea laboratory and “Playground,” where you get your chance to bust out of school for summer vacation. Other rooms at The Escape Game include “Prison Break,” “The Heist,” “Gold Rush” and “Mysterious Market.”

Location: Cumberland - 900 Battery Ave SE, Suite 1020; Website: theescapegame.com/atlanta; Contact: 678-831-6347

Project Escape Atlanta

Find yourself locked inside five different mysteries at Project Escape Atlanta. In “Vault 202,” the apocalypse has come, and you have to figure out how to disarm a nuclear bomb before it’s too late. If adventure is your thing, recover missing relics and escape the castle in “Knight’s Quest.” Consider “Nautilus” to try your skills at escaping the clutches of a deep sea monster.

Location: Marietta - 1395 South Marietta Pkwy SE, Building 200, Suite 230; Website: projectescape.com; Contact: 844-372-2731

Amazing Escape

At Rush Escape Rooms, you and your friends will work together solving puzzles, finding clues and piecing together riddles to escape one of their four different adventures. Find your belongings after a crazy night in Vegas in “Escape Vegas,” escape the terror of a dilapidated cabin in “Cabin in the Woods,” break free from a holding cell before they move you to a maximum security prison in “Prison Break” or make your way out of an underground laboratory and save the world by recovering a top secret virus in “Biohazard.”

Location: Norcross - 6040 Unity Drive, Suite C; Website: amazingescape.com; Contact: 470-294-0480

Time to Escape

Time to Escape features four private escape room experiences, including “Grand Zeppelin,” which stars an in-room actor. In “The Launch,” players try their hand on Mars, with an hour to prepare your rocket and escape back to Earth. In “High Noon in the Old West,” players will go back in time to 1899 to infiltrate the Wild Bunch. Time to Escape also offers the seasonal holiday escape room, “Saving Christmas.”

Location: Downtown - 231 Peachtree Street NE, B19; Website: itstimetoescape.com/downtown-atlanta; Contact: 678-335-4142

And there you have it. 5 escape rooms that will keep you busy and entertained!