Top 10 Escape Room Tips for Noobs
By: James Butler
Escape rooms offer a unique style of interactive storytelling. When my girlfriend and I tried our first escape room we were hooked. We loved having to solve puzzles and work together to finish the story. We were able to finish most rooms, but we definitely put the “error” in the trial and error method of finishing an escape room. So in an effort to help escape room newbies avoid some of our mistakes, here are some escape room tips and the mistakes, screw-ups, and botches we made to learn them.
#1 Escape Room Tip
Read the Room Description Twice Before You Book it
Number 1 on Our List of Escape Room Tips: There are so many great escape story themes to choose from (at Trap Door there are Day of the Dead, F5: the Tornado Escape, and Jack the Ripper just to name a few). These escape room descriptions can help you choose the right room for your group.
Is it scary, make use of strobe lights/fog, dimly lit, designed for mature players, or has physical requirements? Escape rooms thrive on surprising their guests, but a few minutes of reading can help you choose the right room.
Our Botch
We booked the Everest Escape Room in Trap Door Escape Red Bank because we loved the theme (and it was literally across a parking lot from a great Irish pub, the Dublin House). Well, I didn’t read the description closely enough to see the physical requirements and more importantly give much thought to how well I would be able to manage them on a sprained ankle. With that being said, even though I limped through, I somehow managed to escape in time.
#2 Escape Room Tip
Dress to Escape
Number 2 on Our List of Escape Room Tips: Escape rooms mean covering a lot of space and, for us, that was with just two people. So, shoes and clothes you are comfortable walking, bending, and crawling in are a must. Additionally, wear your glasses or contacts – you’ll definitely need your eyes as well as your wits about you in an escape game.
Our Botch
We often combine an escape room with dinner or drinks. We were actually playing The Greatest Freakshow in Trap Door Escape Morristown on New Year’s Eve to bring in 2022. (Thanks for the midnight champagne toast, Trap Door!) While dress shoes and heels might complete a New Year’s outfit for the bar, we should have changed shoes for an escape room with a lot of ground to cover and only an hour to escape.
#3 Escape Room Tip
Listen to the Gamemaster’s Pre-Game Introduction
Number 3 on Our List of Escape Room Tips: Most escape rooms are designed to be immersive from floor to ceiling. The Gamemaster is there to help your team escape– they are your guide. Don’t get so focused on the room that you don’t pay attention to the Gamemaster’s instructions.
In addition to the basic do’s and don’ts of what to do in an escape room (you didn’t really think you’d have to break furniture or play with electrical outlets did you?) the Gamemaster starts the story for you. It’s your “once upon a time” for your escape story. What are you doing there? What is your objective? Sometimes you even get a hint in their instructions for your first clue.
Our Botch
One time I was so fascinated by an antique lock that I missed a Gamemaster who slipped an important name into their introduction that we would need later. Listen to the Gamemaster, watch any opening videos, and pay attention– take the easy hints when you can get them.
#4 Escape Room Tip
Use Your Hints Wisely
Number 4 on Our List of Escape Room Tips: Your team will get told how many hints you can get and how they will be given. Most escape rooms send hints through a video screen in the room. However, remember that it’s a hint and not a solution– just a nudge in the right direction. Most escape rooms suggest waiting at least ten minutes after starting to ask for your first hint. Everyone on your team should read any hints you receive. Sometimes a hint might not click with one person but can be very clear for another.
Our Botch
Ask for specific hints when you can. Our general “we need help” plee sometimes gave us a hint we had already figured out from a different puzzle. “We need a hint for the map” is better than “we’re just stuck.”
For even more tips on beating escape rooms check out this video from Mark Rober
#5 Escape Room Tip
Communicate with your Group
Number 5 on Our List of Escape Room Tips: When you find something cool, interesting, or mysterious hidden in (or under, or on top of, or encoded in…) a spot in the room make sure you let the rest of your group know what you found. You might’ve found a piece of a puzzle that someone has already seen or have the missing code to a text someone else has seen. Be as descriptive as you can if other members of your group can’t see it from where they are in the room.
Our Botch
When working on a puzzle where members of your group cannot see each other on opposite sides of a wall or door I advise taking a moment to realize that “raise it to the right” means a different direction to the people on the other side.
#6 Escape Room Tip
Chekhov's Magnet
Number 6 on Our List of Escape Room Tips: The principle of Chekhov’s Gun basically says you shouldn’t write a loaded gun into a story if no one is ever going to use it. With escape rooms, the same seems to hold true of magnets. If you find a magnet on a string, or puzzle pieces with magnetic bottoms, or a magnet at the tip of a long rod there’s a very, very good chance you’re going to be using it to retrieve something metal.
Our Botch
We found a strong magnet in an escape room but couldn’t find a use for it. Several puzzles further in the room, we of course got stymied by a small lock that just needed a key. After re-searching all the spaces we had covered since the start, it took using a hint from the Gamemaster to realize the key was nearby all along. It just needed a strong magnet to retrieve it!
#7 Escape Room Tip
Red Herrings
Number 7 on Our List of Escape Room Tips: Not everything you see in an escape room is part of solving a puzzle. Creating a truly immersive environment requires room designs with detailed props to transport players to a different world.
Sometimes banners, posters, and displays do contain important clues and codes– why are all those portraits dated? However, sometimes several vases of flowers, all with a different number of flowers, are nothing more than decorations. Pay attention, look for out-of-place details, note where you see dates or numbers but also note when something might not be a clue. Sometimes a cigar is just a cigar, as Freud said.
Our Botch
As a bookworm, I would often get held up in rooms trying to read every piece of text in a room. Every poster, book title, notes-everything. Several times I handed off a note that I had re-read three times to try to get our next clue. All this only to realize the clue was obvious all along.
#8 Escape Room Tip
Don’t get Frustrated
Number 8 on Our List of Escape Room Tips: Escape rooms are meant to be challenging, but also it’s about having fun. Whether it’s a private room with your friends and family or a public room where you get to enjoy the game with some help from other groups (both available at Trap Door)– escape rooms can be an experience you’ll never forget.
Just keep a level head and remember that you won’t figure out every lock at first glance. Search for clues, then search again. Know when to “tag-out” of a puzzle and let someone else look at it from a different perspective.
Our Botch
I simply suck at audio clues. A ruptured eardrum as a child means I struggle to hear higher pitches especially in a crowded room or with other background noise. When we first started doing escape rooms I learned to dread Morse Code or musical clues and puzzles. I’d stubbornly try to listen as carefully as I could and half-guess through clues- never getting them right. Now I know, if I can’t hear a clue after two tries it’s time to turn it over to someone else.
#9 Escape Room Tip
Work as a Team
Number 9 on Our List of Escape Room Tips: Whether you are a group of 2 or 10, escape rooms are a lot more enjoyable when you can finish one with everyone contributing. They are group experiences.
Some people are good at puzzles, some at codes, some at logic games, some pattern recognition, and some have a great eye for details and what is out of place. Use your strengths and know what puzzles are best handled by someone else.
Many Trap Door Escape Rooms are huge and nearly impossible for one person to solve every puzzle and open every lock. Take any chance you can to be working on multiple puzzles at the same time.
Our Botch
When a puzzle doesn’t work mechanically (and it happens sometimes– just ask the Gamemaster for a little assistance) or it seems out of place, we would let that bog us down when we started doing escape rooms. If it involved hitting a target, retrieving something with tools, or any kind of computer screen we seemed to always struggle. While I can’t say our luck has improved much, we’ve learned to laugh about it and switch off on those kinds of tasks once one of us struggles.
#10 Escape Room Tip
“Be quick, but don’t hurry.”- Coach John Wooden.
Number 10 on Our List of Escape Room Tips: Yes, you are on the clock as soon as your escape room starts. It’s easy to get caught rushing as you try to complete puzzles and find more and more solutions to challenges. As you pass that halfway mark often you are finding keys and clues that require you to backtrack to locks/puzzles you encountered earlier in the game.
This may mean climbing back to another part of a room or stepping back through a secret portal you found earlier in the game. Yes, try to focus and complete puzzles quickly, but also pay attention to your surroundings so you don’t miss clues (or steps, or doors, or other physical obstacles) in a race to another part of an escape room.
Our Botch
Ok, I’ll start by saying no one was actually knocked out or concussed, just a head bump hard enough to bring the Gamemaster in to check on us. One thing that really separates live escape rooms from the streamed is getting the hands-on opportunity to manipulate big puzzles and finding secret passages from one part of the escape room to another.
If you find a hidden passage to another part of an escape room:
- Take note if you had to duck to go through
- Remember you ducked as you went back and forth between different parts of the escape room.
- Even as the timer is counting down, you should make sure you duck!
As the timer started counting down to the end of our time, my girlfriend found a solution to one puzzle and forgot we had to duck slightly each time to make it through the hidden passage doorway. She didn’t duck. The door frame didn’t move. Good news, the room was escaped, and everyone stayed conscious and injury free!
Today’s Escape Room Tip
Sharpen your “very particular set of skills.” Each escape room is different but there are definitely skills you can work on to speed your progress through escape rooms. Online word games like Wordle sharpen your deductive reasoning with clues till you find a solution. The old electronic game Simon can help with pattern recognition of both colors and sounds.
Related Content
Mentioned Experiences
Stop the Ripper Before it is too Late!
Ripper of London is a 60 minute murder mystery escape room experience where you work a crime scene to track down the killer Jack The Ripper.
Spice it up with the FIESTA Package!
Days before the celebration, a fire took all the family photos needed to complete the Ofrenda. Luckily, each member of the family was buried with a portrait.
Push, pull, climb, crawl, and think your way through this tornado course!
A Tornado is heading straight for Todd Farms. Get to the Barn and strap into the water main pipes to ride out the storm.
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