Trapdoor UNLOCKED: 10 People You DON’T Bring to an Escape Room

This past week I played Trapdoor in Red Bank, NJ.

After the game, we shot an episode of Trapdoor UNLOCKED, their escape room YouTube series. It was a ton of fun.

For your viewing pleasure, you can see me:

• breaking shit
• trying to keep a straight face while stripping
• being a self-important, contemptuous prick
• being a know-it-all prick (one or two of these could bear a resemblance to me on a bad day)
• acting stoned

… in short, demonstrating the types of players you don’t want to play with.

The 10 People You DON’T Bring to an Escape Room

With the exception of the “Know-It-All,” who I added to the list, these were created by Trapdoor. Lisa and I pick our teammates carefully, and don’t often play with strangers, so we only know a lot of these people through stories from owners and other players.

The Destroyer

My personal favorite of the terrible room escapers are the people who think they ought to break things to “solve” puzzles.

The Briber

This one was new to me…

According to the folks from Trapdoor, when some players run out of hints, they attempt to negotiate for more. Apparently some women have flashed the camera looking for extra hints.

The Professional (the guy who’s already played)

This is a problem that’s unique to Trapdoor. They don’t do walkthroughs for teams that don’t win. Instead, they encourage those players to return during the week with a 50% price reduction… This will be discussed in greater length in the review.

Nevertheless, occasionally some players show up for a second go without using their coupon. Thus Trapdoor doesn’t know that they have a returning player mixed in with random new players. This results in some serious awkwardness.

The Brave Men

Dudes who get squeamish about doing obviously harmless stuff.

The Stoners

Folks who show up too high to play the game.

The Easily Scared

In this case, people who are frightened by the gamemaster at the end of the game.

The Rejecter

People who obnoxiously reject the ideas of other players.

The Tag-alongs

Those particularly crappy individuals who don’t show up to play and just take up space.

The Know-It-All

My addition to this list: this behavior is discussed in detail in The Outside Knowledge Trap.

This is a person who has extensive knowledge about something they encounter in an escape room; they don’t realize that their expertise isn’t relevant.

The Anti-Socials

Insular groups that are too small to win the game, but refuse to join up with strangers.

You don’t want to do a room escape with any of these people. And of course, you don’t want to be one, either!