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If escape rooms appeal to you, but locked, claustrophobic rooms filled with chaos do not, Adventures of Intrigue may be just the entertainment you are looking for.

Susan and Jim Seubert of Edwardsville opened the concept in April 2024 in an old car dealership at 2400 S. Jefferson Ave. The 9,600-square-foot building holds more than a dozen vignettes, from an apothecary to a castle to an archaeological dig site to a medical laboratory. There鈥檚 even a 12-foot erupting volcano and a magical treehouse for kids.

The Seuberts, who married 15 years ago, are well-known for their elaborate Halloween displays in their Edwardsville home, which until recently transformed into 鈥淗otel E鈥檝ille鈥� every Halloween season. Thousands would come through their home, yard and the tent they set up outside.

鈥淲e acquired a lot of stuff,鈥� Susan says, who notes that their decorations were never gory, just whimsical. 鈥淚t sort of became an obsession for me, creating these scenes. It became my biggest hobby.鈥�

They needed so many decorations to fill the house, they found themselves at Halloween trade shows. And at one in 2018 in Syracuse, New York, they met the owners of the Museum of Intrigue. 鈥淚 didn鈥檛 like traditional escape rooms, but we had toyed with the idea of starting one. Then we saw that and I fell in love with it. They had live actors, and it offered a whole different experience.鈥�

Indeed the live actors, are key, says Addison Lewis, general manager at Adventures of Intrigue. 鈥淭he main thing is you are immersing yourself into the world ... we are inviting you to join us in this world.鈥�

When you book, you will choose which adventure you want. The Seuberts and their staff created many of them; some are from the Museum of Intrigue, whose owners were consultants in the beginning. There are some made for younger kids and some for the whole family. The website denotes the appropriate group size, approximate time it will take (though you are not rushed and not kicked out if you have not finished) and the difficulty level. We chose Relic of the Ancients, a 2 out of 5 difficulty that should take about 60 minutes (and did).

Your adventure starts simply enough. You have entered a library, and the librarians (Seubert says they have a great crew of actors) are a bit distraught because several of their stories have escaped their books. You must help them. First, choose a cool hat for your adventure (if you want). Next, a key card around your neck denotes a symbol that you will follow throughout. Grab a flashlight and follow your librarian to your starting point.

Our librarian shared with us the professor鈥檚 diary. In it were the clues we would need to solve eight stations around the building, with the goal of decoding a message to unlock an ancient relic. She also handed us a bag with a few tools we may need (a magnet, a magnifying glass) and off she went. Our group of five, alone in the archaeological dig area, struggled to figure out how to start. Luckily, someone on staff (in character, of course) came by and gave us a nudge in the right direction. After that, it was smooth sailing. We solved each of the next seven puzzles without issue.

To solve each, we traveled to different vignettes, noting the items marked with our story鈥檚 special symbol. Within each vignette you could have other groups working on their stories but only one group at a time is completing the adventure you are on (the Relic of the Ancients in our case). Though we saw other groups as we entered, rarely did we come across them or feel intruded upon in any way. It felt like our group had these mysteries to solve by ourselves.

After our adventure (which involved finding the relic in question, of course), the librarians at the front desk invited us to look around at the vignettes that weren鈥檛 part of our story. There are 16 in all and the Seuberts are rightly proud of the attention to detail in each.

鈥淲e worked so hard on building this place 鈥� every detail 鈥� that we want you to see every inch of it.鈥�