You’ve probably seen them in movies or heard your friends raving about them. Maybe you’ve even walked past a storefront with a mysterious logo and wondered what goes on inside. We’re talking about escape rooms—those immersive, puzzle-filled adventures that lock you in a themed room and challenge you to break out before the timer hits zero.
For the uninitiated, an escape room is essentially a live-action game where you and your team discover clues, solve puzzles, and accomplish tasks in one or more rooms to achieve a specific goal (usually escaping) in a limited amount of time. It sounds simple enough. You find a key, you open a lock. You solve a riddle, you get a code.
But here is the catch: it’s rarely that straightforward.
As a beginner, walking into your first room feels a bit like stepping onto a movie set without seeing the script. The adrenaline kicks in, the clock starts ticking, and suddenly, intelligent adults turn panicked.
If you are planning your first adventure, you want to walk out victorious, not defeated by the clock. To help you snag that win, let’s break down the most common mistakes new teams make—and how you can avoid them.
Bunching Up (The Toddler Soccer Effect)
Have you ever watched four-year-olds play soccer? Every single kid chases the ball in one giant, chaotic swarm. Beginners in escape rooms often do the same thing.
If one person finds a locked box, suddenly the entire team surrounds that box. Everyone wants to be the hero who opens it. Meanwhile, the rest of the room goes unexplored. Valuable clues are sitting under a rug or behind a curtain just three feet away, but nobody sees them because everyone is staring at the same padlock.
The Fix: Divide and conquer. If two people are working on a lock, the rest of the team should be scouring the room for other clues. Spread out. You can cover more ground and find the necessary pieces much faster.
Ignoring the Story (and the Game Master)
It is tempting to treat the room like a giant scavenger hunt where you just tear everything apart looking for keys. But good escape rooms are built around a narrative. The story isn’t just flavor text; it often contains subtle hints about what you need to do next.
If the story is about a mad scientist who loves periodic tables, you probably shouldn’t ignore that giant chart of elements on the wall.
Furthermore, many beginners ignore the Game Master. This is the person watching you via camera and offering hints. I once watched a team struggle with a puzzle for fifteen minutes while the Game Master was giving helpful hints They were so focused on the lock that they never looked up at the screen.
The Fix: Listen to the intro briefing. Read the story notes found inside the room. And for the love of puzzles, check the hint screen (or listen to the audio cues) if you feel stuck. The Game Master wants you to win!
Overthinking the Simple Stuff
This is the classic “smart person” trap. Beginners often assume that because it is a puzzle game, every solution must be incredibly complex. They look for mathematical patterns in the wallpaper or try to decipher Morse code from the flickering of a light bulb that is just a broken light bulb.
Most escape rooms, especially those designed for the general public, rely on logic and observation, not advanced calculus or obscure trivia. If you find yourself trying to calculate the trajectory of the sun based on a shadow in a painting, you have gone too deep.
The Fix: Apply Occam’s Razor. The simplest explanation is usually the correct one. If a solution feels like it requires outside knowledge (like knowing the capital of Uzbekistan) or complex math, you are likely overthinking it.
The “Lone Wolf” Syndrome
Imagine you enter a room themed like a 1920s detective office. There is a desk, a bookshelf, and a safe. One person immediately runs to the safe and spends twenty minutes trying random combinations. Another person is silently reading a diary in the corner. A third person found a key but put it in their pocket without telling anyone.
This is the “Lone Wolf” syndrome, and it is the fastest way to lose.
Escape rooms are designed for collaboration. Puzzles often require multiple sets of eyes or hands. One person might need to hold a switch down on one side of the room so another person can see a light turn on in a different corner. If you are working in a silo, you are missing half the information.
The Fix: Communicate constantly. Shout out what you find. “I found a blue key!” or “There’s a weird symbol on this book!” If you find a clue, don’t hoard it. Put it on a central table so everyone knows it exists.
Leaving Used Keys in Locks
This sounds like a minor housekeeping issue, but it causes major headaches. Once you use a key to open a padlock, leave the key in the lock (or the lock on the hasp).
Why? Because in 99% of escape rooms, a key or code is used only once.
If you take the key out and put it back on the table, someone else will pick it up five minutes later and try to use it on a completely different lock. This wastes time and causes confusion.
It becomes a mess.
The Fix: Kill the clue. Once an object has served its purpose, set it aside in a designated “discard” pile or leave it attached to the thing it opened. This clears your mental workspace and stops teammates from resolving puzzles you’ve already beaten.
Using Force Instead of Finesse
Escape rooms are mental challenges, not physical ones. If a drawer doesn’t open with a gentle tug, it is locked. If a panel doesn’t slide, it probably isn’t meant to move.
Beginners often get frustrated and start yanking on furniture or trying to pry things open. Not only can this break the game (literally), but it also wastes your time. If you force a door open that was supposed to open later via a magnetic lock, you might accidentally bypass a critical puzzle and confuse the entire flow of the game.
The Fix: Follow the “one finger rule.” If you can’t move it with one finger, you probably need to solve a puzzle to unlock it. Respect the room and the props.
Giving Up Too Early
The final mistake is psychological. You hit a wall. You have ten minutes left. You still have three locks to open. The energy in the room drops. People start sighing and checking their watches.
The moment you accept defeat, you have lost.
Escape rooms are designed to be tight finishes. It is incredibly common to escape with literally seconds on the clock. That frantic energy at the end is part of the fun! I have seen teams solve three puzzles in the final two minutes because the pressure focused their minds.
The Fix: Keep moving until the buzzer sounds. If you are truly stuck, ask for a hint immediately. Don’t let pride cost you the game.
Ready for Your First Adventure?
Walking into your first escape room is a thrill unlike anything else. It is a chance to be a hero, a detective, or an explorer for an hour. By avoiding these common pitfalls— by communicating clearly, spreading out, and keeping it simple—you are already ahead of 90% of beginner teams.
So grab your friends, book a room, and remember: it’s just a game. Even if you don’t escape in time, the real win is the story you’ll have to tell afterward. Good luck!
Ready to take on one of Seattle’s best escape rooms? Book your room today and see if you can beat the clock.