Hatch Escapes began with two childhood friends, Terry Rolapp and Tommy Wallach. Terry and Tommy met in 1998, at an NYU summer program for high-school kids interested in writing musical theater. In the summer of 2016, Terry and Tommy did their first escape room (for the enthusiasts out there, it was Cold War Bunker at Room Escape Live in West Hollywood), and immediately decided they had to build on
e of their own. As luck would have it, Terry was then enrolled in the UCLA Executive MBA program, where he pitched the idea to his fellow classmates. That we at Hatch have gone from envisioning an escape room company to opening our first room in less than a year and a half is a testament to our passion for this medium. We believe that escape rooms represent something truly unique in the entertainment space, both as an artistic medium and a business opportunity. We believe that people are tired of digital experiences, of spending the whole day tethered to their phones and their computers. We love escape rooms because they’re physical and analog, because they involve communication and collaboration. We plan to design and build the best rooms in the world, both from a technological and a narrative perspective. We want to move the form forward, to create experiences so entertaining, engaging, and (dare we say it?) thought-provoking, that everyone who comes to Hatch leaves believing the same thing we do—that escape rooms are freaking awesome. In 2023, we also released our first tabletop game, Mother of Frankenstein, and acquired the award-winning immersive experience, The Nest.
