Escape Room Tips

More so than scenery and theme, puzzles are central to all escape rooms. So, it stands to reason that if you familiarize yourself with a wide variety of them, you will have an advantage. There are many puzzle types that I never thought I'd see in rooms, but designers are clever, and they've come up with some interesting ways of incorporating a wide variety of them. I'm surprised, and often pleased, when I see a well-executed escape room variation on a classic. It makes me happy.

This list of puzzle-specific tips starts out with the most common things you will encounter in escape rooms and works its way down to puzzles that you may or may not encounter, depending on what and how many rooms you play. Some of the later tips may seem like spoilers if you haven't seen the puzzles before. How much you read depends on how prepared you want to be.

There are some puzzle types I have left out intentionally (jigsaws, crosswords, and mazes for example), because they are self-explanatory or there is nothing much else to do but to sit down and solve them. (Or stand. You can stand if you want.)

Locks

Locks were once predominant in escape rooms. That is no longer the case, but they still show up. Regardless, don't focus on them. Focus on the puzzles. The puzzles will give you the codes you need to open the locks, and by the time you enter the code, the logic you followed to arrive at the code should make you reasonably confident that you have the correct answer.

A simple three-digit lock has 1000 possible combinations: the numbers 000 through 999.

It follows that a four-digit has 10,000 possible combinations: the numbers 0000 through 9999.

The point: trying to guess a combination is not a good strategy.

Figuring out the Order

It is extremely common to find three or four objects, be they what they may (cards, statues, books, paperweights, etc.) and to know where they go. That leaves you with one question: what order should they be placed in? The same may happen with numbers, characters, and directions (up, down, left, and right) that you find for locks. Again, you have them, but you need the order.

If there are three items, then there are nine possible ways that they can be ordered. If there are four items, then there are thirty-six possible ways. You may be willing to try six different variations, but a well-designed game will provide a clue so that you don't have to. Combinations of over three items should always be clued. It is a rare person who has the patience to try thirty-six variations.

For those of you who are curious, here's the math:

• If you have one item, perhaps a card labelled "A", then there is only one possible order, because 1 X 1 = 1.
• If you have two items, cards labelled "A" and "B", then there are two possible orders: AB and BA, because 1 X 2 = 2.
• If you have three items, "A", "B", and "C", then there are six possible orders: ABC, ACB, BAC, BCA, CAB, and CBA, because 1 X 2 X 3 = 6.
• Four items mean twenty-four different orders (1 X 2 X 3 X 4 = 24), and so on.

Reflect on This

If you find a mirror or a plate or some other reflective surface, keep them handy in case a laser is introduced into the game. You may need to reflect the laser onto a target of some sort.

If there are no lasers, but there are dark holes that you cannot see into, then use the reflective surface to illuminate them and possibly gain important information.

Mirrors are also useful for interpreting words that have been printed out as the mirror image as themselves. Some puzzles will give you half of a symmetrical set of characters, and the mirror can be placed alongside them to form the full set.

If nothing else, you can use the mirror to see if your hair is in place.

Think Outside the Bars

Locked in a jail cell? Maybe there's something outside the cell that can help you. Look for things you can use to reach out of your cell or for things you can throw.

Bang Bang goes the Fake Gun

If you have found a fake gun and do not know what to do with it, try shooting things as if the gun were real. Thanks to lasers and other technology, you might get similar results.

Boom Boom, Out Go the Lights

Some fake candles have motion sensors so they can be blown out just like real candles. Might be useful to know.

It Works. It Really Really Works!

As with the fake guns and candles, sometimes people don't try things in escape rooms because they don't think that the action could possibly have a result. But thanks to technology, escape room designers are able to create interactions that seem like magic. If you understand the technology, it can give you a slight edge. A lot of escape room magic accomplished via mag locks and RFID cards.

Mag locks are magnetic locks that release a door, chest lid, or picture frame (to name some examples) when another action has been performed.

Radio Frequency Identification (RFID) chips and cards are set to particular frequencies, so that when placed in the correct spots, they can be recognized by the circuitry hidden in an object, shelf, or whatever. RFID technology is sometimes mistaken for "magnet " technology, but magnets cannot accomplish what RFID chips do, which is to make individual objects recognizable.

If technology doesn't enable an interaction, there may be a game master behind the scenes who does. She's just waiting for you to perform an action so she can push a button and trigger the result.

Complete the Circuit

There are two metal objects in a room such as flat metal plates, steel rods, or pipes. A clue tells you to connect them somehow. Guess what? The human body is an electrical conductor, so if you hold hands and touch the metal objects, they are connected, and something just might happen because you just completed an electrical circuit.

Blink, Blink, Blink

Why is that light blinking? Count the sequence. Maybe there's a numerical pattern that can be used to open a lock.

Float Some and Get Some

Game designers have to be careful about this, because it can make a mess. Is there an item that you want, but it is deep in a vase, pipe, or other container? Do you have access to water? Pour the water in, and watch the object float to the surface. If the item is not bouyant, please apologize to your game master for me, but not by name. You don't have to mention my name.

Tangrams

Tangram puzzles and variations thereof will pop-up occasionally in escape rooms. Escape room companies can buy a standard pedestal prop that requires you to build a basic tangram square, so you should at least know how to solve that.

Wrap the String Around the Pins

Is there a map or a board with pins or nails sticking out of it? Do you have a rope or a string? Figure out which pins to connect with the string, and you will probably form a sequence of numbers or letters. Or, you might complete an electrical circuit. Zappity doo dah again.

Wrap the Strap Around the Post

Do you have a leather strap with characters on it and a long stick that has arrows on it? Wrap the strap around the pole and line up the characters under the arrows to get a code or message. I've also seen this done with a pencil and a strip of paper.

In Conclusion

The beauty of escape games is that there are an infinite number of puzzles that can be created and an equally infinite number of ways to present them. Hopefully, as you play, knowledge of the above can help you crank through the more typical puzzles so that you can focus on solving and enjoying the more unusual interactions.