Escape rooms can be challenging, but you can win with the right strategy! Check out these 9 escape room tips and tricks for success.
In the age of smartphones and streaming TV, it can be hard to find an activity you can do with friends that doesn’t involve screens and subscriptions.
There’s one option that has been gaining a lot of traction in the past few years. That means escape rooms!
These fun attractions can be a fun challenge that can leave lasting memories. Today, we’ll share with you 9 of the best escape room tips to get the most out of the experience. Read on below!
Fun Times with an Escape Room
Escape rooms are mini attractions that take a heaping helping of puzzles and storytelling and packs it into one room. You and your group of friends have the task of solving the mystery for a chance at completion.
Escape rooms come in all shapes, sizes, and themes. Across the country, you can find them in small venues and large facilities. In St. Louis, Breakout Games has some of the most exciting and interesting escape rooms in America.
The 9 Best Escape Room Tips
Escape rooms can be a challenging affair. Each one will have a series of puzzles and misdirections, all led by a story crafted for the scenario.
Solve everything in time, and you get a triumphant reward. Fail, and better luck next time.
To make sure you leave triumphant as much as possible, follow these 9 tips.
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Take a Team You Can Trust
Escape rooms are a group affair. Most escape rooms won’t even let you in without a decent-sized group. You’ll need a group, but you also want well-selected members.
For an escape room, you need to select people who are willing and able to cooperate. Escape rooms will require all of your efforts. You also need people who are good at puzzles and thinking on their feet. You’ll often have a timer!
The most important aspect is having fun! No one wants to bring along someone who will complain the whole time.
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Be Organized and on Time
All of these tips are the first start of your preparation. Talk a lot with your friends on what you all might expect. Review your escape room of choice and pick the ones that look best suited to your style.
Show up on time so that time is better spent having fun instead of scrambling to the place.
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Stay Focused and Positive
Remember, escape rooms are fun! Puzzles can be frustrating, but do your best to keep your group focused and positive.
If you find yourself getting frustrated, take a second for a breather. The last thing you want is for your whole experience to end in anger.
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Teamwork Is Key
When taking on your escape room, you need a good group. The group, though, should be good beyond individual merits! You need teamwork if you want to come out ahead.
Make sure everyone talks together. Each time someone thinks of something new on a hint, clue, or idea on the answer, bring it up and talk about it. Break off into smaller groups to cover more ground, but without losing the cooperative element.
When in doubt, nominate some leaders for your group to help direct people who may feel lost. Any time a member of your team is wandering around and doesn’t know what to do, that’s another brain that could help you solve a puzzle.
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Keep an Eye on the Time
Remember: most escape rooms have timers to some degree! Not all of them punish you hard for running out of time, but most will have some sort of penalty each time the clock reaches zero.
That said, don’t panic! You’ll have more time than you might think. Pace yourself and keep an eye on where the time goes, and you’ll stay in the game!
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Don’t Take Clues for Granted
When faced with a tough puzzle, most people want to protect their ego and not ask for help. Keep in mind that people build escape rooms to confound people, so don’t feel bad asking for some clues.
Most escape rooms have a system to earn clues or to figure out easier puzzles to get clues for the harder ones. That way, you can feel like you’re accomplishing something while still making the tough stuff not as rough.
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Work Smart
This is another tip that could require a good deal of organization and leadership.
If everyone is running around the escape room, grabbing whatever they can find and trying to solve it themselves, there’s a decent chance two people are doing the same puzzle!
Spread yourself out well enough and keep checking on which items you’re working on. If you need the answer from one puzzle to solve another, then make sure people are working on the right puzzle first to make the fastest effort.
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Be Careful About Overthinking It
Remember that idea that people make escape rooms to confuse and confound people? That also means giving people so much information and unneeded details that they start to overthink the problem.
When in doubt, keep it simple. The answer may end up being a simple observation you came across first. Red herrings will be everywhere to slip you up; keep yourself focused so you can spot them.
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The Writers Hold the Answer
The final tip is one about the “behind the scenes” of the action. Escape rooms are elaborate scenes. They have stories, characters, and puzzles all tied together.
If you want to get a solid edge against an escape room, start thinking like a writer.
This doesn’t mean you need college training and published work. But most people can recognize storytelling tropes and common plot hooks from the media they consume. Use that to your advantage to see through the subterfuge!
Fun, Style, and Entertainment
Escape rooms can be a big factor for fun afternoons and great memories. With these escape room tips, you’ll have that great edge to make you and your friends feel triumphant when it’s all over.
For all the fun and games in style, you need to know the right ideas. Check out more of our articles in our archive for good and stylish fun.