Room Escape Artist

It’s TERPECA season again… and with that comes the speculation of TERPECA placement amongst the escape room community.

I spend a lot of time speaking to escape room owners and I am increasingly hearing them express stress about how their games will do in TERPECA. I have some thoughts. These thoughts may read as flippant, but I hope that you read them as earnest… because they are coming from a place of caring.

But first, a disclaimer…

A TERPECA Disclaimer

Before we progress any further I need to be very clear about my relationship to TERPECA:

Lisa and I are both on the TERPECA Board, and have been since the Board was formed. We both share a single vote.

Absolutely nothing in this post represents the views of TERPECA or the TERPECA Board. These are all my thoughts and opinions. I am not speaking for TERPECA. Moving on.

Will You Win A TERPECA?

Probably not. The overwhelming majority of escape room creators will never win a TERPECA.

100 games are awarded a TERPECA annually, and amongst that 100, there are a number of creators who are pulling in more than one TERPECA. Even among the creators who win a TERPECA, for most, their game will hang around the top 100 for only a year or two.

TERPECA is a global award. There are a lot of games vying for a limited number of awards. There are more than 100 creators who are trying to make something truly special.

So, you probably won’t win a TERPECA. I’m going to ask you to deal with that. Not because I’m trying to be mean, but because I care about the emotional health of the creators in this space.

Winning a TERPECA cannot be your only measure of success.

What Other Measures of Success Should I Focus On?

You’re not in school. There is no end of year grade in business. TERPECA isn’t your teacher. It’s an award given communally by a combination of voter behavior and some complicated math.

There are so many places that you could be deriving satisfaction including, but not limited to:

• The joy of creation
• New skills that you have learned along the way
• The smiles on the faces of your customers.
• Other awards… we give out the Golden Lock Award frequently to wonderful games that will never land in the TERPECA Top 100.
  • If you really need an award, there are some review sites that will pretty much give you an award if you give them a free game. Ask around.
• Employees who are excited to run your games
• Your customers’ money

Most Aren’t Really Trying To Win A TERPECA

Most creators of incredible escape rooms aren’t really trying to win a TERPECA. Put simply, most escape room creators aren’t getting out and playing top games.

However, most of the recurring TERPECA winners that I know have played many top games in a variety of markets and countries. They are doing the market research, and a big part of that is playing top tier escape rooms. When they do, they dissect these games: not like whiners complaining about what they can’t afford, and could never or would never build.

Rather, they tear the games apart looking for lessons, inspiration, and understanding.

• “Why did this game win?”
• “What are voters seeing in this experience?”
• “What does this game mean for me and my work?”
• “How could this be even better?”

When I hear an owner complain that the current top rated game in the world “isn’t an escape room” by their personal definition, I can only wonder if they realize that they are on the path to becoming a dinosaur. The best way to defend your ego is to learn and grow, not bitch and moan.

So you probably won’t win a TERPECA… but what if you really wanted to?

The TERPECA Formula

If you are someone who has done their homework and played a good number of TERPECA-winning games, you’ll find that there are trends amongst these games. They generally include the following:

• Large square footage, with scene changes – A big game environment with lots of scene changes creates more robust, fully realized worlds. This also keeps the game’s pace up. And honestly… a giant world with lots of interesting spaces is cool.
• High production value and special effects – Big isn’t enough; things need to look and feel cool. Most escape rooms are set in environments that claim that they are cool, but top games deliver on the promise.
• Less puzzle focused, more story focused – Really complicated puzzles tend to slow down momentum, and are rarely evocative of the emotions that a thrilling game demands. Making your puzzles and gameplay carry narrative weight goes a long way. And just to clarify, I am not saying “don’t put puzzles in your games.” I think that’s a pretty bad idea. If you are thinking that, ask yourself why LinkedIn, The Atlantic, and so many other apps and news outlets are trying to put daily puzzles into their experiences.
• Highly emotional (frequently dark or moody) – All escape rooms evoke emotions. Don’t let your games be focused on frustration or annoyance. Pick an emotional state that you want your players to achieve and make every choice serve that goal.
• Strong acting – Whether it’s live actors, recorded performance, or some other means, your game needs characters. It needs to feel alive.
• Invisible hinting – Use light and sound cues to nudge and control your players into having a good time instead of making them beg for help. When your game is regularly bruising egos, people will like it less. If that hurts your ego as a creator, remember who is paying who.
• In-world onboarding – Top games overwhelmingly dispatch with the traditional escape room rules and do in-world onboarding. It’s a lot more interesting and far more fun. Also, your employees will prefer it.

TERPECA-winning games don’t need all of this, but most of them have most of these most of the time. And most escape rooms have none of these most of the time.

“This isn’t what I want to make”

Some of you are sitting at your keyboard saying this right now.

It’s ok. I’m not your dad. I’m not telling you how to run your business.

What I am telling you is where you should focus your energy if you want to increase your odds of landing a game in the TERPECA Top 100. I have played enough TERPECA-winning games to tell you that this is the way… but I have also told you that there are other paths to satisfaction in your career as an escape room creator.

Ultimately I want you to be satisfied with your creative work, the health of your business, and your relationship with your customers.

Let’s wrap all of this up…

“TERPECA Bait”

This piece is an off-shoot of the talk that I recently gave at the Immersive Experience Network/ Escape Room Industry Conference in London. The talk was titled Your Business is Creativity & Creativity is Your Business. It’s one of the talks that I am most proud of writing and performing.

While I was preparing for it, I had a section titled “TERPECA Bait,” that covered all of the recurring elements in TERPECA winning games. When I asked our Patreon community what came to mind when I said the words, “TERPECA Bait,” I got some interesting and largely negative responses including:

“High production value, probably horror, probably includes an actor, puzzles feel more like an afterthought.”

The conversation that ensued revealed two things:

• My slide had the wrong title for what I was trying to communicate.
• Escape room players are not a monolith. Yes, the voting trend moves strong in a particular direction, but tastes really do differ. (And this is ok, great even.)

I’m really thankful to our community for that discussion and so many others. With that in mind, I am planning on live-streaming a version of Your Business is Creativity & Creativity is Your Business for our Patreon community in the coming weeks. So join in if that feels like something that you’d like to see.

We truly could not do what we do here without the financial support of our community… but also they really saved me from misrepresenting my point on stage. What a rad group of people. 💙

Special shout out to those who joined this month: Michael Campion, Evan Meltzer, David Da silva, Erika Aquino, Joshua Veltman, Joshua Corns, Thomas McAuliff, Nathan, Shay, and Laura Reynes

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

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