The Ultimate Guide On How To Beat An Escape Room: Top 23 Tips From The Experts

An escape room is the most immersive activity a person can ever decide to do, it’s true. However, escape games can be really intimidating! There are multiple rooms to explore, puzzles to solve, and a timer relentlessly ticking down. It can be a challenge for players to lock in and well…get out! We spoke to the ultimate escaping experts, aka Game Guides, to get their strategies for a successful escape.

Game Guides are the people who greet you when you arrive for an escape game, run the game behind the scenes, and offer hints throughout the adventure. They’ve seen it all! If anyone can share some helpful insights, it’s them! Keep reading to learn straight from the experts how to beat an escape room.

Straight From The Experts 🔑

Name: Ben Enos

Escape room experience: 10 years

Top tip to escape: Communicate. Tell everyone everything you find, solve, and need help with. Not only does this help you solve the room, but ensures that everyone is able to experience the whole game together.

Favorite game at The Escape Game: Soon to be Murder Mystery, but Gold Rush holds a very special place in my heart.

Name: Troy Armstrong

Escape room experience: 6 years at TEG/8.5 years on escape rooms

Top tip to escape: At the start of a game, before looking for clues, look for the locks! Find what needs to be opened or interacted with FIRST, THEN start looking for ways to open it!

Favorite game at The Escape Game: Playground was my first TEG game. It remains one of my all-time favorites and made me want to work for the company!

Name: Daniel Rothhaar

Escape room experience: 8.5 years at TEG

Top tip to escape: Take your time when searching the room! Hurriedly scanning can cause you to miss crucial information, which takes more time in the long run.

Favorite game at The Escape Game: Cosmic Crisis! The story, puzzles, and set are all stellar! Plus, the team added an easter egg that is very dear to me.

Name: Beth Ann Townsend

Escape room experience: just over a year at TEG, 5 years in escape rooms

Top tip to escape: Staying organized will save you time and stress! Take stock of the information you've not yet applied and the items you've collected, and make sure everyone in your group is on the same page. Also, don't be afraid to try something, even if it sounds crazy. I guess those are two tips, but they're equally important!

Favorite game at The Escape Game: The Depths and Berry Hill Ruins are my favorites. I like the progression in Depths (it feels like you're on a journey), and I love the immersiveness of Ruins.

Name: Rachel Ailinger

Escape room experience: 4 years at TEG and 9 years designing escape rooms.

Top tip to escape: Follow your curiosity and do not be afraid to explore your surroundings! If you ever feel truly stuck, take a step back - it's the little things that can be easily missed!

Favorite game at The Escape Game: Don't make me pick! Currently, Legend of the Yeti! Soon to be Murder with a Side of Meatballs! Playground was my introduction to TEG and made me want to join the company. Just such a unique and whimsical game! Ruins feels like you are on the set of Tomb Raider and transports you to another world. But also the TEG collaborations! With Disney, Prime, Hulu, and Cheetos! Those are all so incredibly fun.

Name: Kiera Bunch

Escape room experience: 4 years with TEG

Top tip to escape: A change in perspective. Sometimes, the answer is right there - you just have to change how you think about it. Is that item really just that item? Or does it do something more?

Favorite game at The Escape Game: Cosmic Crisis. It's the perfect blend of story and immersion for me, and the tech in the game is unbelievable.

How To Prep For Success 👏

First things first: you’ve got to set yourself up for success! There are a few things you can do beforehand to secure an escape.

Stacking your team may feel like you can only play with “the smartest people you know”. But in reality, escape room smarts come in all different shapes and sizes. An ideal team is diverse in skillset but identical in attitude – excited and ready to get out of the room!

Escape Room Personalities

Playing an escape room is always an epic experience. But beating an escape room is a team effort! No matter the chosen adventure, all players serve as valuable assets working to complete the mission.

The Spotter

Quick-thinking and highly observant, The Spotter is often the first to frantically search a room! They’re skilled at noticing out-of-place objects and identifying important items.

Spotters are great at detecting details and collecting items essential for solving puzzles! These team members are the first to start opening drawers, taking pictures off the walls, searching under rugs, and noticing suspicious objects. Teammates look to the Spotter to get the ball rolling in any new room with a fresh set of clues.

Says things like…

Real-life signs of The Spotter

The Communicator

The Communicator is the person in the room who keeps the clue-cracking conversation going. Players can always count on them to announce when a discovery has been made!

They keep everyone on the same page by relaying information back and forth between team members. Communicators excel at ensuring each player understands what is currently going on and that no one is stuck trying to decipher a clue that has already been used.

Says things like…

Real-life signs of The Communicator

The Brain

The Brain has a mind for analytics and is adept at discovering patterns, solving challenges, and cracking codes! They are the master of puzzles, and teammates can look to them after getting stuck with undecipherable clues.

Brains are the people who have a wealth of knowledge on topics ranging from science and math to history and geography. That prior knowledge often helps solve puzzles! The Brains propose solutions and offer analytical insight to their teammates.

Says things like…

Real-life signs of The Brain

The Orchestrator

The Orchestrator is like the conductor of an orchestra, seamlessly weaving together the moving parts of a team! They can easily remember a multitude of complex information and keep tabs on the team’s progress.

Orchestrators are skilled at delegating tasks and ensuring teammates attempt to solve several puzzles at once in order to maximize time.

Juggling team members, clues, and unsolved puzzles, Orchestrators stay focused on the clock and keep the team moving. Their talents for organization, delegation, and strategy are essential to any team!

Says things like…

Real-life signs of The Orchestrator

The Tinkerer

Naturally curious, The Tinkerer has the patience and perspective to view a challenge from different angles until they arrive at that “aha!” moment. While others might get frustrated when they’re unable to solve a puzzle on the first try, Tinkerers don’t get discouraged. They keep fiddling and trying new things until they finally figure it out!

Tinkerers are patient and persistent in the face of obstacles, and don’t let themselves or their team be discouraged by failure. They think of new solutions, like turning off the lights or checking underneath previously overlooked objects. The Tinkerers’ willingness to keep trying until they figure out a solution makes them an invaluable asset to any team!

Says things like…

Real-life signs of The Tinkerer

We recommend arriving 10-15 minutes before your game’s start time. Getting to the location early ensures your group will have plenty of time for everyone to arrive, sign waivers, and stop by the restroom before they jump into the action!

Your Game Guide will go through the rules before every escape game so that you’re familiar with what you can and can’t do in a room. They might ask you not to take things down from the walls or highlight items like air vents or fire extinguishers, which aren’t puzzle pieces, but literally, air vents and fire extinguishers.

How To Succeed When The Game Starts ⏰

Escape rooms have themes, like “prison break” or “submarine adventure”, that center around a mission. They often include an introduction video to help immerse you in the story. It’s tempting to immediately start looking for clues and solving puzzles. However, clues to help you escape may be hidden in the intro video! The intro video will also outline the major tasks you need to complete to put all the pieces together and finally escape the room.

Once the video ends and the countdown timer starts, it’s go time! Split up and open everything you can find. Open doors and drawers and books and boxes and cabinets and trunks and chests — everything! Even under rugs, chairs, and behind posters. These first few minutes of collecting clues are crucial to building your team’s momentum.

Don’t forget to talk to your team! Talk out loud as you move through the room. “Here’s a number lock!” “I found some puzzle pieces!” “Here’s a key!”

It seems obvious, but groups that communicate and work together have the highest chance of success. Some puzzles require more than one person to solve them. For example, a diagram painted on a wall might help you arrange wires in another room.

“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. Staying in constant communication ensures everyone is spending time on things that are leading towards an escape.

If five people are working on the same puzzle piece, you might have too many hands on the padlock. Don’t be afraid to split up, switch tasks, and divide and conquer!

“It’s easy to forget which clues have and haven’t been used yet, because there’s so much in the room,” Game Guide Lindsay explains.

We suggest putting all the objects you find in one centralized location to keep track of everything. Sometimes, a clue found early on doesn’t become important until later on in the game. Keeping everything together lets everyone stay on the same page and find relevant items when they need them!

What to Do When You’re Stuck in an Escape Room 🤨

We’ve all been there. Staring at the clock, walking in circles, pulling on unopened locks, and having no idea what to do next. Escape rooms can be thrilling when you’re on a roll, cracking codes. But when you get stuck and aren’t sure how to solve the next set of puzzles, it’s easy to get discouraged. Here are some simple things you and your team can do to get the wheels turning and put yourselves back on track!

If you find yourselves stuck, take a couple of minutes to regroup and remind each other of things you’ve found and puzzles you still need to solve. Your teammates can also provide a fresh pair of eyes on a puzzle or clue that you’ve been working on. Switch tasks with someone, or ask a teammate to help you out. A lot of puzzles in escape rooms can’t be solved by one person alone!

Even though you scoured the room when you first started, it’s easy to miss things! Maybe there’s an open drawer that you didn’t see, a section of the wall that swings open, or a piece of decor that tells you how to decipher a code. Are there colors, shapes, numbers, or words that you thought were unimportant but now can connect with another part of the game? Look around at the walls, under the furniture, and pay attention to the smallest details. Sometimes those are the ones that open the biggest locks.

If you’re working on the same one for several minutes with no progress, it’s okay to take a breather. You can go help a teammate with a different puzzle they’re working on. Then return to your unsolved puzzle with a win under your belt. Or maybe you just need to take a couple of steps around the room and come back from a different angle. At some point, you’re going to have to figure it out, but there might be other problems you can tackle that can provide clues or solutions to the one that’s got you stuck.

Are you sitting on unused or incomplete clues? Take a minute to organize them, think through how they fit together, where you found the clues, or what locks they may open. If you’re struggling with a tricky combination lock, try reordering the code. You can also consider that the set of clues you’re using to solve a puzzle might not be the right tools for the job. That’s where staying organized can come in handy. Look over the unused clues and try something new!

There’s no shame in needing a little help from your Game Guide! A hint will give you a light nudge in the right direction to keep the game going and help you escape in time.

What to do if things get…tense 😬

Playing in an escape room is almost always an enjoyable, memorable experience!

But sometimes in an escape room, as the clock runs down, tensions can run high. Every team member wants to escape, but each person may have their own idea about the best way to accomplish the mission! Whether playing with family members, friends, or strangers, players can disagree or run into conflict together.

There’s no need to panic if this happens to you and your team! Here’s how you can deal with a conflict, resolve it, and move past the situation to complete the mission in time.

Sometimes when a problem is right in front of you, it feels bigger than it actually is. However, taking a step back allows you to view an issue from a different perspective. Perhaps the way you were trying to solve a puzzle doesn’t really make sense. Allowing yourself a moment to think and breathe will prevent you from saying something you regret, get re-centered on the mission, and re-focused on collaborating as a team.

17. Consider your teammate’s point of view

You might think you know the best solution to solve a problem. But that’s not always the case! Sometimes someone else is right. Take a moment to think about what your team member is trying to say. Maybe by talking it out, they’ll see that you might be onto something or vice versa! Speaking calmly with one another allows you to demonstrate mutual respect and collaborate once again.

18. Find another puzzle

Escape rooms are full of various types of puzzles to solve and codes to crack. Every team member should be able to find something to do. If you feel like you’re butting heads with someone, go do something else! You’re likely both getting in each other’s way and will solve puzzles better separately. Even more so, in an escape room, there really isn’t time to spare! It’s often beneficial to split up and maximize time.

17. Encourage one another

Other players in the group are your teammates, not competitors! When we’re so wrapped up in the game, we sometimes forget that. But taking a moment to remember that you’re more likely to escape when working together can remind you to encourage your teammates as you all collaborate on winning.

Common Fails

Escape rooms may not be easy, but you can get far if you just avoid some common fails! Here is our list of common pitfalls that cause teams to fail in their escape attempt.

Lack of communication

Arguably, the most important part of any successful escape room attempt is teamwork. Your ability to communicate effectively has a significant impact on how you work together as a team. You can save so much time by making sure that everyone is on the same page! Use communication to delegate tasks and puzzles so that everyone knows what everyone else is doing and can share relevant information across the whole team. Talking to each other can prevent some major time-wasting mistakes, like people trying to work puzzles that have already been solved.

Lack of teamwork

Escape rooms are designed to be a team activity! When a player doesn’t communicate about what they are working on because they want to solve it by themselves, they waste time that their team may need later to escape. After all, success does not depend on how many puzzles you solve individually, but whether you can solve them all together as a team!

Not asking for clues

Would you rather ask for two clues and escape the room, or refuse to ask for help and get stuck on a puzzle for so long that you don’t have time to escape in the end? This is a scenario that many teams face in an escape room game. If you get stuck, it is always better to consider asking for a clue than to waste a significant amount of time struggling with a puzzle or arguing about whether you should get a clue. In fact, the most experienced teams often discuss their clue strategy before they start the game. When teams have already agreed that they will ask for a clue when they get stuck, it saves them time later during the game.

Not searching the room thoroughly

Another common mistake we see some teams make is not searching the escape room thoroughly. Sometimes teams are afraid to mess up the room or don’t want to seem silly by looking in an unconventional place. Trust us, the only way you are going to escape is if you make the room at least a little bit messy! Some escapes require taking apart furniture, while others have players lying flat on the floor to read codes hidden under desks. So, open every drawer, check the walls for codes, look under tables, and check behind frames on the wall if you can. If there is a rug in the room, you should definitely look under it!

Missing the intro video

Some players are so eager to begin the game that they don’t pay attention when the game guide is explaining the rules or when the intro video is setting up the mission. But this can backfire. The intro video helps set up the environment for your escape and plunges your team into the proper mindset to begin your mission. Sometimes, there are even escape room game clues hidden in the intro video. While ignoring the intro video to look around the room may save a team a few minutes at the beginning, it will hurt them later if they are missing a clue from the video or if they don’t remember what the ultimate goal of their escape is.

In Conclusion…

The best way to escape is to have a great attitude, communicate with your group, and don’t be afraid of a hint if you need it. We hope these 17 tips, straight from the Game Guides, help you feel equipped to tackle any escape room!