“Escape games” aren’t new, but a real-world format for the games is taking the concept to a larger audience.

The games are conducted in a real-world environment in an actual room, not just on a cellphone or computer screen like the traditional video game.

For a fee, people allow themselves to be locked in a room for an hour and try to escape while under supervision.

A group can range from a couple to eight or nine people. There are two companies and one local tourism attraction offering or planning to offer the games.

“I had a good time – the hour goes by quickly,” said Zach Phelps, who recently participated in an escape room scenario at the Conundrum Workshop in Bowling Green.

An escape is engineered by figuring out clues, some that might be in plain sight on a wall of the room, according to Ken McCutchen, who owns Conundrum Workshop, 728 Chestnut St., assisted by Joey Sheridan.

Phelps was one of McCutchen’s guests at the workshop last week.

“You definitely see personalities come out,” Nathan Burgett, Phelps’ co-worker at The Holiday Inn University Plaza, said after the group completed their experience. “You work together every day, but in a fun environment you see the personal side come out.”

A leader may emerge in a group working on one of the puzzles, McCutchen said.

Nicole McDonald, another member of the Holiday Inn game contingent, said she tried to lead her group of nine people, but “nobody was listening.”

Angela Price said a stop at Conundrum Workshop was her second escape room experience. “I had done this room before with five others, but it was totally different,” Price said.

McCutchen said he recently redesigned the room.

Conundrum Workshop has a room that looks like a mad scientist’s lair, called the Wacky Laboratory 2, and a second room that features an Alice in Wonderland theme. The Holiday Inn group tried Wacky Lab 2. The website bills the challenge as: “Professor Seymour Conundrum’s dream is to make time travel as commonplace as air travel is today. Can you activate his time machine before the entire laboratory explodes in a nuclear blast?!?”

The escape room concept, first on video and then for real, originated in Japan, McCutchen said.

“Someone in Japan built a room for real, and the concept hit the United States about 24 months ago,” McCutchen said.

The process participants undergo in an escape room takes more than a little brain power.

For example, a long, wooden desk in a room might have several drawers padlocked, and with some inquisitiveness by the participants, keys might be unearthed in the room to open those padlocks and find more clues. One clue in plain sight was ignored by the group until late in the 60-minute time frame in which they had to escape.

“It is a challenge and it is a lot of fun,” Sheridan said. “I’ve seen people come in here and exchange numbers.”

Nathan Booth and his fiancee, Katlyn Coskran, run another escape room operation in Bowling Green called Red Door Puzzle Rooms, 2140 Old Louisville Road. Red Door Puzzle Rooms feature an Insane Asylum room and a Showtime room, which has a theatrical theme.

“We have a lot of people who come in looking for something new to do,” said Booth, who first saw an escape room in California.

Booth estimated about 800 people has visited Red Door Puzzle Rooms in the past three months.

“It takes a week to a month to design a room,” Booth said. He said that his fiancee’s mother, Roxanne White, helped the couple set up the new business.

Both Conundrum Workshop and Red Door Puzzle Rooms opened in January in Bowling Green.

Besides the two escape room businesses, a local tourism attraction also has plans to enter the escape room opportunities.

Jamie Johnson, executive director of the Historic RailPark & Train Museum, said two more escape games are coming to Bowling Green, each one featured on a rail car outside the museum at 401 Kentucky St. The games will be called Mercy Train and Caboose Crash, Johnson said. McCutchen of Conundrum Workshop designed Caboose Crash. The rooms are slated to open in late August, Johnson said.

“This is a great benefit for our customers looking to the winter months ahead,” Johnson said. The games are in their final stages of preparation and some details are on the railpark website.

Johnson said putting escape games on the rail cars at the railpark was a natural decision. “We can offer a truly authentic train experience,” she said.

The Mercy Train escape game will be set on an actual World War II-vintage hospital rail car that was procured out of a Louisville salvage yard by the railpark.

The not-for-profit railpark plans to use proceeds from the tickets to Mercy Train to raise money to finish outfitting the hospital car. “We are looking for new sources of money,” Johnson said, adding that videos touting both escape games will be placed on the railpark website.

Johnson said the escape games target a nontraditional audience. Patrons typically are train enthusiasts, history buffs and children interested in the special youth programs throughout the year.

Johnson said a wedding party has already booked one of the train car escape rooms this fall.

— For more information, visit http://www.conundrumworkshop.com, www.reddoorpuzzlerooms.com or historicrailpark.com.

— Follow business reporter Charles A. Mason on Twitter @BGDNbusiness or visit bgdailynews.com.