An escape room is an immersive, 60-minute, adventure game. Groups attempt to find clues and solve a series of puzzles to escape before time runs out! The best escape games have multiple rooms for exploring, unique themes, and Hollywood-level sets.

Want to know more? We’ve got you covered!

Escape Rooms: Everything You Need To Know

First, you decide which themed escape room you want to play. Themes range from exciting and action-packed to silly and light-hearted. Popular themes include bank heists, prison breaks, and pirates. After picking a theme, you can usually reserve a game over the phone, online, or in person. It’s highly recommended to book a game in advance to ensure you can play a game at your preferred time.

When it’s time for your game, you’ll meet your Game Guide. The Game Guide takes you to your escape room, explains the rules, and answers any questions before you begin your adventure.

Usually, before the game starts, you’ll get to watch a fun video. This video often explains what exactly your mission is in the themed escape room. It will explain why you only have 60 minutes on the clock to complete your escape.

Some missions are about escaping the room, like in a prison break room. Other missions might not be centered around escaping, but instead, you might have to complete an art heist or attempt to launch a spaceship.

Here’s an example of the type of mission video that plays at the beginning of a game. This one is from The Escape Game’s The Heist!

The Heist Mission Video - The Escape Game

Once the video ends, your one-hour timer starts counting down! It’s time to get down to business.

To escape, the first thing you need to do is start searching the room. Look for patterns, objects, and items that seem out of place. Ideally, you’ll make connections between different clues and puzzle pieces to find solutions. 

Don’t forget to communicate with your teammates! More heads are better than one and the most fun part of an escape room is working together. The group will solve puzzles, uncover clues, and crack codes to complete an escape!

Don’t forget that you can always ask for a hint when you need help! Your Game Guide is there to make sure you have an awesome experience and help your team escape!

Nope! You’re never going to be physically trapped inside a room. If you need to leave at any point during the game, you’re always welcome to step out!

To escape, you’ll need to find clues and puzzle pieces around the room. Those will help you unlock locks and solve puzzles, advancing your team through the room until you escape!

What Happens If You Don’t Finish an Escape Room In Time?

If you don’t escape in time, that’s okay! While it is exciting to successfully complete a mission, escape rooms are still a blast for those who don’t make it out on their first try–it gives you a goal to work towards the next time you come and play!

To reserve an escape room, book online or on the phone. You can usually find phone numbers and booking information on a company’s website. While walk-ins are usually welcome, escape rooms often book up in advance. To ensure you can play at a specific time, it’s best to make a reservation!

Completing an escape room successfully requires you to uncover hidden clues, crack tough codes, and solve challenging puzzles. Everything you notice is a potential clue or puzzle waiting to be solved. The catch is that you need to work quickly!

Upon first entry into a new room, examine everything! What opens? What items have objects hidden inside? Time runs quickly, like sand through an 

, and these first few objects are clues that will continue to propel you through the game!

Don’t forget to look underneath rugs, sift through the books on shelves, and take a closer look at all those paintings on the wall!

The solution isn’t always obvious. Look closely at clues, objects, and wall printings to find any similarities or irregularities. These could be the key to solving a puzzle!

Some team members may be great at jigsaw-type puzzles whereas others are good at analyzing a set of patterns. Escaping is a team effort, so help each other shine and work where your skill sets fit!

Keep Track Of Solved Puzzles And Used Clues

Once a puzzle is solved or a clue is used, it’s usually not needed again in the game. Keeping items in a discard pile communicates to team members that they’ve been used. This is also important so people aren’t wasting time trying to solve puzzles that have already been completed.

It can be discouraging watching the minutes tick by and not knowing what to do next. But don’t give up! Working together and having a fun time with the team is what escape rooms are all about.

Ultimate Guide on How to Beat an Escape Room

Escape rooms are a whole new way of experiencing storytelling. By combining social interaction with challenging adventures, each room is designed to immerse you into entirely new worlds that feel like Hollywood blockbusters. No wonder they’re so addicting! Here are the top ten most common escape room themes:

In recent years, the production value of escape rooms has also reached a whole new level. Watch the video below to see the trailer for the game Ruins: Forbidden Treasure from The Escape Game which has a treasure hunt theme!

Ruins: Forbidden Treasure Trailer

There’s an escape room movie? Sort of! The “Escape Room” psychological horror movie series is a fictionalized account of an escape room adventure.

First released by Sony in 2019, the first film features a group of contestants who compete for a major cash prize in a terrifying series of escape rooms. The sequel “Escape Room: Tournament of Champions” (2021) follows a similar storyline.

While there are real-life, horror-themed escape rooms, most aren’t scary and none involve monetary prizes or life-threatening scenarios. Escape rooms are meant to be fun, not deadly!

Virtual escape rooms are escape rooms that you can play online. COVID-19 led to a need for online escape rooms and at-home games. 

During lockdowns, friends sought out innovative ways to spend time together. Work teams searched for virtual team building activities. Even as lockdowns have become less restrictive, people and organizations are still looking for ways to connect from a distance. Virtual escape rooms tackle those issues.

There are various kinds of virtual escape rooms including point-and-click apps, audio-only narrated games, and live-hosted events. Watch the video below for an example of a virtual escape room experience over Zoom!


How to Play a Virtual Escape Room - TEG Remote Adventures

Want to learn more or play a virtual escape room? Learn more about 

Although they’ve only recently gained popularity, escape room games have actually been around for over a decade! The concept of escape rooms began with first-person adventure video games where players interacted with their surroundings by clicking on-screen objects.

Planet Mephius is the earliest example, designed by Eiji Yokoyama and published by T&E Soft in 1983. Initially only available in Japan, this prototype for virtual adventures led to the creation of “escape the room” video games.

Takao Kato from Kyoto created the first real-life escape game in 2007. The popularity of “escape the room” video games and his personal desire for adventure inspired him to try something new.

Originally, guests played in-person games in different Japanese bars and clubs. However, companies constructed more permanent locations throughout Asia and Europe over the next few years.

Escape games finally hit the United States between 2012 and 2014, with several brands gradually gaining traction in San Francisco, Seattle, St. Louis, New York City, and Nashville. Now, there are over 50,000 epic escape rooms worldwide! They’re used as fun bonding adventures and as corporate team building activities! There are even 

 for fans to learn more about the industry and experience new content.

National puzzle hunts are another sim activity rising in popularity! Learn more about the most 

Now you’re fully equipped to win and book an escape room with 

What's an escape room? Learn about escape rooms from The Escape Game, creators of the world's best escape rooms.

Escape Rooms: Everything You Need To Know (2023)

The Best Tips And Hints For An Escape Room

 tips and strategies, we spoke to the ultimate experts: our Game Guides! They’re the ones who greet you when you arrive, talk you through the experience, and steer you in the right direction when you need help with a hint or clue.

Our Game Guides love escape rooms. Like, 

escape rooms. They know the ins and outs of an epic escape. That’s why we decided to ask them for advice on how to be good at escape rooms and what not-so-successful groups have in common!

Tip #1: Make The Entire Team Aware Of What You Find

The first step in any escape room is to search the room. Search it thoroughly and find everything you can. However, just finding something isn’t enough. You have to communicate with your teammates!

“You don’t know how many times I’ve seen groups where one person is trying to solve a puzzle someone else has already completed,” Game Guide Max tells us.

It seems obvious, but groups who communicate and work together have the highest chance of success. The important thing to keep in mind is that communicating begins the moment the clock starts ticking down.

When you enter the escape room, you go into sensory overload. There are so many clues and props and gadgets to play with. To avoid becoming overwhelmed, Max recommends exploring the escape room and yelling out to each other what you find: “Here’s a number lock!” “I found some puzzle pieces!” “Here’s a key!” Share information with everyone to minimize the chances of any miscommunication.

Our Game Guides suggest putting all the physical objects you find in the room in one centralized location inside the room so you can easily access all your clues.

“It’s easy to forget a clue you haven’t solved yet,” Game Guide Lindsay explains, “because there’s so much in the room.”

A clue you can’t use now might become important later on in the game, so save your team some time by placing the clue in an obvious, conspicuous place. You only have 60 minutes to escape, so every saved second counts!

You and other teammates will be able to come back to this location as the game progresses but don’t forget to take clues with you from room to room. Something may mean nothing to you at the time but a teammate could find a clue of their own that cracks the puzzle the team needed to progress.

Tip #3: If You Need A Clue, Ask For A Clue

We asked our Game Guides the age-old question: When should you ask for clues? Players are sometimes hesitant to ask for a clue because they want to complete their mission and beat the escape room on their own. But since you’re allowed to ask for as many clues as you’d like, our Game Guides suggest asking for a clue sooner rather than later.

A good rule of thumb to follow: If you’re all standing around and doing nothing, ask for a clue, no matter how early or late you are in the game. Game time spent standing around is time being wasted. Standing around for even a few minutes could be the difference between an escape or a defeat because many groups escape with only seconds to spare.

Tip #4: When The Game Guide Speaks, You Should Listen

So, you know to ask for a clue when you need it. But a hint isn’t any good unless you listen and act upon it!

Game Guides spend hours and hours training to become experts on escape rooms. These game masters are on your side. When you ask for help mid-game, the clue you’re given is strategically created to help you in the exact moment you’re at in the game. Maybe this clue will help you solve a puzzle to open up a new section of the room, or maybe you need to crack a code to find more clues to get out of the escape room. In the end, always trust your Game Guide!

When You Play An Escape Room Do Yourself This One Favor.

Groups that don’t end up escaping tend to be scattered and chaotic. So do yourself a favor and don’t be scattered and chaotic! Easier said than done, right? Just remember these three things:

We believe in you. You got this! But you want to know the ultimate secret to escape rooms? You don’t need to escape to have fun. The escape rooms at 

If you liked this blog, check out our guide with 

Do you want to learn more about virtual escape rooms? We don’t blame you— they’re really fun! Find out everything you need to know about 

Our Game Guides love escape rooms. They know the ins and outs of an epic escape. That’s why we decided to ask them for advice on how to be good at escape rooms and what not-so-successful groups have in common!

The Ultimate Guide On How To Beat An Escape Room

We are ALL missing hanging out with our friends. The pandemic has made us feel farther apart from the people we love more than ever!

Although Zoom happy hours, regular FaceTime sessions, and socially distanced meet-ups in the park are great solutions, it’s nothing like getting a group together for some excitement and laughter. So how about an online escape room?

 help you and your friends maintain connections with each other in a time when we all are feeling a little disconnected and give everyone some much-needed fun.

Virtual escape rooms are remote adventures that you and your friends can go on at any time – just pick whenever it’s most convenient for the group. Your team will have 60-minutes to analyze clues, solve puzzles, and complete the Zoom escape room mission.

A virtual escape room (some people call it a Zoom escape room) is played exactly the same way as a real life 

. The main difference, however, is that everyone participates from the comfort of their own home – or office, local coffee shop, library… All you need to participate is a computer and an internet connection!

Your team will have to exhibit excellent communication, collaboration, and critical thinking skills to successfully make your way through the game. There are hidden clues and problems to solve around every corner – items that seem as though they have no importance to your mission could very well be the exact thing you need to crack the case wide open!

You’ll be successful if you’re able to trust one another throughout the process, listen, discuss the best course of action, and try different things until you find what works! It can only be done by working together!

Don’t worry – you and your friends won’t be completely on your own during your Zoom escape room! 

 provides two people to help you along the way: an event Host and a Game Guide. Your Host is there to explain the mission, provide hints, and answer questions.

Your game guide is sort of like a live video game avatar, except you use your voice instead of a remote controller to give clear instructions that guide them around the room. Your game guide will help you and your friends collect items that you think are necessary to unlock more clues and ultimately solve the mystery.

Understanding how Remote Adventures work with the Escape Game will help things run as smoothly as possible so you can show up on game day ready to WIN!

Let’s go through what a remote adventure looks like from booking to “Mission Complete.”

It’s super easy to sign up for a virtual escape room with friends through The Escape Game. We want you to be able to focus on getting your friends together for an hour of exciting virtual fun. We’ll handle all of the nitty-gritty details.

Booking a small group: Each game holds up to 8 people and you can view our availability and book 

Booking a larger group: If you have a larger group (typically 25+) are looking for virtual team building options, or have a special request, we recommend booking through our Events Team.

 – Our team will talk with you about your unique needs and wants. This will allow us to come up with a Zoom escape game event that is perfect for you.

 – We can accept payment either over the phone at the time of booking or send an invoice to the organizer’s email.

 – The organizer will receive a confirmation email that they’ll have to send out to each friend. It will detail when the Zoom escape room will take place and how they can join the event.

 – The person who organized the event will receive a unique link the day before the virtual escape room with family, friends, or co-workers is set to take place. The link will connect the team with The Escape Game, their host, and their Game Guide.

Once you and your friends are connected to the Escape Game, get ready for an hour of mystery, adventure, and FUN!

Once everyone has connected through Zoom, they will be welcomed to the event by a host and Game Guide.

Your host acts as Mission Control. They’ll show the mission video at the beginning of the game and remain with your team throughout to provide hints when things come to a standstill and to answer any questions along the way.

Your Game Guide will be inside a physical escape room and is there to take action on behalf of your team. Team members will be able to ask their Game Guide to look left, right, up, and down to get closer to certain objects, collect items to “stash” in their inventory, perform tasks, and more.

Each team member will be looking at two screens: One of their team and one of the host, game guide, and game dashboard. You will be able to view both screens on any computer monitor, but players are more than welcome to use two monitors if they have them!

The dashboard will contain everything you need to navigate through the remote adventure. This is where your inventory will be stored for later use and where you can view 3-D scans of each room as you make your way through the game.

Once your remote team has a grasp on what they have to do in order to complete their mission, the countdown will begin! Each Zoom escape room has a digital timer that counts down from 60-minutes. Your team will have to practice excellent communication skills so the Game Guide can understand what is expected of them. If team members are unclear with the instructions or give conflicting instructions, the Game Guide will have to stop and ask for clarification.

The countdown doesn’t pause even if your team does, so make sure your Game Guide is able to understand exactly what you want them to do the first time you give them instructions. There’s no time to waste when you’re searching for buried treasure or trying to escape from prison!

The virtual escape game ends when your team has led their Game Guide to success or when the timer runs out. No matter the outcome of the remote adventure, your friends will likely find that they had an amazing time and learned a few new things about one another. Maybe you’ll realize that you have an expert riddle-solver on your hands!

 explaining how remote adventures work with the Escape Game!

 has many different remote adventures to choose from:

 – Find the hidden gold before greedy town members do it first!

 – Recover a missing piece of art from a prestigious museum.

 – It’s 1955 and you have been wrongly accused of a crime. Can you break out of the prison cell that you now have to call home?

 – You are stranded among ancient temple ruins that are rumored to hide buried treasure. Your team has to find the treasure before time runs out!

 – Make your way to an undersea lab and discover the secrets an eccentric scientist left behind.

Tips For Working As A Team In A Virtual Escape Room

Before we send you off to schedule your very own remote adventure, we’re going to leave you with some tips for working as a team. There’s a good chance that you and your friends have never participated in a group activity like this before – unless you all met while playing a sport together!

Here are some tips for working together as a successful team (both in and outside of a remote adventure)

There is a lot going on in a virtual escape room and one person might notice something that another does not. If you see something that you think is worth trying out, speak up! If you find that many people are talking over each other (easy to do in a virtual conference) pay close attention to who has and has not been heard by the group. Try to get everyone to circle back to each person so everyone’s voice is heard.

Ask Your Game Guide To Do A Complete Scan Of The Room Before You Start Solving Puzzles

Your field of vision is limited to what your Game Guide’s camera is pointed at. It’s a great idea to get a complete scan of the room your team is stuck in before you start diving into details. This will help every team member create a complete picture of the room in their mind and get them thinking about the different items and how they can be used.

The 3-D room scans are there to supplement the view that your Game Guide provides. They help to give you a better picture of the room you’re stuck in and might help recall clues.

Getting your team, clues, and actions organized is very important during a virtual escape game. There is typically a lot of disorder during a remote adventure and it can be hard to keep track of the different clues, items, and types of doors that you need to open in order to escape. Keep a close eye on your game dashboard, take lots of notes, and think strategically.

How To Use Zoom For A Virtual Escape Game With Friends

Zoom is a free video conferencing app that has an estimated 300 million daily users. It can support up to 100 people in any session, and up to 1,000 with the Large Meeting add-on. More people than ever are using Zoom right now for work, school, or just to communicate with their loved ones.

Just in case there’s anyone on your team who is unfamiliar with Zoom, we’re going to give a quick rundown of how the app works. We really want remote adventures to be accessible to everyone, even those who have never logged into a single Zoom session.

Virtual escape rooms help you and your friends maintain connections with each other with some excitement and laughter

How to Play a Virtual Escape Room over Zoom

Birthdays are fun and exciting! However, you probably know that planning your birthday celebration can be a challenge — you want your party to be epic and memorable, but it is hard to find an activity that everyone can enjoy. That’s why you should host your birthday party at The Escape Game!

Why You Should Host an Escape Room Birthday Party

The following are the top ten most commonly asked escape room questions. Find the answers below!

Answering Your Top 10 Escape Room Questions

Have you ever wanted to know how to set yourself up for the perfect escape? We have collected our most useful insights from game designers and experienced escapees alike to bring you the best strategies for a successful escape.

Clues To Get Out Of An Escape Room – Straight From The Game Experts

Meet Jesse, who has a real escape room obsession. He also happens to work at The Escape Game, helping design, coordinate, and produce the elements in our escape rooms – so he might have a leg up on escape rooms than the average Joe.

This Guy Played Over 30 Escape Rooms. Here’s What He Said.

Take it from the game experts: Playing an escape game is always funnier than trying to explain one. To make your life a little easier, here’s how to explain what an escape room is to your friends in a way that 

How To Explain What An Escape Room Is To Your Friends

Whether you’re a seasoned Pigeon Forge local or a first-time visitor, we’re here to help you uncover the best-kept secrets in Pigeon Forge and The Smoky Mountains.

Why You Should Host an Escape Room Birthday Party

Answering Your Top 10 Escape Room Questions

Clues To Get Out Of An Escape Room – Straight From The Game Experts

This Guy Played Over 30 Escape Rooms. Here’s What He Said.

How To Explain What An Escape Room Is To Your Friends

The 4 Best-Kept Secrets in Pigeon Forge And The Smoky Mountains

Featured Articles