5 Common Mistakes people make in Escape Rooms
1. Hoarding Information
There is nothing more detrimental to escaping than keeping information to yourself. See something that might be worth noting? Make sure you tell your group! That little clue could be the key to escaping, and holding onto it is wasting precious time. It also doesn’t help when someone gets in front of a lock or mechanism and insists they can figure it out. The more eyes and brains you get working on a puzzle, the quicker you’ll solve it so make sure to share.
2. Arguing
It happens, people lose their temper. But insisting that you’re right isn’t the way to escape faster. Between the theatrical environment and the game’s clock ticking down, your adrenaline will probably be high when you set out to escape, that’s even more reason to keep a cool head when you interact with your group. Remember, you’re all in it together and there to help one another; there’s no “I” in team!
3. Not paying attention to the information given
We know escaping is exciting, we get excited too, but believe it or not, the information we are giving you is important. It feels like your game master is droning on and on but in reality they are telling you exactly what not to do. Listening to your safety briefing and the story of your mission can help you understand what to look for, what to ignore and how to maximise your time in the game. So next time you’re headed into an escape room, pay attention. Those two minutes of rules could save you valuable puzzle solving time.
4. Overthinking puzzles and steps
Almost all of the time, there is a logical explanation and sequence to escape room puzzles and steps to solve. If you can’t figure it out and you’re stuck? Maybe you don’t have all the necessary information or items, and should keep looking around for them, and new clues.
5. Trying to solve puzzles without all the information
We see this all the time, people spend tonnes of time trying to solve puzzles without having the information they need to solve them! For example, if you see a lock that has numbers, but there isn’t a clear way to find the combination, you may need to come back to it. The number one trick to solving an escape room is figuring out what you need and working backwards, but way too often people get caught up on the first piece of information they see and even though they may not have the complete puzzle, they fixate on it. Don’t focus on a piece of information just because it’s the first thing you happen to see, look around and solve puzzles that you have all the information for so that the game unfolds in a logical order.
