Some of Wilmington’s largest attractions are outdoors – the city’s Riverwalk and historic downtown, the area’s beaches and parks.

Recently, however, indoor experiential games have been on the rise in New Hanover County.

For example, Game Over Escape Rooms Wilmington, owned by Logan Zanki, opened recently downtown at 224 N. Front St.

“Each event spans across three to five rooms, so just when you think you’re finished, another room opens, offering more excitement,” Zanki said. “The smart rooms and cinematic quality transport you into the heart of the story, making Game Over Escape Rooms Wilmington more than just an escape room – it’s a fully immersive adventure.”

Zanki was quickly hooked and sold on the Game Over franchise idea when he first learned about the Greece-based franchise and worked to bring one to Wilmington as soon as possible after seeing all of the different ways it could benefit the city.

“I found out about it on a Thursday, looked them up and saw they had about 160 across the globe, and there were only two open in the U.S.,” Zanki said. “I found the guy in Florida who opened it and said, ‘Hey, I’d like to come see this place,’ and he said, ‘No problem.’ On Sunday when I walked in, my jaw dropped. It was unreal how detailed, how cool it looked. It’s like you’re actually in the movie or realm of what you’re seeing. Instantly there I put my deposit down and tried to pursue them to bring this to Wilmington.”

Everything in Game Over Escape Rooms is built in Greece. All of Zanki’s equipment for his franchise location was shipped over, followed by three-and-a-half weeks of a designer building it and getting it all put together for patrons.

“It’s very unique, and not your traditional escape room that you’re going to go to,” he said. “This is more an attraction than an experience. We’ve had people drive from Myrtle Beach; we’ve had people come down from Jacksonville. They’re not coming in for anything else. They came here just to play this.”

Game Over Escape Rooms Wilmington currently has four rooms: School of Magic, Lost City of Atlantis, Horror Circus and Illuminati. Each team is allotted 60 minutes to complete the room and ranges from medium difficulty to challenging difficulty to extreme difficulty.

“When you’re watching the camera of people playing in there, all you hear is ‘Oh my god, wow!’” Zanki said. “It’s fully interactive and there’s little things. Like there’s a spot where you grab another person’s hand and all of a sudden, a door opens, just from doing that. You look at little things like that that make this a big ‘wow’ factor on top of the design. One of the rooms has an active waterfall inside and you have to figure out how to get that waterfall to turn off so you can go to the next set of rooms.”

Other examples of indoor experiences abound in the Wilmington area.

Last year, Rally Point bar and arcade opened at 214 Walnut St. in downtown Wilmington. “At a regular bar, you can go and grab a drink and meet with friends and socialize,” said Kevin Ullman, who owns Rally Point with his friend and business partner, Andrew Hargrove. “We add a fun factor to that.”

Ullman spoke to the Business Journal about the business for an article in November last year. Rally Point has new and classic games, including Skee-Ball, Pong, beer pong, air hockey, basketball, Pac-Man, claw machine, basketball and punching bags.

In October this year, Ullman said Rally Point added a lounge on the second floor with craft drinks and more games.

Also in the lounge, “there’s a TV where you can play classic Nintendo, Super Nintendo or Nintendo 64,” Ullman said. “They’re free to play; just get the games and remotes from the bartender.”

Ullman said indoor experiences give people more options, especially in a tourist town.

Zanki believes one of the main reasons Wilmington is seeing more of indoor experiential games on the rise is due to an increase in tourism and competing entertainment options, as well as indoor options for rainy weather.

“Wilmington, like every small city, became big,” he said. “We’re a tourist location for the beach; people come here to get married. Around that you also have the weather that affects us. So you have to build things in addition to just coming here for the beach and river life.”

“When I go down to Myrtle Beach with my family, I don’t go to the beach,” Zanki said. “I imagine everyone now goes down for the entertainment, and Wilmington will eventually turn to that as well. You come down to Wilmington, you have the beach, you have the river, and you have the bar life. But what if you don’t want to go to the bar? What if you want to do something with friends and family? … It’s lacking here. We need more entertainment for the people that are going to come here. That’s going to then keep it to where it’s not just a seasonal thing; it’s a year-round thing.”

Managing editor Cece Nunn contributed to this story.