23 Types of Escape Room Puzzles
By: Alex Guadagno
Everything There is To Know About Escape Room Puzzles
Escape room enthusiasts come together at places like Trap Door to work as a team and collaborate to find clues, complete tasks, and solve a variety of puzzles.
At Trap Door Escape Rooms, we provide immersive play, and stimulating challenges for your mind. Each escape room tells a massive story, has a different theme, and presents a series of unique puzzles and quests. Read on to learn about the different types of puzzles in an escape room you might encounter:
What Types of Escape Room Puzzles Are There?
1. Hidden Items and Clues
The most common escape room puzzle is finding hidden clues or objects within the room. The first thing any player should do upon entering an escape room is search it! At Trap Door, our designers love to find interesting and sneaky ways to hide objects in the room.
When solving this kind of puzzle, be sure to consider what fits well with the theme of the room. Be sure to search for secret compartments, and to look through the room thoroughly. It can be anything from something along the lines of the kids’ book, “Where’s Waldo” to something more “grown-up” like the movie Fight Club where the twist at the end was hiding in plain sight all along.
2. Sound puzzles
Who could forget the Bone Organ in “The Goonies” made of skeletons and One-Eyed Willy’s treasure map? Sound puzzles can be used in escape rooms to reveal clues or passages. You might have to remember a particular audio sequence.
Sound can also be used to direct your way, immerse you in the atmosphere of the game, communicate hidden messages, or let you know danger is approaching. For example, when the “Imperial March” starts to play in Star Wars, you know it’s a Darth Vader scene before seeing him. Listen closely– Secrets can be buried anywhere in an escape room!
3. Light Puzzles
If you’re solving an escape room, always pay attention to the lighting. Many types of escape room puzzles use light or UV paint to reveal riddles, codes, or other important information. Light was even used to communicate through Morse Code in Stranger Things Season 4. If you ever find a black light flashlight in an escape room, shine it all over to reveal the invisible ink. If you can’t find any clues on the walls, check the insides of prominent objects.
UV light puzzles are common in spy-themed rooms. Some escape rooms combine laser lights with mirrors in a puzzle. Some clues might only be revealed when light seems to be shining on a particular object or when the lights are off. Very dark areas might be just as important as well-lit portions of the escape room!
4. Math Puzzles
Some escape rooms include very basic math problems. Escape rooms are meant to be fun and generally don’t require outside knowledge. You won’t be asked to do anything you’d need to be a math whiz for or that will give you flashbacks to algebra class! You might find a pattern of numbers in a room and simple addition/subtraction may help you through a puzzle! One horrifying example is Vincenzo Natali’s movie, The Cube, where its unwilling participants have to compute a series of some heavy numbers in order to escape!
“I tend to talk out loud through a lot of puzzles as I’m trying to figure them out,” says James from Trap Door. When playing an escape in a public room sometimes someone else picks up on something I’ve said and where I’m only seeing a part of the puzzle, they are seeing it from a different perspective and figuring out more of it. That ‘group mind’ puzzle-solving has ensured we’ve escaped some rooms I might not have gotten out of with just the two of us.”
5. Word Puzzles
Word and logic puzzles can be verbal math problems and vary from escape room to escape room. Logic is used to solve any type of puzzle. Don’t forget to consider that words can have multiple meanings or sound different and mean the same thing.
6. Ciphers
When the two disks are rotated correctly to each other, they can decode a secret message by translating letters from the outer disk to the corresponding ones on the inner disk. Cipher wheels have been widely used in the real world for encoding secret messages and therefore they will fit perfectly into a theme involving secret societies, espionage, or the military. The Imitation Game is a movie based on the creation of a machine to break ciphers during World War II.
7. Riddles
Some form of a riddle will appear in most escape room puzzles. Whether it is a written riddle that leads to a clue, or a verbal riddle given to you by a Gamemaster that will direct you to your next step. Riddles are often a key puzzle in any escape room.
Remember to think outside of the box! You might feel like you’re talking to Gollum from The Hobbit or have to answer some seemingly-nonsensical questions like “The Mad Hatter” asked in Alice in Wonderland books and films.
8. Electrical Current
This category of puzzles includes several players placing their hands in precisely the right area of a puzzle at the same time. The currents are so gentle that they will harmlessly travel through your body without you feeling anything.
9. Magnets
If there is a metal object, like a key, slightly out of your reach in your escape room, be sure to check if there’s a magnet somewhere in the room. Check long objects to see if there’s a magnet available to help you get keys that are just out of reach.
10. Jigsaw Puzzles
The humble jigsaw puzzle is a staple in many escape rooms. Like a puzzle you’d assemble at home, you put the pieces together to reveal the bigger picture. You may have to assemble a picture of letters, a secret message, or an important image. The completion of the puzzle itself may unlock something as well. “Jigsaw” was notably infamized in the Saw franchise, which features some intricate death-trap style puzzles.
11. Repeating Numbers
If you repeatedly see or hear a calendar date throughout the escape room, it may be a key to solving a puzzle! It could be an access code or a combination for a lock.
12. Keys
Finding a key in an escape room is an obvious sign that you’re onto something– that’s why it’s often difficult and may even require you to complete other puzzles before you are able to get to the key – or the lock. Many types of escape room puzzles make the locks very obvious but distance the keys a few puzzles away.
13. Matching Puzzles
In some escape rooms, you will see a certain image repeatedly. This may be to reinforce an important puzzle clue or concept, or it might be so you can match up parts of the image throughout the room to unlock a clue.
14. Text Puzzles
Pay attention if you come across a magnifying glass in an escape room! Some escape rooms will hide text in plain sight to be uncovered using tools like this. Small text and random letters can be the key to solving an escape room puzzle.
15. Physical Puzzles
There are certain puzzles where you might need to use your physical strength as well as your intelligence. In these types of escape room puzzles, you might have to move cumbersome objects, or solve a mega-sized puzzle. You don’t have to be anything close to an athlete; as per usual in an escape room, logic and problem-solving will get you further in these puzzles than brute strength.
16. Visual Design Puzzles
Escape room designers love to hide clues and hints to puzzles in the decor of the room. Some visual effects can only be seen by tilting your head to a certain angle. Also pay attention if something seems oversized or uneven in these types of escape room puzzles.
17. Paper on Paper
This is a type of puzzle where you’ll find two sheets of paper. One with text written on it and the second one blank with holes cut out of it. Now, when the blank piece is correctly positioned over the piece with text, each hole shows exactly one letter and spells out an important clue. It can be easily replicated in DIY-escape rooms, as Escape Room Geeks shares.
18. "Where in the World?"
More modern theme rooms use GPS coordinates, but sometimes rooms with an older theme use longitude and latitude. Other times, you’ll be asked to find and follow a map. Once again, you shouldn’t need much outside knowledge so you don’t need to study up on geography! If a room wants you to know where a particular country is or something about it, they’ll show you.
In National Treasure, they found a clue on a ship that was stuck in the Canadian Arctic, carrying a pipe with a riddle that was a vital clue in finding the Templar Treasure. Escape room puzzles won’t have you traveling that far for a clue!
19. Morse Code
In escape rooms where you need to utilize a specific skill to decipher a code, you will always find a tool to help you. You might see dots and dashes on a piece of paper or surface. Or, you may find a radio on a certain channel with a message in Morse Code dots and dashes.
Room Escape Artist goes into detail about letter codes on their blog. “All rooms that I am aware of will rightly assume that their players have not memorized the translations for Morse Code, binary, Braille, pigpen, nautical flags, or semaphore (among others). If they are using one of these codes, they will provide a clear method of decoding. Some companies will go so far as to translate Roman numerals.”
As Room Escape Artist points out, some people who are able to mentally decode these messages will have an advantage over those of us who don’t!
20. Labyrinth
A labyrinth is just a maze! You don’t have to be David Bowie to solve a labyrinth if you’re in an escape room. Usually, you just have to move an object from one end of a maze to the other in order to move forward or gain a clue.
21. Sudoku
Sudoku would be a very advanced and uncommon type of puzzle to find in an escape room, as it requires knowledge of how to play the game – but it does exist! You would generally find sudoku in a puzzle-focused escape room, rather than an immersive escape room. Sudoku is a puzzle usually best worked on by one team member while the others work on a different puzzle.
“Much of the fun of an escape room is about learning the rules of the puzzles,” says the Escape Room Geeks blog. “The rules for classic puzzles are already known so in this case solving them can become a chore. However, as long as you choose a puzzle that doesn’t take too long, there is still the interesting challenge of extracting a solution from it.”
22. Crossword Puzzles
Crossword puzzles are time-consuming, but certain clues are disguised as crossword letters. Certain types of puzzles are more of a one-person job and other teammates will want to jump in. One trick escape rooms use is scale, by making puzzle pieces larger than life so that team members will have to collaborate and work together.
23. Combination Puzzles
Certain types of puzzles in escape rooms, such as ciphers, may include a blend of different games and design aspects.This is where escape room designers really get creative. Some rooms have puzzles that are part hidden objects, part counting/math, and part compass directions – all in one puzzle.
The list of puzzle types in escape rooms is continually growing as designers innovate. Some of the best escape room puzzles are the ones that make you say “aha!” A general rule of most escape room puzzles is that the games shouldn’t require outside knowledge from the game, but you will have to look around the room for hints!
Related Content
Mentioned Experiences
A Very Merry Un-Birthday to you!
The Mad Hatter’s Tea Party blends a one person immersive theatre show with puzzles for a mind bending Wonderland Escape Room experience!
Keep Reading
Trap Door Escape Company
Trap Door Escape Room has 4 locations: 3180 Route 611 in Bartonsville, PA in the Poconos; 60 White St. in Red Bank, NJ; 34A Speedwell Ave. in Morristown, NJ: and 77 Wind Creek Blvd in Bethlehem, PA. The Red Bank location was the first of the 4 locations, opening in the fall of 2015. Morristown followed in the summer of 2017, and Bartonsville opened during the holiday season of 2018. Wind Creek is currently undergoing construction and will be opening in September 2022.
History
The idea came to Tone Purzycki back in 2011 after he wrote a screenplay that developed into a live-streaming game. The game revolved around an actor trapped in a situation and the audience had to solve puzzles to figure out where he was trapped. The “Find Me Event” had more than 1,000 people playing over the course of several hours. After the success of several other streaming events, the idea of an escape room was born.
Location
Each location has different rooms from which to choose. Our Morristown location is home to Day of the Dead, Witch Hunt, and The Greatest Freakshow. In Bartonsville, you’ll find Cure Z, F5 Tornado Escape, Fear the Bogeyman, Mad Hatter’s Tea Party, We’re All Mad Here, and Prisoner Z. In Red Bank we currently have Everest – our first 2 story escape room. Ripper of London is also available at this location. Our pirate themed games will soon be open at Wind Creek.
Trap Door Escape Room also offers team building, streaming events, and birthday parties. For more information on any of our games, prices, and locations, explore our website or call 570-234-3366