What is an Escape Room and how does it work ? A guide to rules and experience

Escape rooms offer a thrilling and mentally stimulating experience, challenging participants to use their problem-solving skills to escape a tricky situation. These immersive adventures test your ability to solve puzzles and uncover hidden clues, all while racing against the clock to unlock the doors to freedom.

While many people are familiar with physical escape rooms as a fun social activity, they also serve as an excellent tool for team-building in the workplace. Escape rooms encourage employees to collaborate, leverage each other’s strengths, and enhance communication skills. By working together under pressure, your team can build trust and improve their ability to tackle work-related challenges more effectively, ultimately fostering stronger relationships and boosting productivity.

But how can gamification be integrated into an escape room experience? In this blog post, we’ll dive deeper into the concept of escape rooms, exploring not only what they are but also how you can use them as a powerful interactive game to engage and develop your employees’ skills.

Related: Why An Escape Game Is the Perfect Team Building Exercise

An Escape room is when several people are locked into a room together and must use different methods to find a way out. Just like a physical escape room, in an interactive game, players have a time limit to solve puzzles, unlock chests, and find hidden elements before it’s too late.

In addition, escape rooms often have different themes to make them more exciting. For example, some of the most popular themes for escape rooms include happy fantasy, historical fantasy, and mystery.

If none of these themes appeal to you, then let us know, and we’ll create the escape room based on your objectives. Here’s more information about how we create interactive escape rooms.

Now that you understand what is an escape room, you may wonder why your employees should participate. For one, it helps them learn how to communicate better.

Through solving different puzzles, employees must share additional insights to conquer these challenges. If they spend most of their time not discussing the challenges, they will likely be unable to solve the problems and escape the room.

Another reason you should try an escape room is that it helps build better relationships. When employees take the time to communicate, they’re building trust among one another. In return, they will look at each other differently and become better coworkers.

Lastly, escape rooms help people work on their problem-solving skills. Once they can solve the challenges in escape rooms, they can unlock their problem-solving skills for the real world.

There are several ways you can build an escape room that your employees will enjoy playing. Below are the steps to know how an escape room truly works.

Pick a Theme or Level of Difficulty
You can pick a theme that matches your company or the holiday season. For example, if you own a traveling agency, you can build an island where your employees can find clues and use interactive tools to escape.

If you prefer a horror theme for Halloween, test your employees to escape a haunted house. Also, to make things more difficult for them, consider adding ghosts or zombies.

Learn the Rules
You can create specific rules for an escape room game to make things more challenging for your employees and to test them. One of the most common rules is the time limit, which is usually 60 minutes. Although, you can have a shorter amount to help them work effectively together more quickly.

Some of the other rules you can have for the game are listed below:

• Employees can’t use their phones to help solve riddles
• They must solve two different problems before finding a key to the next room
• You will only give them a certain amount of hints
• If they’re not getting along, you have the right to end the game

Of course, you have the right to create any rules you like. These are to give you some ideas on what type of rules are common for escape rooms.

Begin by Watching a Mission Video
A mission video will explain the escape room before starting the game. The video will explain why your employees are escaping the room and provide ideas for achieving this. Let’s say you choose the paradise island theme for your employees; the mission video will explain why they got there and how long they have to escape the island.

Solve Puzzles and Clues to Accomplish the Mission
There are different puzzles you can use for an escape room. A typical puzzle used for this game is riddles. You can provide a written riddle for a key or a verbal riddle to find a clue within an escape room.

Another common puzzle in escape rooms are hidden objects. Employees must find different things hidden in rooms to build a tool. For example, they might have to find a hammer, screwdriver, and nails to construct an object to help them escape a room.

Related: Digital Escape Game vs Physical Escape Game: advantages and disadvantages

It’s understandable to see why people may believe escape rooms are scary. Most of the time, the themes are mystery, horror, or murder.

Another reason escape rooms are fearful is that they involve breaking out of a prison or mental hospital or escaping a vampire or zombie. Also, the fact that you’re trapped in a room makes the game scary.

However, escape rooms don’t always have to be scary. For example, your employees may enjoy a fantasy theme based on escaping a room in ancient Rome. Another less frightening theme but exciting is letting your employees be spies solving clues to protect the world.

Solving escape rooms can be daunting, so it’s essential to know their different puzzles and themes. Below are the common things you’ll find in escape rooms.

Types of Puzzles
Besides the puzzles above, there are other puzzles standard in escape rooms. For example, another typical puzzle in escape rooms is important dates. You can place a date in the game for your employees to use to unlock a combination.

Also, matching puzzles are an easy way to solve problems in an escape room. Employees can quickly solve these challenges to help them move on to the next room.

However, if you want your escape game to stand out, consider using a less common puzzle involving math. For example, include a series of numbers in a room that your employees must use simple math to solve to discover a clue.

Common Room Themes
In escape rooms, you can immerse yourself in a new world and experience a unique story. The most common room themes can have you relive ancient civilizations such as Egypt or Rome.

You can even explore space while playing an escape room game. For example, if you like, you can explore the Amazon jungles while on a treasure hunt. The type of theme you want for your escape room is up to you.

As you’re under a time limit to solve the challenges, it’s essential to have tips to help you escape rooms quickly. Below are some tips when it comes to solving escape rooms:

• Look everywhere for clues: In escape rooms, there is no telling where clues are hidden. So be sure to look under and in between everything to find clues.
• Use everyone’s skills: Some employees have better math skills, and some may be better at solving puzzles. Be sure to use everyone’s skills to help you solve problems quickly.
• Look for patterns: If you see a pattern in a room, it may be a key to solving a clue.

Also, keep some past clues as they may be needed to help solve the following problem. Lastly, don’t stress yourself out when trying to solve challenges; maintain a positive attitude, and you can escape the room.

Related: Giant Escape Room

So now that you know “what is an escape room,” are you ready to put it to use? Put your employees through a test of wits to help them build on teamwork, communication skills, and trust.

Not only is our escape room great for gathering, but you can use this game for training, learning, and launching. So, if you’re ready, Emeraude Escape can take your interactive escape room to a new level.