Room Escape Artist

I have had the privilege to visit a variety of top escape room markets around the world. I have played so many games that have landed in the TERPECA top 100.

Many of these games have a deep theatrical quality, and within that cohort of theatrical games, a lot of them are horror experiences. One element that a lot of games at the intersection of theatricality and horror have in common is a menacing character who is threatening to “capture” us.

I’ve seen a number of games pull this off well… but I have seen far more games do it poorly… and yes, I am talking about TERPECA top 100 games here. I want to explore this mechanic, share some thoughts about how to capture players well, and point out some common ways that player capture fails.

“The Menace”

Games involving player capture are always built around a character or characters who present a threat to the players. These characters are usually a killer, a madman, a monster, or cultists. Lisa has taken to referring to this role as “The Menace” and I think that it’s an apt title.

Regardless of the story specifics, the The Menace drifts in and out of the game, frequently accompanied by aggressive soundtrack changes. Their presence controls the pace and movement of the game. Sometimes they are there to push the players forward; other times they slow or stop player movement. Regardless of their goals, The Menace is the center of the experience. They exist to control the flow of play.

The Unknown

At the end of the day, The Menace is just a person in a costume… so its key to keep them mysterious. The unknown is always more scary than the understood. It’s best when the players have a hard time seeing exactly what The Menace looks like for as long as possible.

There are a lot of ways to achieve this, for example, giving players hiding places that only allow them to see the legs and feet of The Menace in the early game, controlling the lighting so that The Menace is a bit obscured, or just keeping movement and pacing frenzied so that players don’t have the opportunity to get a good look.

However this is achieved, the sooner players get a good look at The Menace, the sooner the process of getting comfortable begins.

Building Tension

Effective horror is all about tension and release. Its not about gore, jump scares, or intense moments… but gore, jump scares, or intense moments can be tools in building tension.

Years ago I wrote about jump scares in escape rooms, pointing out that overdoing jump scares results in diminishing returns. I’ll expand that statement: overdoing anything, especially in a fear-based experience, results in diminishing returns.

Slow-building tension and then having powerful and infrequent moments of release is where the magic lives.

Rapid fire tension and release is exhausting and over time it kills the players ability to feel much of anything. This kind of approach will result in players being unable to connect with or care about a finale.

Timing the Capture

Remember how this post was titled, On Getting “Captured” in Escape Rooms? We are pretty deep in and its the first time that I’m mentioning the capture… and that’s deliberate. Capture shouldn’t happen early unless it’s happening only once as a plot point and will never happen again.

Why?

If you capture players early in the game, then you’ll automatically lower the consequences. This is because the players have to free themselves early in the game. Thus they learn that capture has low consequences. Another byproduct of early capture is that it demystifies The Menace.

If you’re capturing your players often, it creates a catch and release revolving door where every single time that the players get captured, the mechanic loses meaning.

With enough time and captures, the whole thing becomes meaningless. At best, The Menace becomes an annoyance. At worst, The Menace becomes a joke. I’d be surprised if any horror escape room creators want the words “annoyance” or “joke” associated with their antagonist.

Capture has to be timed with plot points or the release of tension at a critical moment. Use it sparingly and always preserve the mystique of The Menace.

Consequence

Just as important as the timing of a capture is what happens when you’ve been captured.

There are a lot of ways to handle capture, but the strongest ones tend to involve advancing the plot and putting the players into an interesting challenge.

Players should feel like they overcame a unique obstacle.

If the players are getting captured regularly and performing the exact same actions to free themselves, then The Menace is failing to live up to their role.

It’s tough to balance consequences because no player wants to be pulled from the game and “killed off.” Players have paid too much and generally only have one shot at experiencing the game… so consequences need to be more creative.

It’s very difficult to create good consequences… and it’s even harder to pull it off repeatedly.

Safety & Egress

I’ll be blunt: If you cannot figure out how to capture players in a fire-safe way that allows them to free themselves in an emergency, then you have failed yourself and your players.

If you cannot design within fire code, then you aren’t trying hard enough. Believe me when I tell you that we have a lot more to say on this subject.

Ending

Writing a satisfying ending to any story is a challenge. I am going to set that notion aside for the purposes of this discussion, and suggest that a lot of epic horror games simply need to end sooner than they do.

As I mentioned earlier, it’s hard to keep players in a state of fear for a long period of time. Eventually players start to feel comfortable with The Menace, the set, and the game itself. That comfort is the enemy of fear.

One solution to this is to empower players over the course of the game so that the game doesn’t hinge on one emotion for the duration of its runtime.

Another, if you just want to focus on fear, is to end sooner. Lingering in a game where you’re supposed to feel afraid but aren’t feels underwhelming verging on silly.

Mastering Fear

With trips to the Netherlands, Belgium, Spain, and Greece over the past year, we’ve had a lot of homework to do catching up on the current state of top escape rooms around the world. As the escape room world has become more enchanted by fear, I’ve found myself having to put in the work (and the money) to understand it.

There will be many more posts exploring key elements of horror, fear, and safety over the coming weeks. I have a lot to say on the subject and what I have experienced of late.

I’m truly thankful to our Patreon supporters who have helped us be able to do this kind of travel and deep research. As we further explore the finer points of horror and review some of the more extreme games that we have played over the past few months, I think that you’ll understand that this isn’t all fun and games. We really are putting in work to further our community’s understanding of what escape rooms can and should be.

Special shout out to those who joined this month: Paul and Eric from Escape Mail, Joe Brown, Unlock The Adventure, Joshua Overson, Brandon gersick , Vicki Bien, and Tyler

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

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