Knowledge is power
Today I get to walk you through how I prepare for a challenging escape room. The first question we have to answer, of course, is: what is a challenging escape room, exactly?
To be honest, I don't really have a good answer to that. It all depends on who's on your team, which puzzles suit your group, and what the escape room owner had in mind when building the room. What's challenging for one person is a piece of cake for another. So don't just assume ahead of time that a room will be hard (or easy). After all, there's no way of knowing.
Now, the element of surprise is always part of an escape room. You simply don't know what to expect. For some people that makes things a bit confusing, and it's something you have to learn to deal with. When I was still a rookie with little experience playing escape rooms, I really struggled with that. Back then, I came up with a few strategies that made me feel a little better prepared. And in the spirit of “knowledge is power” (literally), I'm happy to share these strategies with you.
Tip 1: read the description on the website
If you want to get some kind of grip on a challenging escape room, it's smart to start with the room's description on the website. It often gives you some idea of the story or the situation you'll find yourself in. And if you know what your starting point is or which story you're going to follow, that gives you more to go on in the room itself.
Some escape room owners also give their rooms a difficulty rating, ranging from one to five stars. One star counts as easy, five stars as hard. You can keep this information in the back of your mind too, but remember that what's easy for one person will be hard for someone else. And vice versa. So don't get hung up on it.
On the website you'll sometimes also find a recommended age, whether the room has actors, the maximum time you'll spend in the room, and the room's “genre.” Think “mystery,” “thriller,” “fantasy,” “horror,” or some variation on those. “Fairy tale” is another one that always makes my heart beat a little faster. If you're playing a scary room, there's sometimes a scare factor listed as well. In other words: an indication of how scary the escape room is. So you can take that into account ahead of time.
Tip 2: read the booking confirmation carefully
One of your teammates (or you) will get the booking confirmation. It's a good idea to read it carefully, because it quite often contains information you'll need in the room. Of course it's good to know what time you need to be at which location and whether you should wear loose-fitting clothes (that you don't mind getting dirty), but that's not what I mean. I mean information you need to succeed in the room.
Here's an example: a while ago we had to investigate an abandoned warehouse as secret agents. The person who welcomed us wanted to hear a code word from us to confirm that we were, indeed, the right people. That code word was in our confirmation. It'll come as no surprise that it helps to have that information ready, or you're facing a challenge right off the bat. (By the way, I'd better not say whether we had read that confirmation properly...)
Another reason to read the confirmation email carefully is, once again, information about the story or the situation you'll find yourself in. Some escape rooms send a short video along with the confirmation to help you make sense of the room. Or they give you a few extra instructions, which are yet another source of information. Knowledge is power if you want to prepare for a challenging escape room.
Tip 3: read the reviews on a review site, but watch out!
I'd regularly comb through a room's reviews on EscapeTalk to find out even more about what I could expect. A review often gives you different information than the website or a confirmation email. You get practical information, but above all you read about the quality and the difficulty of the room. Did the players find the puzzles hard, or not so much? Was the actor really scary, or not so much? Did the room have a good flow, or not so much? All of it is information you can use to get a complete picture of a room, so you can go into a challenging escape room as well prepared as possible.
I do want to add a caveat here. The vast majority of reviewers play by the rules and don't give away any spoilers, but every once in a while I still read something I'd rather not have known. Once you reach that point, you're ready to let go of that craving for information a little and let the room surprise you.
Into the DarkVerse
Some escape room owners already know the tricks above and anticipate them. I'm not naming names (Gijs), but I can tell you that I'll soon be playing Into the DarkVerse, and despite my attempts to dig up information about it, I've got NOTHING. Nada. But you know what? Gijs is right. An escape room is simply the most fun when you actually prepare as little as possible. Sure, having a quick idea of what situation you're in and what you've come to do in the room is important, but you don't need to know more than that. Whether an escape room is challenging depends on so many factors that you can't predict it in advance. Let yourself be surprised, improvise on the spot, lean on your teammates, trust the game host, just have fun! Then those challenging escape rooms will take care of themselves.
