ASK YOURSELF THIS QUESTION WHEN YOU'RE STUCK
It happens to all of us - you’re in an escape room and you feel you’ve made a little progress, when suddenly: you’re stuck. You don’t know what to do next and you’re starting to think you need to ask for help.
Having watched thousands of games, we can say with certainty that this happens often when a group had been on the verge of figuring out a puzzle that would allow them to move forward. So, what happens that stops them? A couple of things.
1- There’s little to no communication in the group, so no one knows what has been tried and what hasn’t.
2- Basic discovery hasn’t been performed on the room and its props.
3- Team members often focus on what they want to solve, not what can be solved.
The result? The wheels come off the problem-solving ability of even the most capable groups, and they start down imaginary rabbit holes, wasting valuable time in the game. To avoid this pitfall, go back to the beginning and make sure you didn’t miss one critical detail. When you’re fairly certain no clues have eluded you, ask yourself this important question:
What has the room presented to me that I haven’t used?
You may have parts of puzzles that you are not ready to complete, but there’s likely also something you’ve overlooked. We’ve seen professional escape room players stop and inventory what all they have that clearly needs to be solved, then focus on those items. It makes for some very impressive runs where you would swear they had played the room before. It’s also important to distinguish between what the room has given you to work on and what you think might possibly be a puzzle - in an ESCAPE! Alaska game, it will be obvious.