Top 5 Tips for Escape Room Success
There’s more to escape rooms than puzzles and padlocks - they’re thrilling, adventures that transport you to an unfamiliar world where clear communication, teamwork and logical thinking are your greatest allies.
We’d always suggest savouring the experience rather than rushing to beat the clock, but escape rooms can be challenging and success depends on your team. That’s why we’ve put together some tips to get you off on the right track.
We’ve created this list with our Edinburgh escape rooms in mind, but they apply to many of the best escape rooms regardless of the theme or level of difficulty. So, whether you’re an escape room beginner or a seasoned enthusiast, here are our top 5 tips and tricks to get the most out of your experience.
1. Communicate Effectively
In the excitement of an escape room, it’s easy to start talking over each other or worse, go silent, intimidated by the task at hand. To succeed you’ll need to get the best out of your whole team and teams that keep calm and communicate well have the greatest chance of success.
Shout it out whenever you find something important. Don’t assume others will have noticed it unless you tell them! Unsure if something is important? Shout it out anyway - it might make sense to someone else.
Don’t be afraid to repeat important information. Something that wasn’t important earlier may be now! Plus, when the nerves kick in, people don’t always take in information the first time.
Avoid shouting over each other - try to keep things calm and level - easier said than done when the tensions starts to build! Listen well - try to remain aware of what your team mates are saying at all times - it might be just the clue you need.
Finally, don’t be afraid to repeat important information or discoveries - see what we did there? ;)
2. Divide & Conquer
There can be a lot of ground to cover in an escape room - even if it doesn’t appear that way at first. Don’t all huddle together around the same object or puzzle - spread out, search different areas and cover the entire space thoroughly. Depending on the size of your groups you might do this individually or in pairs.
If you want the best strategy for an escape room, consider assigning roles to different group members such as Searchers (who locate hidden items), Solvers (who tackle the puzzles) and Organisers (who keep track of what’s been found and completed so far). Ideally, assign the roles based on your group’s individual strengths. Let the detail-obsessed player dive-deep into clues, while your big-picture thinker connects the dots.
Get stuck? Consider swapping roles and remember that the more you divide and conquer, the more important Tip 1 becomes - keep communicating!
3. Remember the Objective
When playing an escape room it can be easy to get swept up in the story, the environment or a particular puzzle. While there’s nothing wrong with this (it makes the experience fun!) it's worth always keeping the overall goal in mind.
Why are you here? Were you listening during the game briefing? We hope so! Briefings will give important context to the task at hand and perhaps some cryptic clues about what you are about to encounter and how best to overcome it.
So, remember the end objective and work backwards from there. Puzzles should always make sense in the pursuit of this larger goal. A goal which could simply be to ‘escape’ but it could just as easily be locating some hidden object or information. This should keep you focused on the right path and avoid too many dead ends. Which brings us to Tip 4….
4. Don’t Overthink it
Escape rooms can be challenging but they’re never impossible and they should always make logical sense, at least within the “world” of the room. If you’re having to make big leaps in logic or having to follow puzzles through too many sequential steps - you might be overthinking things.
Try the most obvious solution first. And remember that clues are often visual or pattern-based, rarely requiring any prior knowledge or significant academic abilities.
If you’re stuck then take a step back and a fresh look. It can be helpful to get a team mate’s input and perspective too - they may see things differently or have new ideas that are worth trying out.
If you’re completely stumped, there’s no shame in leaving a puzzle and coming back to it a little later - better than wasting time going nowhere. Which brings us to point 5 and something else there’s no shame in…
5. Ask for help!
Asking for a hint isn’t giving up, it’s a sensible way to keep up momentum.
Escape rooms will almost always offer some mechanism for requesting additional clues. Some teams are too proud to do so and spend valuable time struggling with a puzzle or deliberating about whether or not to seek assistance. It can be worth deciding as a group if/when you will ask for help from the outset to avoid wasting time in the room.
Experienced gamesmasters will only ever give you an answer as a last resort, and are far more likely to give a helpful nudge back on the right track. At Escape The Past our experienced gamesmasters will never solve a puzzle for you, but they may interject with a subtle nudge when they feel your energy dipping.
Determined not to ask for help? That’s fine too, but bear in mind that you risk missing out on the full experience.
6. Bonus Tip: Debrief afterwards
Whether you win or lose, there’s always something to learn from the experience. As a final tip, it’s worth reflecting on your group’s performance… What worked? What slowed you down? This is also sure to bring up some amusing moments!
With these tips you should be well placed to tackle your next escape room. Want more help? Take a look at our Beginner’s Guide to Escape Rooms or our Escape Room Strategy Guide.
At Escape The Past, we offer much more than a race against the clock - we invite you to travel back to experience a thrilling mystery from Edinburgh’s darkest history. You could be investigating the sinister dealings of an unscrupulous Anatomist, or uncovering the hidden fortune of the ‘Jeckyll & Hyde’ Deacon Brodie. These tips should help ensure your group are successful enough to enjoy the full experience.
Ready to test your skills?
Book your next escape room adventure at Escape The Past and put these tips to the test!
