ABOUT THE PROJECT

A year after this storied complex was abandoned as a prison, designer Rosa Fransman won the opportunity to set-up an escape game in the compound. She created the team and offered me the privilege of being one of its co-founders and its lead writer.

Because of this rich, historic location we wanted to incorporate as many local stories into the escape game. We spent several weeks doing research, interviewed the last warden of the site, and compiled some great stories that made the foundation for the five cells.

Players had to escape one of five cells, each belonging to a former convict, and each had their own unique story based on actual famous criminals. from pockety drug trafficker, mechanically savvy biker to chess master mind.

After the game was written, designed and tested I became its first game master, acting as the antagonistic warden "de Vries" and also trained all subsequent game masters to host the game.

INTERESTING FACTS

This place was the most infamous and storied penitentiary prison in the Netherlands. It housed drugs barons, the Heineken kidnappers, IRA fighters and suffered over a hundred documented escapes that could fit right into a Hollywood script.

Its name "Bijlmer Bajes Unlocked" was the English title, the original name was "Bijlmerbajes Ontgrendelt". The word 'Bijlmer' references a nearby located lake Bijlmer, whilst the word 'bajes' is Dutch slang for "prison", something akin to "slammer". A more accurate translation would have been,"Bijlmer-Slammer Unbolted" but that was definitely not as catchy!

Owing to our smart puzzle design, great environmental storytelling, enticing acting and this storied location, the escape game became a huge success, as we sold out almost every day that we were live.

• We hosted over more than 12.000 players
• We witnessed more than 5.000 galant escapes!
• The location closed for good on 27 januari 2019 (and the complex was demolished shortly after)