Offline.bg launched in 2014 as one of the first comprehensive booking and management platforms for escape room businesses in Bulgaria. Instead of building a simple presentation website, we created a system that manages the entire process – from choosing a room and making an online reservation to payments, calendars, customer communication, and the team’s day-to-day operations.

More than 10 years later, the platform is still used in a real operating business. The technology behind it has also been adapted for other escape room operators, while our long-term involvement in the project has given us practical experience not only in software development, but also in the everyday operation of this type of system.

Results at a Glance

  • 10,000+ reservations
  • 10,000+ teams
  • 20,000+ participants
  • Around 80% of reservations are made online
  • 10+ years in real-world operation – from 2014 to today
  • 5+ other escape room businesses use the technology, including multi-location operators

The Challenge

An escape room business has very specific operational requirements. It does not sell a standard product, but time slots for an experience. Each room has its own schedule, capacity, price, available and occupied slots, booking rules, and periods that need to be blocked.

When the project started in 2014, many of these processes in the industry were still handled manually – over the phone, through separate calendars, spreadsheets, emails, and internal communication. This created a risk of double bookings, missed time slots, delayed confirmations, and significant administrative work.

Our goal was to create a system that brings these processes together and enables the business to operate in a more structured, faster, and far less manual way.

The Solution

We built Offline.bg end-to-end – from the concept, UX/UI, and software architecture to the frontend, backend, booking engine, payments, administrative system, and integrations.

The public-facing website presents the rooms and the overall experience while guiding users through a clear path to booking. Behind it sits a specialized management system through which the team controls rooms, schedules, pricing, reservations, payments, deposits, customer communication, reminders, and completed games.

Booking Engine for Escape Room Businesses

The platform supports the management of multiple rooms, each with its own schedule, capacity, pricing, and booking rules. The team can view upcoming reservations in a calendar, block time slots and periods, manage availability, and monitor room occupancy.

Customers can independently choose a room, date, and available time slot and complete their reservation online. The system supports online payments and deposits, making the process more secure for the business and reducing the risk of no-shows.

Today, around 80% of reservations are completed online through the platform. This makes the website a real booking tool rather than simply a presentation website or inquiry form.

CRM and Operational Management

The administrative area functions as a specialized CRM/ERP system designed around the day-to-day needs of an escape room business.

The team can track upcoming reservations, manage customer information, edit bookings, control pricing, calendars, and blocked periods, and send emails and automated reminders.

Automating reservations, confirmations, reminders, and calendar management significantly reduces the amount of manual administrative work and allows a large part of the operation to be managed from one central system.

Integration with Room Management Software

One of the more specialized features is the integration with the software used during the actual escape room games.

Once a game is completed, the system allows team photos to be added directly to the completed session. This closes the entire customer journey – from the online reservation and the real-world experience to the content created after the game.

These photos serve both as a memory for participants and as a natural marketing asset for the escape room brand.

UX and User Experience

The public-facing part of Offline.bg had to communicate the atmosphere of the escape room experience while also guiding the user toward a reservation.

The UX is built around a clear journey: users understand the concept, choose a room, view available time slots, and make a booking. The visual design conveys mystery, teamwork, gameplay, and adventure without revealing too much about the rooms themselves.

Technologies

The platform has been developed with Symfony, MariaDB, Twig, Bootstrap 5, Webpack, and a custom administrative panel built on our internal architecture and adapted specifically for escape room booking and management processes.

Results and Real Business Impact

Offline.bg evolved from an idea for an escape room website into a platform that has been managing real business processes for more than 10 years.

More than 10,000 reservations, 10,000 teams, and 20,000 participants have passed through the system. Today, around 80% of reservations are made online.

Automated bookings, payments, calendars, confirmations, and reminders significantly reduce manual administrative work and allow the team to spend more time on the customer experience itself.

The architecture proved flexible enough to be adapted and used by 5+ other escape room businesses, including operators with multiple locations.

The platform has been continuously developed and maintained from 2014 to today. For us, this makes it a particularly valuable type of project because it provides a long-term, practical view of how a custom system evolves together with the real business, its users, and its operational needs.

What We Built

  • Custom booking engine
  • Online reservations by room, date, and time
  • Online payments and deposits
  • Management of multiple rooms, schedules, and calendars
  • Availability and blocked-period management
  • CRM/ERP logic for customers, reservations, and communication
  • Automated emails and reminders
  • Completed-game and photo management
  • Integration with escape room management software
  • Administrative system for daily operations

Need a Similar Platform for Your Business?

We develop custom systems that combine online bookings, payments, CRM, administrative processes, and automation in a single platform tailored to the way your business actually operates.