5 Escape Room Mistakes To Avoid

In the millions of escape rooms we run every year at Breakout, we see players make some consistent mistakes. These escape room mistakes cost them time, and, sometimes, their chance of breaking out.

We want to help you avoid making these mistakes so that you can break out of every escape room you play! In this post, we’ll go over what NOT to do, and what to do instead so that you increase your chance of escaping. 

A quick note before we dive in– this post is not to shame anyone. If you’re reading this post and see a mistake that you’ve made in the past, don’t feel bad! This is about learning. The more you know, the better escape room player you’ll become. With that, let’s get into it.

We can’t tell you how many times we have seen groups pick up a clue, set it down somewhere, and forget where they put it. And then everyone has to frantically search for where they put the clue.

This ends up costing players time. Remember that every second you spend looking for a clue is time that you could have spent solving something.

So to avoid this, we recommend designating one area of the room to organize your clues. We also recommend separating them into what you’ve used and what you haven’t. This allows you to:

When you keep things organized, the game is going to go so much smoother.

Sometimes players will go around the room and input any numbers or letters they see into locks without trying to solve anything first. While paying attention to what’s around you and trying solutions are good things, you need to consider the context of what you find before looking for a solution.

Remember that escape room answers require effort to solve. It’s rare that you’ll get something from guessing. And you’re much better off spending your time solving puzzles than putting random codes into a lock. 

At Breakout Games and most other companies, escape room clues are only used once. 

Here’s an example of what this looks like: maybe you find some movie tickets and then you have to match them up with times listed in a newspaper. The mistake a lot of players make is assuming they would need to use that ticket or newspaper to solve another part of the room. Most of the time, that’s not the case.

There may be some exceptions to this. But, most of the time, it’s safe to assume that clues will only be used once. 

Believe it or not, asking for clues does not mean you are a less experienced escape room player. In fact, we would consider refusing clues to be a rookie mistake! 

Most escape rooms offer at least some hints. And we offer them for a reason: escape rooms are challenging! And it’s actually to your advantage to use clues. Think of clues as extra resources. It’s not cheating or wrong to use them. You’re just using your resources.

At Breakout, we don’t limit the number of hints you can receive. So you can use as many or as few as you want. It, of course, feels good to solve things without hints. And you don’t want to make it too easy on yourself. But trust me, refusing to use hints is not a good strategy. When you play an escape room, you want to be challenged, but not frustrated. So take a hint, and use your hints!

Escape rooms are a team activity. So you have to work together if you want to be successful.

It’s important to communicate:

It’s also important to avoid:

When you communicate well and work together, your chance of breaking out exponentially increases.

When you know what NOT to do in an escape room, you’ll be much more confident of what you can do to break out. We hope this post has been helpful! If you’re ready to try out your next escape room, visit our booking page.