Room Escape Artist

“Idle hands break shit” is an escape room design axiom that we have been repeating for years.

Let’s break down the problem of game breakage and the role that game design plays in feeding or limiting the issue.

Setting Aside A Few Things

Build Quality

For the purposes of this exploration, I am going to set aside the question of build quality and assume that things are reasonably well-built. If they aren’t, that’s a separate, larger issue.

Wear & Tear

I’m also not going to directly address issues surrounding long-term wear and tear. I’ve had props break in my hands because they had seen too much play. This is a game inspection and maintenance issue.

Belligerent Players

Finally, I’m not going to explore the folks who willfully destroy things. Whether they are drunk or have spent a lifetime perfecting the craft of being utterly awful, they are their own separate problem. Mostly, you should just be thankful that you’re only stuck dealing with this person for an hour or so.

Limiting Unintentional Breakage

There’s something that happens to a lot of escape room players when they get stuck for too long: they get desperate. That desperation can lead to productive experimentation… but it can also lead to silliness:

• Tugging on things too hard
• Poking around the set in unnecessary ways
• Trying their worst ideas

If a player who isn’t looking to misbehave is suddenly contemplating climbing up the walls or cracking something solid open to see what’s inside, the odds are pretty good that they have been idle for too long.

A lack of progress and reward – especially in a timed environment where ego is on the line – will encourage people to push boundaries.

In the early years of escape rooms, we used to see this even amongst our own teammates… back when games were frequently a lot harder than they are today. That difficulty was born out of the aesthetic of the time, but also out of a lot of less-than-stellar puzzle design. However, this still happens in escape rooms around the world.

Good Hint Systems Are Insurance

When an owner tells me that they are dealing with a lot of breakage, I always ask, “do people tend to break things somewhere around your tougher puzzles?” There’s a pretty high correlation.

This is one of the many reasons why having a good hint system – and making players feel comfortable using it – is critical to escape room operation.

Giving a player a hint is a lot cheaper than fixing a damaged game.

“Idle Hands Break Shit”

We’ve been saying this during talks and in conversation for years. We put out so much content in so many places, and I could have sworn that I had written about this, but it turns out that I never wrote about the concept… at least, I never wrote about it outside of our Patreon community.

There are so many ideas that we workshop with our wonderful community. If you love the nuance of design and want to work through ideas with people who also care deeply about these things of things, you should consider joining.

In the mean time, thank you to all of our Patreon supporters. We’d never be able to keep doing all of the things that we’re doing without you.

Special shout out to those who joined this month: bananarama, Julian, Jana Erbes, Casey Chattle from Brain Games Escape Room, Stephanie Guimera, T, Jenni Green, grace, and James and Kaitlin Trexberg

To those of you reading who have the means, we hope you’ll consider joining this wonderful group of supporters.

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