Wofford students escaped a serial killer and saved Boss from Professor F. Urman during Interim.
The two adventures were part of the Breakout Games course. Taught by Dr. Jenny Bem, associate professor of accounting, and Dr. Amanda Olsen, associate professor of accounting, the course was designed to help participants sharpen their critical thinking and teamwork skills through breakout games and escape rooms.
“Each class, we would work on logic problems to push our brains,” Bem says. “We also visited some escape rooms to challenge ourselves and put those skills to use.”
For their final project, students created their own escape rooms in Olin Building and invited their peers to try to break out of them.
Ann Elise Moody ’24, a biology major and economics minor from Greenville, South Carolina, helped her group put together the room Buried Alive, which is based one of her favorite episodes of the TV show “Bones.” Participants had to solve a fictional serial killer’s mystery to escape. The room involved puzzles ranging from reading ultraviolet symbols to opening the window blinds to read a sign on a tree outside.
“The goal was for the group to crack some codes so they could send out coordinates to be rescued,” Moody says.
The most Wofford-themed room was Save Boss, where the participants, playing as Campus Safety recruits, rescued the college mascot and arrested his captor.
Room hosts Sanders Hill ’27, an undeclared major from Greenville, South Carolina, and Avery Howard ’26, an environmental studies and international affairs double major from Greenville, South Carolina, stressed the importance of paying attention to detail and thinking as a participant while designing the room.
Howard says the level of detail can make or break a good mystery.
“You have to consider all the different outcomes of each action,” says Howard, “and what people might do next during each individual puzzle.”