Chen Yin (far right) still retains his interest in going out with friends to play real-life room escape games regularly. Photo provided to Shanghai Star

Being trapped in a room with a group of strangers might not sound very fun — but as Yu Ran reports, it's actually an increasingly popular social activity in Shanghai.

Chen Yin was one of the first people in Shanghai to start organizing real life Takagism games in the city.

Takagism is a game where people are locked in a room together and have to complete a series of puzzles within a limited time to break free from the room.

"I decided to organize it just to have fun and hang out with friends and do something creative. Room escape was very new to the city at that time," says Chen, who used to organize weekly room escape games with friends at a hostel, welcoming anyone to take part.

Chen and his friends ran regular events simply as a hobby, and only charged 40 to 50 yuan per person to play.

Normally, room escape games require fewer than 10 people to work together by completing a series of tasks such as finding clues, opening locks and solving puzzles within a limited time in order to escape the room.

"Most of the time we didn't socialize with those incoming players after the room escape, we meet up with different people every time," Chen says.