Room Escape Artist

For our 1,000^th Room Escape Artist post, we present the ERban Dictionary: Escape Room Glossary.

We consider this a living document. We welcome suggested edits, submissions, examples, and other enhancements through our contact form or in the comments below.

Escape Room Glossary

“60 Minutes to Fluency” (phrase) – this refers to when you play an Egyptian room with so much hieroglyph translating that you can sight read it by the end of the game.

“A visit from the exposition fairy” (phrase) – this refers to excessively long passages of story being delivered to the team before or during an escape room.

Actor – (noun, singular) a person with a character, commitment, and costume, designed to enhance immersion. They may or may not double as your gamemaster.

Aha Puzzle – (noun, singular) a type of puzzle where you can suddenly understand a previously incomprehensible concept and at that moment you have the entire solution to the puzzle.

Alternative Solution – (noun, singular) a perfectly rational solution that wasn’t the one that the puzzle designer had intended.

Anagram – (noun, singular) a word, phrase, or name formed by rearranging the letters of another.

Backseat Solve – (verb) to stand behind someone and tell them what to do because you’re frustrated your hands aren’t on the puzzle. This is generally discouraged.

Backsolve – (verb) to reverse engineer a puzzle solution.

Blacklight – (noun, singular) a handheld or stationary light that emits ultraviolet radiation that is invisible to the human eye. This is a common prop in escape rooms.

Blind Choice – (noun, singular) an interaction where players have to make a decision (frequently an ethical decision) without enough information or context to make an informed decision.

Bonus Content – (noun, plural) puzzles that offer something to the players in addition to escaping or completing the room escape’s main objective. These side quests can take place alongside the main objective or the completion of the main objective can trigger new objectives.

Book Safe (noun, singular) – it looks like a book, but surprise… it’s a locked box.

Boss Battle (noun, singular) – derived from video games where players’ opponents are “bosses,” this is a climax point in the game where players must overcome a big obstacle or defeat a nemesis to complete their objective.

Bottleneck – (noun, singular) a point at which only one puzzle is available to the entire team that usually results in the entire team crowding around that puzzle.

Braille – (noun, singular) a form of written language for blind people, in which letters and numbers are represented by different configurations of a 2 by 3 grid of raised dots.

Breakage – (noun, singular) any prop that no longer functions as intended due to malfunction, poor design, wear, reckless players, or vandalism.

Brute-Force / Guess – (verb) the act of plugging numbers into a lock until it pops. This term can be confusing in escape rooms as it is sometimes used to mean “excessive physical force.”

Bypass / Circumvent / Sequence Break – (verb) to skip over a game element. This can be intentional or unintentional. It can result from hints, guesswork, lock exploitation, game design flaws, or faulty game resets.

Caesar Cipher / Caesarian Shift – (noun, singular) an encryption technique made famous by Julius Caesar, using a substitution cipher in which each letter in the plaintext is replaced by a letter some fixed number of positions down the alphabet.

Challenge Arcade (noun, singular) – at Challenge Arcades “teams play many large, quick physical/ mental games chosen from a wide selection… They’re more like collections of little escape rooms, but mostly a bit less puzzly.” Like escape rooms, the games you’ll find at Challenge Arcades require creative thinking, problem solving, and teamwork.

Chekhov’s Stuff (noun, singular) – A really intriguing, eye-catching prop that is simply set dressing and doesn’t do anything in the game. This is in reference to the dramatic principle, “Chekhov’s Gun.” (Alternate usage: refers to items you find in the game that you know will be important because otherwise the game will violate the dramatic principle.)

Cipher / Cryptogram – (noun, singular) a text written in code.

Clue – (noun, singular) a detail or component within the game that the players should interpret, combine, and solve in order to escape. This term can be confusing as it is sometimes also used to refer to a hint (see below).

Cold Start (noun, singular) – an escape room that begins without any intro or pre-amble. Players appear and the game starts. There is no lobby, out-of-game safety briefing, signing of waivers, or opportunity to use the toilet before the game starts. Oftentimes, players don’t even meet a host or gamemaster.

Combination Lock – (noun, singular) a lock that opens when the correct numeric, alphabetic, or symbolic password is input.

Communication Puzzle – (noun, singular) a type of escape room challenge that requires at least two parties to exchange information.

Counting Puzzle (noun, singular) – a puzzle that consists of counting like objects that you see or find. (Bonus: Zero Counting Puzzle – a counting puzzle in which some of the items you’re counting don’t exist at all and you’re supposed to put zero in the lock for that digit.)

Cryptex – (noun, singular) a tube with a combination letter lock built in as a self-locking mechanism. The concept originated in the Dan Brown novel The Da Vinci Code and was turned into a tangible product by Justin Nevins.

Nevins Cryptex / Real Cryptex / Good Cryptex – (noun, singular) a high quality Cryptex handmade by Justin Nevins.

Dark Room – (noun, singular) an escape room played in complete darkness. This is not to be confused with dimly lit rooms.

Decor – (noun, singular) the furnishing and decoration of a room to provide ambiance. This is not to be confused with red herrings.

Destructible Puzzle – (noun, singular) a puzzle that requires the players to irreparably break a prop to achieve the solution.

Difficulty by Darkness – (noun, singular) a type of escape room made intentionally more challenging (and frustrating) by dim lighting. This is not to be confused with a dark room (see above.)

Digit Structure (noun, singular) – this is used to refer to lock combinations, for example 4-number or 5-letter. Escape rooms don’t want to have too many of the same locks with the same digit structures unless they have excellent lock mapping.

Directional Lock (noun, singular) – also known as the Master Lock 1500iD, this lock takes up, down, left, and right as code inputs. Beware: it accepts long combinations. Use the classic “double tap” or “perfume spritz” on the shackle to reset it.

Do Not Touch Sticker – (noun, singular) a sticker or piece of tape affixed to props and set pieces that are “out of play.” The definition of “out of play” varies by escape room.

Drag – (verb) to feed a team so many hints as a gamemaster that the team no longer feels they were responsible for the win. This tends to be the result of an incompetent team and/or an incompetent game.

Easter Egg – (noun, singular) an unexpected or undocumented feature in an escape room included as a joke or a bonus.

Emergency Exit (noun, singular) – a designated way out of a gamespace, intended to be used for escape in the event of an emergency. Every escape room must have a way for players to exit in case of an emergency. We evaluate all escape rooms for safety in our reviews. Here is our safety scale.

Emergency Release (noun, singular) – a designated way to release yourself from restraints or a small restrictive space, intended to be used for escape in the event of an emergency.

Errol – (verb) to take off one’s shoes in an escape room for both comfort and attention.

Escake – (noun, singular) a celebratory delicacy used to mark the completion of a milestone escape room, traditionally cake. The concept of escake originates with the prolific UK-based “S2” escape room duo of Sera Dodd and Sharan Gill.

Escape Rate – (noun, singular)

For players: the win/loss percentage of an individual escape room player or team out of their total games played.

For rooms: the percentage of teams that escape the room in the time allotted. This is often ballparked. Some companies strive for a 100% escape room.

Escape Room / Room Escape / Escape Game – (noun, singular) a game where a group of participants collaboratively discovers and solves puzzles, tasks, and challenges that require no outside knowledge at a physical venue in order to accomplish a goal within a set amount of time.

Escape Room Logic – (noun, singular) a puzzle solution that makes sense in the context of solving puzzles within the game, but not within a game’s narrative. E.g. You’re a fugitive on the run from the police hunting for the information that will clear your name. Why are you counting the cups in a cabinet to get a lock combination?

Feedback (noun, singular) – the game’s reaction or response to a player action. Feedback sends signals to players about their actions.

Filler / Junk / Noise / Fluff – (noun, plural) subpar escape room content (puzzles, interactions, props, or story content) that is included for the purpose of lengthening the experience.

Flow State (noun, singular) – a mental state in which a person is fully immersed in the activity or task they are completing and achieves a feeling of energized focus where distractions go unnoticed. It’s also known as being “in the zone.” This psychological concept was coined by Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi.

Frontsolve / Forward Solve– (verb) to solve a puzzle as the designer intended.

Funbi Sweep (noun, singular) – referred to as a noun (i.e. to do a Funbi Sweep) this is the action of running your hands physically around the inside surfaces of a locked container after opening it to make sure you haven’t missed something. Oftentimes you’ll notice an object front and center, and without a Funbi Sweep, you’ll miss another item hidden in the same place. The name is a reference to beloved community member Bill “Funbi” Chang.

Game Clock – (noun, singular) the official countdown timer. This is frequently displayed within the game.

Game Flow – (noun, singular) the connective tissue between puzzles or game elements. Game flow describes the whole experience, how one puzzle branches out into others or funnels into a meta-puzzle. Game flow be mapped as a visual representation of the escape room.

Gamemaster / Host / Guide / Game Guide / Cluemaster – (noun, singular) the person responsible for overseeing the in-game experience, providing hints, and delivering and enforcing rules.

Gamespace / Set – (noun, singular) the gaming environment.

Gating (noun, singular) – a puzzle design technique that blocks access to a physical space or other in game elements until the player solves the puzzle.

Generation / Gen – (adjective) refers to a taxonomy for differentiating games according to their technology usage.  e.g. Gen 1, Gen 2, etc. Note that technology is not inherently good or bad in escape rooms. It is one of many tools for creating experiences.

Ghost Puzzle / Residue Puzzle / Dead Herring – (noun, singular) remnants of a previous iteration of a puzzle that has since become irrelevant to the game, but is still lingering among the clues and confusing the hell out of the players.

Glyph – (noun, singular) a symbol that (should) mean something.

Hasp – (noun, singular) a slotted hinged metal plate that fits over a metal loop, which is then secured by a padlock in order to lock a box or door.

Head to Head / Competitive – (adjective) describes two identical escape rooms that can be played simultaneously as a race. Teams competing in head to head escape rooms can sometimes interact during the game.

Hint – (noun, singular) an additional piece of information from outside of regular gameplay delivered by the gamemaster or an automated system to assist a team in forward progress. This concept can sometimes be referred to as a clue (see above).

Hint Penalty / Clue Penalty – (noun, singular) The punishment for needing an additional piece of information from outside of regular gameplay. It is commonly extra “time” added to the escape time whereby if a team escapes in 55 minutes but used a hint, it’s counted as if they escaped in 58 minutes. It can also be an in-game action, such as dancing, that the team must do to receive the necessary outside information.

Hint System – (noun, singular) the method by which hints are delivered.

Homework Puzzle (noun, singular) – this is a particular type of process puzzle where the tasks feel like something you would have been assigned in school.

Human Circuit – (adjective) describes a puzzle that requires players to form a human chain between metal props to complete a circuit to trigger an event.

Immersive – (adjectives) describes an escape room that creates such a compelling fiction that as a player, you feel that you are a part of it and forget the world outside the escape room.

Individual Role / Individual Goal – (noun, singular) a type of escape room where players are each assigned characters and/or objectives outside of the team objective. This can put the players in competition with one another, but it doesn’t have to.

Inescapable Room with a Margin of Error – (noun, singular) an escape room with a less than 5% escape rate.

Informed Choice – (noun, singular) an interaction where players have to make a decision (frequently an ethical decision) based on enough information that they can understand the context of their choice

Interaction – (noun, singular) a designed action within the game.

Jump Scare – (noun, singular) a technique often used in horror escape rooms (and horror films) intended to scare the players by surprising them with an abrupt change to their environment.

Key – (noun, singular) a small piece of shaped metal with incisions cut to fit the wards of a particular lock that can be inserted into the lock and turned to open or close the lock.

Key for Key – (noun, singular) a key locked up behind a key lock.

Kimmy Schmidt Crank – (noun, singular) a crank that must be regularly turned to keep the power on.

Laser Maze (noun, singular) – a common escape room challenge where lasers shine across the gamespace and players have to cross the space without touching the beams of light. While these challenges are inspired by the iconic Catherine Zeta-Jones scene from Entrapment, no one looks like her while completing this. It’s important to use lasers safely.

Layered Puzzle (noun, singular) – a puzzle where you have to go through multiple steps or transformations to arrive at the solution, often pulling together disparate information.

Linear – (adjective) describes a game that follows a rigid puzzle structure wherein each puzzle leads to the next. All escape rooms have some degree of linearity.

Live – (adjective) describes an element that you know will move or open in the future.

Lock Guy / Lock Girl / Locksmith – (noun, singular) the one teammate who always wants to input the combination or open the lock. This is sometimes a player who doesn’t feel they can contribute to actually solving the puzzles and opening things makes them feel like the hero.

Lock Mapping (noun, singular) – how puzzles (and/ or their solutions) are connected to locks. If lock mapping is poor, when players derive a code, they have to try it in multiple locks, deflating their momentum. This problem is compounded by many locks with the same digit structure.

Lock Whisperer – (noun, singular)  the teammate who can always get the locks to open. They just have the special touch.

Lockout Safe – (noun, singular) a box or cabinet with a combination locking mechanism that will shut down for a period of time if multiple incorrect combinations are input. Lockout safes are generally frowned upon by escape room players.

Lock Picking / Lock Exploiting – (verb) Using a design flaw within a locking mechanism to open the lock without solving the corresponding puzzle.

Logic Leap – (noun, singular) a tenuous connection between a clue and a puzzle solution.

Mag Lock / Magnetic Lock / Sensor-driven Lock – (noun, singular) an electromagnet used to secure a door or compartment. These locks are opened when they receive a signal from a button, sensor, or other controlling electronics.

Magnet Maze – (noun, singular) a common escape room prop where a small object (frequently a key) is behind a barrier and must be navigated out with a magnet.

Meta Puzzle – (noun, singular) a puzzle that unites several puzzles that feed into it. A meta puzzle is usually set late in the game and players must complete a series of other puzzles before they can tackle the meta puzzle.

Morse Code – (noun, singular) a code in which letters are represented by combinations of long and short signals of light or sound. Morse Code was originally designed for long-distance communication rather than obscuring messages.

Muggles / Rookies / Newbies / First-time Players – (noun, plural) the previously uninitiated.

Non-Binary Win Condition – (noun, singular) a type of escape room that doesn’t result in simply win or lose; it has different degrees or types of winning.

Non-Linear – (adjective) describes a game that does not follow a rigid puzzle structure wherein each puzzle leads to the next. Multiple puzzles can be completed at one time. Different teams can tackle puzzles in different orders.

Number Soup – (noun, singular) an escape room with so many numbers and combination locks and lack of correlation between the numbers and the locks… that your brain feels like a soup.

One-time Use – (adjective) describes props that will only contribute to one puzzle solution.

On-ramp – (noun, singular) the first puzzle in the escape room. It should stand out and be easily approachable.

Open-World (adjective) – experience design technique where players roam freely, often interacting with characters and discovering quests. It offers more freedom for exploration and serendipity than in a typical escape room. (In video games, an open world is a virtual world in which the player can approach objectives freely, as opposed to a world with more linear and structured gameplay.)

Order Preservation – (adjective) describes puzzles that can no longer be solved if players move certain items from their original state.

Outside Knowledge – (noun, singular) understanding derived from outside the gamespace that contributes to puzzle solving within the escape room. What exactly falls into this category is controversial. e.g. Roman numerals (especially large numbers).

Over-locked / Lock Orgy / Lock Fest – (adjective / noun) describes a single item that is shut with many (too many!) locks.

Padlock – (noun, singular) a portable key- or combination-activated lock.

Paper Puzzle / Homework Puzzle – (noun, singular) a puzzle that does not require the gamespace and could be solved anywhere.

Parallel Puzzle – (verb) to complete multiple puzzles at once with different teammates working on each concurrently. Some escape room design allows this. This can refer to teammates working in parallel in the same gamespace or in different gamespaces as part of the same escape room.

Physical Force – (noun, singular) physical strength used to open things. This is usually in violation of game rules and may result in breakage. Note that some escape rooms require physical force.

Pigpen / Masonic Cypher – (noun, singular) an 18th-century substitution cipher created by the freemasons that exchanges letters for geometric symbols that are fragments of a grid.

Pipeline / High Throughput Model – (noun, singular) a type of escape room where multiple teams are in the experience at the same time, but in separate rooms, always moving forward through the experience, never backtracking, and never running into other teams. This is the 5 Wits style.

Plaintext – (noun, singular) any text that is not encoded.

Play the Blame Game – (verb) to blame a failed escape on puzzles that make sense to 99% of players just because one is salty about not escaping.

Private (Ticketing) – (adjective) refers to a ticketing model where an entire group experience is purchased at once. This eliminates the possibility of strangers sharing the same experience. It is the most common ticketing model outside of the United States, but is increasingly more common in the United States as well.

Process Puzzle / Taskwork  – (noun, singular) a type of puzzle where after you understand a previously incomprehensible concept, you must complete the work to derive the solution to the puzzle.

Prop – (noun, singular) an in-game item. It can be part of a puzzle or a red herring.

“Psychic” – (noun, singular) a player who stands or crouches in front of one lock for the entire game trying to guess the combination instead of playing the game. The psychic never actually guesses the combination.

Public (Ticketing) – (adjective) refers to a ticketing model where admission is purchased by each individual player, thus allowing for the possibility of strangers sharing the same experience. This was originally the most common ticketing model in the United States, but is no longer very common.

Puppet – (verb) to act as an additional set of hands in an escape room you already know how to solve. This is a technique by which a solo player or small team can complete an experience designed for more people. Most often, a gamemaster puppets by coming into room and following the player’s instructions to help them complete the multiplayer challenge.

Push Button Lock (noun, singular) – this type of padlock has buttons that you push in in the right combination (order does not matter) to open. Sometimes the buttons are numbered. Other times the correct buttons are clued by their positions on the lock.

Puzzle – (noun, singular) anything that the team solves to advance through the escape room.

Puzzle Snatching / Puzzle Yanking – (verb) To take or steal a puzzle or component of a puzzle from another player, generally considered poor form.

Randoms – (noun, plural) strangers with whom you are teamed up in an escape room due to a public ticketing booking system (see above).

Recap / Thought Journey – (noun, singular) a mid-game or late-game explanation to teammates of how a puzzle or series of puzzles has resolved in order to get the entire team in sync again.

Room Swap / Traveling Room (noun, singular) – a scenario in which players exit through the door they came in… into a completely new set.

Red Herring – (noun, singular) an in-game item or piece of information that does not contribute to a puzzle solution, but could potentially lead players to waste time thinking it would be involved in the puzzle solving process. It may be intentional or unintentional. It may also be the result of wear, breakage, or vandalism. See Ghost Puzzle and Decor for additional information.

Reset –

(verb) to revert an escape room to its starting position whereby a new team can begin. e.g. “I need to reset the room for the next team.”

(noun, singular) – the act of reverting the escape room to its starting position. e.g. “We experienced a faulty reset.”

Reset Fail – (noun, singular) an improper reset where not every aspect of the escape room is reverted back to the correct starting position thereby adversely affecting the room play.

Resting Puzzle Face – (noun, singular) a look of concentration while solving puzzles that is easily mistaken for discontent.

RFID – (noun, singular) an automatic identification technology that uses radio-frequency electromagnetic fields to identify objects carrying tags when they come close to a reader. RFID is frequently used in escape rooms to release mag locks or trigger other events, often feeling magical.

Runbook – (noun, singular) a prop that outlines all or many of the steps that the team must complete in order to escape.

Safe – (noun, singular) a box or cabinet with a keyed or combination locking mechanism.

Sandbag – (verb) to hold back in an escape room as an experienced player to maximize the enjoyment of muggles or randoms.

Search / Hunt / Scavenge – (verb) to look for hidden clues within the gamespace.

Search Fail – (noun, singular) failure to find a hidden clue within the gamespace.

Seizure mode – (noun, singular) a handheld flashlight state where the light flashes incessantly. Some flashlight have this mode. This should not be confused with a weak and flickering flashlight.

Self-resetting / Automatically-resetting – (adjective) describes an escape room that is ready to play again immediately. Players do not have to wait for a gamemaster to reset the experience. This is usually associated with pipelines.

Semaphore – (noun, singular) – a system of sending messages by holding two arms or two flags in certain positions that correspond to an alphabetic code. Semaphore is used as a cipher in escape rooms.

Set Piece – (noun, singular) a self-contained segment of the gamespace.

Signpost – (verb) to direct players to what they’re meant to be working on through subtle in-game cluing

Solo (verb) – to play an escape room alone, when it was meant to be played by a team of two or more people. Here are our tips for playing solo.

Solo Moment (noun, singular) – a portion of the game (a puzzle, a challenge, a task, a story beat, a physical space, or a setpiece, etc…) that is designed to be experienced by only one member of the team. Learn more about this design technique here.

Speedrun (verb) – to attempt an activity with deliberate intent to complete the endeavor’s goals as quickly as possible. In an escape room, this means to win in the fastest time possible.

Spin – (verb) to stall in an escape rooms and take the clues in all sorts of ridiculous directions instead of taking a hint.

Split Team – (adjective) a style of escape room where the team is separated into different gamespaces for some or all of the experience. Split team design is most commonly used as the starting situation, with the team coming together later in the experience.

Strategic Hint – (noun, singular) a hint used because of gamesmanship in order to speed up the team’s performance.

Sudden Death – (adjective) describes an escape room where you can take an action that results in losing before the game clock runs out. e.g. cutting the wrong wire on the bomb.

Surprise Satanism – (noun, singular) a genre of escape room where the initial gamespace is comfortable and welcoming, but a later gamespace reveals blood, guts, and pentagrams… or anything unexpectedly sinister.

Tech – (noun, singular) something that runs on electricity that the player cannot control completely with an on/off switch.

Temporary Blackout / Temporary Total Darkness (noun, singular) – describes a sudden, dramatic lights-out events that force players to freeze, focus, wonder, and wait. This technique is usually used for a dramatic reveal or scene change.

Trap Door / Hidden Door/ Hatch – (noun, singular) a hidden or obscured doorway.

Used Pile / Done Pile / Discard Pile – (noun, singular) a pile of single use props that have already been used. Used piles are created by players to keep organized.

Vouched-for Randoms  – (noun, plural) randoms whom you haven’t actually met, but you are less wary about playing with due to their connections to the escape room community.

Walkthrough – (noun) a post-game overview of the puzzles and game flow delivered by the gamemaster after a team has completed the escape room (win or lose).

Wear – (noun, singular) marks or changes to a prop as a result of regular use or handling. Wear frequently exposes solutions. e.g. “There is wear on Boston on this map. It must be the answer.”