Beginners Guide: 5 Tips to Escape an Escape Room

Since real life escape rooms are getting more popular it might be the time to clear the way and to cover a few tips on how to play escape games and how to beat them. So, for the beginners, lots of things will be first seen unusual and odd. However, once you get used to the room and figure the first riddle out, you will be same escape room addict as we are in the escape game community in Calgary. And so, to make your first steps in the game a bit easier, we would love to offer you some help.

In case you have no clue how to play the escape room and, especially, how to defeat the room we have a short guide for you. Learn our advices how to play and how to escape the room like a professional. Let’s see the 5 tips on how to escape an escape room.

1. Be suspicious

Forget all the rules of the real world once you enter the room. That world works under the rules of logic and facts, while in the room your imagination takes the leading role in your decision-making process. Here nothing is what it seems to be, and everything can have a double meaning. Therefore, being suspicious about everything you see is not over cautious, it is a requirement. Observe everything, explore every little detail of the room, don’t miss out anything.

Question everything you see, because sometimes you shouldn’t rely too much even on your own eyes. The most basic thing can contain a puzzle. So walk, touch, explore, check everything that seems out of place to you. Always keep in mind that first steps in the escape room should be guided by your intuition more than by your brain or even common sense.

2. Think of a strategy

Now it seems too obvious to be mentioned but seriously, come up with a strategy. Plan your time, so you won’t have panic attacks in the end when you suddenly see on the huge watch in the room that you have 10 minutes left. Make the time your partner here, not an enemy. One more important moment — discuss all your steps with the team ahead.

Discover the strong sides of the players and grand to all specific roles for the game. In this case you won’t end up by following each other’s steps and wasting precious time. Well-made strategy will keep all players busy and, what matters most, productive. One more advice — your strategy should start before the game.

Additionally, during the game don’t be lazy to keep track of everything you have found. It might look like a time killer when you put on paper where items were and what they leaded to. But in this way, when the plot of the game will finally bring you to the puzzle, it will be easier and faster to check what the hints you already have and which of them you can use at this point.

3. Communicate. A lot.

Communication is the only chance to get out of the room as a team of winners. So talk to each other. Talk to each other all the time. Always tell when you found anything, confirm your ideas, share your thoughts, discuss the possible solutions. Communication is the main aspect of not just winning but enjoying the game. Once you made a strong team you have nothing to worry or afraid about. You already doing everything right.

4. Go with the flow

If you are still in the game and yet you have no solution and don’t know how to escape the room, this tip is definitely for you. First of all, know that it is okay to make mistakes. You are supposed to do so. Whenever you feel lost use those tips as guidelines:

1. Look back at the already solved riddles and give them a second thought, maybe you missed something there.
2. Don’t be afraid to change the tactics as many times as it will be needed.
3. Return to the point where you could possibly make mistakes.
4. And remember, you are wasting your time only when you are doing nothing.

Also, sometimes you just need to let go control a bit and have a good look at what you have already done, to review all your actions, or just to look around. Escape rooms are usually planned with a walkthrough for you in case the team gets stuck in one place, so search for the hints to the riddles, not just the puzzle.

5. Listen to your guts

If you want to do something — do it. Even if it looks weird, even if you can’t explain it to your partners or to yourself, or even if it wouldn’t make any sense in a real world. Just remember the escape room is a zone free of judgments and it is always welcoming your imagination and creativity. So if you see a chair in the room and feel that it doesn’t look right, go and check it! Maybe it is actually not a chair, maybe it is way more than that and it’s hiding something huge.

Anyway, it is better to listen to your guts and question everything that you find worth of attention, rather than having this thought of a weird chair buzzing in your head while you got stuck in the game. So embrace the fact that everything is possible in the escape room and use your imagination.

Test them out!

So here were five tips on how to escape the escape room, however there can be more and more ways to escape the room and we hope you are going to find more own solutions for the escaping from the locked room full of mysteries. Play, test the guidelines out, win the game with ours or with your own newly found tips for the game. Good luck!