Escape rooms, the trendy adventure games in which groups of players solve clues to earn their way out of locked rooms, are not for the claustrophobic.

Neither, it seems, is the business of owning and operating those rooms. A relatively new form of entertainment that started in Asia a decade ago and only spread to the United States in 2012, escape rooms are themselves becoming hard to escape.

With Florida-based Mind Bender working on opening a franchise near Donato’s Pizza on Fairview Avenue, Bowling Green’s escape room landscape is starting to feel like a room with the walls closing in.

Scheduled to open before Christmas, Mind Bender will join at least three other escape-room companies operating locally.

But that didn’t deter Tom and Jessica Dolan, who are working on opening the first Mind Bender franchise in the country as a spinoff of the original location in Jacksonville Beach, Fla.

“We were presented the opportunity, talked about it and decided to go for it,” said Jessica Dolan, who has a background in interior design and hardwood flooring. “This is very different from our other experiences, but we’re excited about bringing this to Bowling Green.”

Mind Bender will be the first franchised escape room business in Bowling Green, but it will have plenty of competition from home-grown businesses.

One of those competitors, Cord Glass of Hour Glass Escape Games in the Capital Commons shopping center on Pedigo Way, views Mind Bender as an addition to an already-successful escape room environment.

“In a way, we’re concerned because it’s more competition,” Glass said. “But there are three businesses now in Bowling Green, and all seem to be doing well, so it doesn’t worry us that much.”

Glass, a 22-year-old Glasgow native, started Hour Glass in June shortly after graduating from Berea College with a degree in technology and applied design. He was introduced to the escape room world three years ago when he visited one in Nashville.

“I loved it,” he recalled. “I started making plans to open one in Bowling Green.”

He was beaten to that goal by Red Door Puzzle Rooms on U.S. 31-W By-Pass and Conundrum Workshop on Russellville Road, both of which opened in 2016.

“I designed a room for Red Door, and that opened the door for me to start my own business,” Glass said. “I still have a great relationship with Red Door.”

In addition to the room at Red Door, Glass has designed the three rooms at Hour Glass. Although he and his parents are the only staff, Glass said business has been brisk both for families looking for fun and businesses doing team-building.

Business is so good, in fact, that Glass is already looking to expand.

“I’m looking to move to a larger building by June,” he said. “I’m an enthusiast. I have new ideas every day. I hope to have six or seven rooms eventually, but I want to see how Mind Bender affects me first. I definitely want to grow and expand as much as possible.”

Glass isn’t alone in being enthusiastic about escape rooms. The MarketWatch website estimates that the number of escape rooms worldwide has grown from zero to nearly 3,000 in less than a decade.

“It’s just an immersive kind of thing,” Glass said. “As soon as you do one, you’re hooked. It’s different from going to the movies, but the price is about the same.”

The price for the one-hour experience at Hour Glass and Red Door is $19.55 for adults, with discounts for youngsters, members of the military and law enforcement.

Conundrum Workshop, which has four rooms with varying themes, has a similar price structure; but Mind Bender is expected to charge around $30 per adult.

“Being a franchise, they are going to have more money to spend on their rooms,” Glass said.

That’s a concern for Conundrum Workshop founder Ken McCutchen, although his homemade rooms have some bells and whistles of their own. Drawing on his experience building “Dungeons and Dragons” games as a youngster, McCutchen incorporates laser pointers, motion-activated lights, hidden rooms and plenty of secret codes to make his rooms fun.

“We’re all about continuous improvement and customer satisfaction,” said McCutchen, a 46-year-old Monticello native. “I’m working on something new every single day.”

That philosophy has led to increased business at Conundrum Workshop, which outgrew its original location on Chestnut Street in downtown Bowling Green and moved to its current home in the Rose’s shopping center.

“We’ve been blessed,” McCutchen said. “Business has picked up considerably from last year. Folks seem to like it, and we’re getting more and more businesses coming in for team-building activities.”

Like Glass, McCutchen would like to eventually expand his business, possibly at his current location.

But those expansion plans may depend on the success of Mind Bender, which Dolan said will be “very different” from existing escape rooms. The new venture will have five rooms, with two of those the same so teams can compete against each other.

“We have a great location,” she said. “We have a new building, and our rooms will make you feel like you’re really in the situation. The detective’s office will feel like a detective’s office, and the Jewel Heist game will make you feel like you’re in a mansion.

“We just wanted to step it up a notch.”