Want to be prepared for your first escape room or mystery room? Here are our top tips for getting through it with top marks!
Assemble your escape room dream team
Think carefully about who you do a mystery or escape room with, because it can greatly affect your experience. We’re not saying to not do rooms with people that aren’t good at puzzles, but if they aren’t good at cooperation, communication and sharing then give them a miss. In an escape room, you want to make sure that you have a range of perspectives, and that everyone involved is there for the fun and the experience rather than to hog puzzles and show how smart they are.
Search everything
When you enter an escape room, the first thing you should do is get a good understanding of your surroundings and search the whole room. We can’t tell you how many times we’ve seen teams get stuck because they got fixated on the first thing they saw and didn’t look around. Some puzzles literally can’t be solved without additional pieces or direction. Try to spot symbols and clues, flick through books and check underneath things before getting settled into those long-term puzzles.
Communication is key
Make sure to talk amongst yourselves. If you notice strange symbols or clues around, call it out. You never know, someone else might be looking at the other piece of that puzzle. If you notice a padlock, let everyone know where it is and what kind it is (combo, key, letters, numbers). This makes things much smoother if someone finds a code with a matching format.
Use your time effectively
If you can’t work something out then don’t spend too much time on it. You might not have everything you need yet, so spending another ten minutes on it will be fruitless. Or you might just need to do something else for a bit and come back to it with a fresh perspective.
Escape rooms are tough, don’t be afraid to get help
We’re not going to judge you. And that’s not even a sarcastic “we’re not judging, wink wink”. Everyone is good at something, and if you can’t work out a particular puzzle then that might just not be your specialty. We’d rather you have fun and a positive experience than bashing your head against a puzzle for half an hour.
Don’t be a jerk
Escape rooms are meant to be fun. Remember that other people’s experience matters just as much as yours, and there are simple things you can do to help make sure everyone has a good experience.
- If someone is close to working something out and you can get there two seconds faster, let them work it out. We all know how great it feels to solve a puzzle. Let them get there.
- Share the work around. If you can’t figure something out, let someone else have a go. We’ve done rooms with people that have literally PUT A PUZZLE IN THEIR POCKET rather than share it around to see if anyone else could figure it out.
- Show appreciation when someone helps you, and congratulate them when they do something clever or cool. A simple “thank you” or “well done” can go miles.
Teamwork makes teams work. You’re there to work together and be a team. We all get that you wanna smash the room, but don’t be that guy.