Scavengers Breaking Boundaries in the Entertainment Scene

In the midst of Zamalek’s fancy getaways and top-notch dining lounges lies a world of complete amusement. From the arrays of gaming arenas to bookworms’ serenity, Scavengers – a new recreational start-up – has taken the step in creating a world of entertainment supremacy.

Launched on October 8, it merges Virtual Reality (VR) gaming, escape rooms, and an entertainment arena.

Seif Issa, AUC multimedia journalism alumnus and one of the founders, followed his dream as an entrepreneur and developed this project.

Issa’s main inspiration revolved around creating his own business from scratch. He was motivated to develop an entity that would be the first of its kind to be indulged in Egypt’s growing entrepreneurship projects.

In order to surpass the regular standards of gaming arenas, the founders launched the first VR gaming environment in Cairo, with the latest technologies designed to propel the gamer into a parallel reality.

“We [Scavengers crew] made sure to get [the] highest quality VR system as it is the first time for it to be in practice here in Egypt,” Issa told The Caravan.

Scavengers strives to satisfy a diverse set of gamer needs. So for those who prefer to get active, the initiative also gives visitors the opportunity to participate in an escape room challenge.

This adventure game requires players who are locked in a room to find clues and solve a set of puzzles in a certain amount of time to find an escape.

What makes this escape room different from others is how it requires saving a life to win — Nazly, a fiction character, is a trapped soul that the players must help find peace in order to escape.

Another twist Scavengers has is the entertainment arena. It offers live performances of unplugged artists, movie nights, and book reading circles, which create an environment open to regular visits.

“Scavengers is different. It is not only about escape rooms; it created an environment that I have become used to. I no longer enjoy spending time at cafes as much as I used to before,” said Aly Boghdady, an accounting senior at AUC and frequent visitor.

Others, on the other hand, perceive this newly launched project as a mere continuation to the gaming arenas’ legacy.

“This startup is really good, especially [since] they decided to push away the gaming arenas from New Cairo,” said business junior Doha El Maghraby.

Issa said that he is aware of how he must constantly put together something new and different in order to succeed and set a trend for the rest to use as their basis.

“I believe that this is a phase and will pass because even with the entertainment arena, many will shift away as soon as something new comes out and that is exactly what’s wrong about start-ups here in Egypt. They do not take into consideration how to keep the business going,” El Maghraby said.

“Escape rooms were implemented within the past year and [have] had [their] peak but later on went down the drain. I do not want this. I chose to add a constant factor to my start-up, which is the entertainment arena,” he said.

Scavengers is only the latest in Cairo’s restless entertainment scene. With the pace quickening and the competition growing fierce, we can only wait and see how long it is before we are captivated by something else.