Category: Player Tips

Locks as External Memory [Player Tip]

by David Spira, posted in Player Tips

Here’s a simple yet advanced escape room player tip for remembering letters and numbers in games that don’t provide note-taking materials.

Two word locks. One reads "MORE" the other "BRAIN."

The Problem

You’re playing an escape room that requires you to derive letters or numbers one at a time and then recall them for a code. To make matters worse, you aren’t even sure what order these digits will go in.

You haven’t been provided with note-taking materials.

You’ve got digits and you know they are important, but for some reason the game designer believes that this puzzle should also be a memory test.

The Solution

Grab a discarded lock and input the digits that you need to remember. Now you have a portable external memory device. Tote it around with you until the problem is solved.

If you don’t have a used lock, save the digits on an active lock. However, keep these few things in mind if you’re using an active lock as external memory:

  • Communicate to your team what you’re doing. Active locks tend to get shuffled.
  • Remember that the active lock might get solved before the puzzle you’re attempting to save the digits for.

How Often is this Useful?

I can’t say that I have had to do this all that often in the three or so years that this trick has been in my back pocket. However, it’s been especially useful when playing escape rooms with fewer people than the recommended team size.

Earlier this year, Lisa and I played a game where we had to derive a series of 9 digits to input into a keypad. To get to these digits, Lisa solved a logic puzzle and correlated her answers to items spread across a large space. There might have been other steps. I put the first 5 digits in a lock and brought that over to the keypad. After I punched these in, she only had to recite the last 4 digits for me. We were in!

It may not be an every-game trick, but I’ve always been happy to have it when I’ve needed it.

Locks as External Memory is one escape room tactic. For more tips, check out our Player Tips section.

Facebook’s Newsfeed Changes & Escape Rooms

by David Spira, posted in News, Player Tips, Room Design

I’m not the guy who complains about every little change that every tech platform makes. I’ve been designing complex software for years and I get the complexity.

When I say that the latest Facebook Newsfeed updates are terrible, I mean it.

They are a disaster for small businesses like escape rooms.

Painting of a man holding an iPhone to his head like a gun, and social media icons shooting out the other side like blood, bone and brains.
I saw this hanging in Berlin, Germany’s Final Escape.

What’s Going On?

Mark Zuckerberg did his 50 states tour and decided that Facebook needed to focus on creating “meaningful interaction.”

He said, “We want to make sure that our products are not just fun, but are good for people.”

As a result, the newsfeed now supposedly emphasizes “friends and family” (NYTimes).

In practicality, this means:

  • Content posted by your family should appear more readily in your feed.
  • Content from Facebook Pages of companies that you’ve liked will appear less frequently.
  • News content will appear more often… so long as it’s been posted by a friend.
  • Content from Facebook groups you’ve joined will show up all over your feed.

For me personally, this means that my Facebook feed consists of humorless political postings from the people that I know, discussions from the various escape room-related Facebook groups that I’m a member of… and lots and lots and lots and lots of escape room post-game photos.

This means that I’m looking at Facebook a whole lot less. So maybe this is a good thing?

Back to the point.

What Does This Mean For Escape Rooms & Players?

Organic Reach

The organic reach of Facebook pages has been slashed.

This means that the Facebook content posted by businesses will surface naturally at a much lower rate.

Facebook wants businesses to pay to have their content surfaced. This isn’t new. While they’ve been operating this way for years, they’ve kept the organic numbers at least reasonable while regularly pummeling the page-owner with notifications about the treasures that will come if and only if they give Facebook some money to promote their content.

To me, these notifications always read like Nigerian Prince emails without the charm.

Update 11:45AM – This is a high performing post! Facebook wants money to make more people see it.

An email from the Facebook ads team suggesting that this post is high performing and that we should pay to boost its presence in Facebook.
This is not a joke.

The Effect

The Facebook user clicks “like” on pages of interest. The user is literally asking for the content. Facebook, however, algorithmically withholds it because it’s an easy chokepoint to generate revenue.

For players this means that when your favorite local escape room business announces that it has a new room, you won’t see this unless the escape room pays enough money that Facebook chooses to grace your eyeballs with the announcement.

It means that if you follow Room Escape Artist or other blogs through Facebook, you will see our content less frequently.

More importantly, it means that your local escape room businesses will likely have to spend a lot more money with Facebook to get the results that they need to operate. This will dramatically favor larger businesses who can more easily absorb the added cost.

What Can I Do About It?

You – as a player, a fan of escape rooms, and a reader of this site – have a few options to limit the damage that this shift will create:

  • Use your web browser as a browser and favorite your local escape room companies and Room Escape Artist.  Click over to them from time to time. Visit on your own terms, not because an algorithm selected the content for you.
  • Subscribe to emails. A good portion of our readership subscribes to receive emails when we publish content. Just about every escape room company out there sends out promotions and information via email.
  • If you can’t kick the Facebook habit, and believe me, I get that too… click “like,” leave a comment, or share content that you support. Boosting the signal helps.
  • Another option for those committed to Facebook is to use their oddly buried subscription feature to make sure that content is served up:

When you like a page’s content, go to the page and next to the “Like” button you’ll find the “Following” button. Click that and update your setting to “See First.”

Facebook's following dropdown, set to "Default" with "See First" highlighted.

Advice For Owners

So far, we haven’t seen a significant dip in traffic as a result of this because we’ve never put a heavy emphasis on Facebook as a distribution platform. Our feeling is that we distribute to all sensible channels and let our readers decide how they will interact with us. Facebook happens to be one channel.

Our site is built on open source technology. We distribute easily to RSS and our email subscription is simple. Our preference is that people use the website as a website because that’s the only thing we can control.

We’ve taken this approach because we don’t trust Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, Pinterest, Medium, and others to put our interests first. We’ll use them, but we won’t count on them.

Advertising and marketing is a lot of work. Make a conscious strategy. Don’t rely on one platform. Measure your results and refocus on the things that work. Don’t let yourself get lulled into a false sense of security with a single platform.

If one thing is certain about tech companies, it’s the promise of endless change… which may or may not be in your favor.

Contact Information: Escape Room Corporate

by David Spira, posted in Player Tips

So, you’re trying to find the people in charge of all of these escape rooms that seem to be popping up all over the place?

You’re looking for a contact form, phone number or email address because you want to:

  • buy an escape room franchise
  • compliment the fantastic gamemaster who oversaw your escape game
  • reserve space for a large corporate group
  • file a complaint about the poor customer service that you received while visiting an escape room
  • ask whether you can bring your children to an escape room
  • determine whether an escape room facility is handicapped accessible

Well, you’ve come to the right place because I’m going to help you out.

There is no “escape room corporate.”

Vibrant filtered image of a Polycom telephone resting on a wood and leather desk.

Escape Rooms Businesses

Escape rooms are a worldwide phenomenon. A handful of chains notwithstanding, escape rooms are largely independent ventures.

There are over 2,000 escape room facilities in the United States alone. The overwhelming majority of them are independently owned, designed, and operated… even if a lot of them have remarkably similar names.

No company or individual solely created the concept, nor does anyone own the idea and name “escape room.” I explained the history of escape rooms a while back.

We Can’t Solve Your Issues

We’ve been writing about the escape room industry, reviewing games, and tracking the growth of the movement since the fall of 2014. For nearly as long, we’ve received regular emails and social media communication from people who think that we’re in charge of escape rooms.

We receive a lot of corporate booking requests… and a whole lot of customer service issues. As interesting as these messages are, we usually can’t help out. (One time we knew an answer and provided it, CCing the owner of the company in question.)

Contacting Escape Room Companies

To contact an escape room, find the website of the individual company that you will visit or have visited. It should have an email address, contact form, social media link, or phone number.

Good Time / Bad Time?

If you had a miserable time in an escape room, trust us that there are better ones out there. Please don’t give up on the concept because you happened upon a dud. This we can help with: Contact us for an escape room recommendation.

If you played an escape room and enjoyed it, there are so many more fantastic ones out there. This we help with: We have a map & spreadsheet of them.

Good luck and have fun.

3 Classic Games That Are Common Escape Room Puzzles

by David Spira, posted in Player Tips, Products, Room Design

Game design cannibalizes ideas from past games. It’s the nature of gaming in general and we see it in tabletop games, video games, and escape rooms.

We’ve seen these 3 games turned into escape room puzzles on too many occasions to count. Sometimes we see straight implementations of the classic games; others times they are well-hidden or reimagined.

If you feel like leveling up your escape room skill, mastery of these 3 games will come in handy.

A simon game with green, yellow, red, and blue buttons arranged in a circle.

1: Simon

It’s a simple game of repeating button pushes in a particular pattern. It’s also the kind of thing that can be difficult to do as a group or under pressure.

As a kid, I’d play Simon for hours. If I’m being honest, I think I was better at it back then. 

A blue Mastermind Board covered in multicolored pips.

2: Mastermind

A codemaker sets a secret code and the codebreaker tries to crack it through deduction, logic, and a bit of guess work. The mechanics of this game are incredibly simple, but it has a ton of depth to it.

Somehow I never encountered Mastermind in my pre-escape room life and I’m kind of sad about that. 

A beautiful wooden towers of hanoi puzzle. There are three vertical rods. One rod has a cone of cylinders stacked on it.

3: Towers of Hanoi

Towers of Hanoi is a straightforward logic challenge. There are 3 pillars and the more disks you add to it, the harder (and more interesting) it becomes.

I’ve seen some especially creative interpretations of this puzzle in escape rooms.

Not an endorsement for use in escape rooms

Each of these three puzzles has its place and its virtues. When we encounter Towers of Hanoi in an escape room such that it’s fun and make sense, that’s fantastic. That said, these classic puzzles don’t belong in every single escape room.

If you design escape rooms, please don’t read too deeply into this post. Don’t replicate these puzzles just because.

“Single Use” In Escape Rooms [Design Tips]

by Lisa Spira, posted in Player Tips, Room Design

One isn’t always the loneliest number in an escape room.

The concept of “single use” items is common in escape rooms, but it has a strangely fuzzy definition.

Pros & cons

Single use is a popular design choice, but it is not the only way to design an escape room. It has a few benefits for both players and companies:

For players, the benefit is clarity. If you use something, you won’t need it again. You can create a “used” pile that you never have to revisit.

For companies, that player clarity generally results in smoother game flow. It also reduces wear and tear on props, because players don’t continually investigate them for the entire game.

On the flipside, without single use, the same concept can return in different ways, enabling players to build mastery. This can add a level of player satisfaction and more interesting and innovative game design.

Every game design decision comes with tradeoffs.

The proper definitions of single use

If you use it once, you never use it again.

“It” refers to anything in your gamespace, be it a prop, puzzle, solution, key, clue, combination… or black light.

The black light alternative definition

If you use it once, you never use it again, unless it’s a handheld black light. This is lame, but can be ok if it’s made crystal clear.

The incorrect definition

If you use it once, you never use it again, unless we think you should. We’ve seen this strange definition require us to reuse journals, keys, solutions, information that leads to one solution and then leads to another… and, of course, handheld black lights.

Clarity

The words “single use” should be pretty clear.

George Carlin and his quote, "Try to pay attention to the language we've all agreed on."

They should mean that players will rely on each item once. If that is not your definition, that’s perfectly fine. Not every game needs to be, or even should be, single use. But if you design a game that reuses anything, don’t announce it as “single use” in your pregame briefing.

The Right Way To Passively Participate in an Escape Room

by David Spira, posted in Player Tips

If you play a lot of escape rooms, eventually you’ll find yourself in one where you’re a passive participant.

Perhaps you didn’t get enough sleep or work has been hell. Maybe mid-game you suddenly realize that you’re ill.

It’s also possible that you’re going with a group of friends to watch them play through an escape room you’ve already experienced; that has happened before.

Whatever the reason, you’re in the room and you’re putting yourself on the sidelines.

A white skull pillow sitting on a big comfortable orange chair in a dark room.

The good news is that there are only few things that you need to do before sitting back.

Step 1: Choose a campground

Find a place that’s out of the team’s way, but allows you to keep up with the goings on. This is easy if you’ve played the game before, but could be challenging if you haven’t.

Stay out of the way so that you aren’t an obstruction while you aren’t contributing.

Position yourself so you can follow the progress of your team in the event that you perk up. That way you can dive back in should you find the energy. Or if you don’t, maybe you’ll piece something together passively while your team keeps working.

Step 2: Search before you sit

I’m not kidding. I’ve seen some talented escapers take a break only to realize that they are sitting atop a critical clue.

It’s really funny when this happens… but it’s best avoided.

Before you sit anywhere, whether it’s in a chair, on the floor, or atop any other prop, search the hell out of it. Search it more thoroughly than you would if you were actively gaming. If you sit down on a clue, the odds are that your team will need to burn a hint in order to learn that you need to move.

You should also search before sitting even if you’ve previously played the game. Sometimes things change.

If you can’t puzzle hard, then rest smart.

A Player’s Guide to Escape Room Marathons [Player Tips]

by Lisa Spira, posted in Player Tips

When we travel to a new city, we like to play a lot of escape rooms back-to-back-to-back and we aren’t the only ones.

In order to make the most of your escape room marathon, follow these tips:

Booking

To maximize escape room quantity, create a plan before you start booking. I recommend a spreadsheet.

If you are scheduling multiple games at one company, optimize their booking schedule (to the best of your ability) to book directly back-to-back. It can be helpful to call the company to ask about scheduling concerns such as whether a post-game walkthrough will take additional time. This is especially important if you are booking into escape rooms with public ticketing.

Transportation

If you are moving between companies, consult a map as you plan the order of your journey. Keep in mind whether you’ll need to leave extra time in between bookings to account for things such as rush hour or finding parking.

Be certain that you know how you’re moving between games. Plan out your use of mass transit in advance, if that’s the best method.

If you’re planning to use Uber / Lyft, verify that they operate in the city you will be visiting (cough Austin, Texas & Buffalo, New York cough).

If you’re driving, research parking ahead of time and plan for refueling breaks if you’re covering a lot of ground.

Black, white, and purple image of a bag of beef jerky, a black light, and an assortment of locks resting on a US map.

Organizing

Be organized. Before you start the trip, make sure you have the following information handy:

  • Company names
  • Company addresses
  • Start times for individual room escapes
  • Special instructions for finding the facility or parking (sometimes the first puzzle is finding the place)

Make sure other incidentals won’t hold you up. For example, put gas in the car and have coins on hand for parking meters, if applicable.

We put everything in Google Calendar after the plan is set. This makes it easy for everyone to access the information and pull up driving directions.

Sustaining players

You will get tired. Make sure you take care of other bodily comforts, so that you don’t compound your tiredness.

Plan meal stops ahead of time. Or, if you aren’t planning the exact restaurant, at least make sure there are restaurants in the area before relying on Yelp the day of the escape room marathon.

Make sure you are traveling with snacks and beverages.

Wear layers. You will undoubtedly encounter variable temperatures in the different escape rooms. You want to be able to be comfortable in every game.

Wear comfortable clothes and shoes. You’ll be on your feet and moving around a lot.

Check out our packing advice..

Avoiding confusion

As you play multiple escape rooms back-to-back, it can also become tough to keep the rules straight from game to game. (“Are we supposed to take the furniture apart here?”).

Communication becomes even more vital. Speak up as you play.

Maximizing fun

If you are even contemplating an escape room marathon, you should try one. The fact that you’re considering it suggests that you’ll likely enjoy it… but not every moment will be fun.

You will get tired. You will get hungry. You will get frustrated. These will be amplified when you’re experiencing bad game design or poor customer service.

There will be ups and downs and these moments may not be the same for everyone on the team(s). Don’t let your downs bring down the group. When you aren’t having fun, keep that to yourself so that you don’t ruin other people’s experiences. Be mindful about your bottoming out and don’t be a jerk to your teammates. Take a break, have a snack, drink some water or caffeine.

I repeat: Don’t be a jerk to your teammates (or your gamemaster).

Similarly, if you notice one of your teammates having a rough time, don’t push them. Give them some time to get it together.

Bad moments happen, but you’ll bounce back. Just be aware of your own mood so that you can maximize the fun for your yourself and your teammates.

A day’s worth of adventure puzzling is a lot of fun, but it takes some planning and self control.

Packing for an Escape Room Marathon [Player Tips]

by David Spira, posted in Player Tips

“What gear should I bring to an escape room marathon?”

Does a full day of escape rooms sound both thrilling and a little frightening?

A good way to limit the jitters is to show up prepared.

We try to travel light, but depending on the day’s schedule, here are a few things that we pack when we’re taking on a full day of adventure puzzling:

Snack & drinks

If you or your teammates are the hangry sort, snacks are a must.

Snacks are even more important if you’re:

  • Playing with strangers (who might push your buttons)
  • Playing unfamiliar games (without strong recommendations, you might find some duds… which I promise you will feel far worse on an empty stomach)
  • Not leaving enough time between games for meals

Here are some snacks we frequently pack:

And don’t forget to bring your hydration and caffeination of choice.

A black Contigo self-sealing thremos.

This auto-sealing, insulated travel mug is amazing. It comes in 16 & 20 ounce sizes and all of the colors.

Distractions

Sometimes it’s tough to get the back-to-back-to-back bookings to work exactly as you were hoping for, and you might have some dead time in the schedule.

Here are a few fun-sized games and puzzles that can entertain your group during the down time:

Gear

Warmth

If you’re anything like Lisa, cold is your archenemy. Bring your favorite hoodie or sweater for heavily air conditioned escape rooms.

Charger & battery

Don’t forget your phone charger. If you are depending on your phone to handle navigation (or car hailing), a good battery pack can provide extra juice.

Notebook & pen

If you’re marathoning escape rooms, you might also be the type of person who likes to take notes on the games. When it comes to notebooks, we have a bit of a Moleskin addiction, and we like these retractable-tip pens.

Backpack

Finally, don’t forget to find a bag to carry everything. I have a strange weakness for hyper-organizable backpacks. This Peak Design backpack has become my go-to for work and all other things. It’s decadent, but I use it daily.

Enjoy your marathon!

(If you purchase via our Amazon links, you will help support Room Escape Artist as we will receive a very small percentage of the sale).

For more tips like Packing for an Escape Room Marathon, check out our Player Tips section.

The Lonely Road: 12 Tips for Soloing an Escape Room (The Last One Will Surprise You)

by David Spira, posted in Player Tips

Soloing is tackling an escape room all by your lonesome.

While escape rooms are normally a team event, there are opportunities to play alone:

  • single-player escape rooms
  • escape rooms with solo components, where one or more players are isolated from the team and accomplish a portion of the game without any support
  • bold players electing to take on a team game all by themselves, either for the challenge, because they are traveling alone, or because they play at a frequency that their friends and family won’t abide.

It’s this last group that we’re focusing on. In speaking with some of these bold escape room enthusiasts who choose to take on entire team games by themselves, we pulled together the following tips.

Stylized close up of someone playing a guitar solo with a jigsaw puzzle piece as a pick.

1: Speak your thought process

It’s tempting to work through the game silently because when you’re soloing there aren’t any teammates to speak to.

However, there is someone to speak to: your gamemaster.

Soloing a game isn’t just tough on players, it’s tough on the person moderating the game. When a single player is silently puzzling, the gamemaster isn’t getting the feedback they normally receive from chatty teams.

Speaking your thought process will give your gamemaster an understanding of what and how you’re doing. This provides the context that they need to deliver quick and accurate hints.

2: Be experienced

Soloing an escape room is not for newbies. The more knowledge and skill you have going in, the more likely you will be to succeed and have fun.

If you’re struggling to determine how locks, sensors, and standard puzzles work, you’re screwed.

3: Know your strengths & weaknesses, but be prepared to do it all

I have yet to meet the room escaper who loves to handle each and every type of puzzle and task necessary to complete most escape rooms.

Keep your weaknesses in mind throughout the game; you may need to burn a hint to get through those sections.

4: Use your hints

Check your ego at the door and be open to direction from your gamemaster.

Sometimes simply asking the gamemaster to point out what to begin with can save a ton of time. Don’t be coy about asking for assistance, especially when tasks require a lot of eyeballs. You’ll likely derive more satisfaction from solving the puzzles than searching the room, so don’t feel silly asking for help with the menial tasks.

5: You won’t lose due to communication failures

Solo players are operating with a lot of disadvantages, but the potential for communication failures isn’t one of them.

Congratulations, this is literally your only edge as a soloist.

6: Ask if it’s linear or non-linear

While I wouldn’t necessarily ask this going into a game with a team, this knowledge can help the solo player.

In a linear game, you can confidently tackle puzzles as they become solvable. Non-linear games are muddier. Knowing the difference can save you a ton of time.

7: Choose your battles

A strong player can solo their way out of a game made for 2-4 players or even 2-6.

Once you get into the 7-12 player range, the experiences are brutally challenging for a single player. This is amplified in search-heavy games, as one set of eyeballs simply won’t be enough to find everything and puzzle.

If you’re planning to solo, reach out to the company (or your friendly neighborhood reviewer) and ask which games are best suited for individual play.

8: Not every game can be soloed, but sometimes you can puppet

There are games that are impossible to solo; they simply require multiple bodies to take action simultaneously.

You might be able to circumvent this problem by requesting a puppet.

9: Choose your venue carefully

Pick a customer service-focused company that’s willing to work with you.

If a company doesn’t answer their phone or emails, they aren’t customer service-focused.

If a company treats you poorly, don’t bother trying to solo with them.

It’s better if a company outright tells you that they aren’t set up to accommodate your solo game request than if they are dismissive or mean.

10: Ask for an in-game gamemaster

While not every game can accommodate an in-room gamemaster, nor will every company allow for one, having your gamemaster in the room can help a lot.

Without any obstructions to their hearing or vision, they’ll be able to provide hints quickly and accurately.

11: Bond with your gamemaster

While all players should treat their gamemaster well, solo players should strive to bond with them.

Your gamemaster is the only other individual on your team and you’ll likely be relying on them quite a bit.

Be the kind of player that they want to help.

12: Play with people

There’s a time and place for soloing, usually while traveling alone or when games have a solo component built in. However, escape rooms are an inherently social experience.

If you’re a badass puzzler who wants to push their own boundaries, there are far more challenging puzzle books and tangible puzzles that provide many more hours of entertainment for a fraction of the price. (And we’re going to be reviewing more of those soon).

I encourage you to bring along friends and family and share your love of puzzling with them… or reach out through the escape room communities (Facebook & Slack) to meet up with fellow puzzle lovers.

A communal experience is at the heart of escape rooms. I deeply believe that they are best shared with others.

Bring newbies into the hobby, both for the new players and to grow the escape room industry. If you love these things enough to solo them, you probably care deeply about the health and future of the companies that produce these games.

Solo when the escape room demands it. Solo when you literally have no one to join you. Whenever you can, seek out the social experience.

Handling Counting Puzzles [Room Design & Player Tip]

by David Spira, posted in Player Tips, Room Design

It turns out that I’ve been counting wrong my whole life… and the odds are good that you have been too.

On a few occasions I’ve encountered escape rooms that include high counting “puzzles.” I am referring to challenges that required our team to count a large volume of items and input those numbers into a combination lock.

While I’ve encountered poorly-clued, high-volume counting puzzles in some of my worst escape room experiences, counting as a challenge isn’t all that uncommon. Here’s how to better handle counting challenges as both a player and a designer.

The Count from Sesame Street kneeling and holding up 4 fingers.

Counting puzzles done well

Counting as a reasonable escape room puzzle usually looks something like this:

You’re in a music studio room and there are instruments all over the place. Most are obvious; a few are well hidden. There are 5 guitars, a keyboard, 2 basses, and 9 drums. Somewhere else in the room you find production notes that say, “when putting together the mix, I started with the bass, then added in the drums, the guitars, and finished with the keyboard.” Your combination is 2-9-5-1.

Counting isn’t fun

Every experienced escape room player eventually finds puzzle types that they simply cannot stand. For example, black lights catch a lot of flack. (I don’t think they deserve all of it.) Counting disappoints me every time I encounter it, even when it’s done well.

It’s a lazy puzzle. It’s patronizing to ask anyone older than 10 to mindlessly count, especially when they are paying for the privilege.

How to count better

While I may not like counting, I will do it when the game demands it. So I was pretty happy to learn that TED-Ed put out a video showing a number of better ways to count large numbers… with your fingers.

I wish I had known this when I was a kid because whenever I had to count anything my brother would love to shout a string of random numbers to throw me off.

Image via Wikipedia.

Video via Lifehacker.