Escape Room Employees Reveal The Stupidest Things A Customer Did To Free Themselves

Escape rooms, for those of you who might not know what they are, are fun puzzle-solving games that challenge you to complete a simple task: escape the room you're locked in. However because of the nature of it-it's timed, you're in an enclosed space, you aren't freely given answers-people's anxiety is STRONGLY triggered by escape room games.

u/Joshieboy_Clark asked:

Escape Room employees; what is the stupidest thing a customer has done to escape?

Here were some of the answers.

I run a tech camp thing for junior high aged kids and we have them do an escape room puzzle. Basically the box in the middle of the table has 5 locks, one for each puzzle, that has its own colored ring attached to it. Once you solve a combination, you bring the ring to the game master and you get the next puzzle. Simple enough, right?

There was a VERY pregnant lady in the group. We asked her if she was at risk of going into labor at any time, but she said she was fine. We let her in. The entire group was getting upset because they weren't doing well. They were in the hardest room we have, it's always a big deal if you make it out. They kept asking me for the code they needed to escape, and I had to keep telling them I couldn't say what it was.

One of our rooms has a bed in it with white sheets. There was this group who was in the room working on the last puzzle, a logic puzzle. There's a sheet of paper in the room that's full of facts about a murder that you're trying to solve. The group wasn't quite getting the puzzle so I typed up "The white sheet of paper in room three will be a lot of help."

I have both hosted games and managed escape rooms. I have seen it ALL...

People who cheat and bring in tools. People who physically break objects and play dumb when confronted, yelling matches, people on drugs, but the worst are the bad parents...

The dumbest people were always the dads or moms of large families who took over the games from their children and didn't let them play or ignored them.

Once a group disassembled a portable AC unit hoping to find a key. There wasn't any key. From that moment screwdrivers were forbidden.

We played through this demonic-themed escape room and the guy running it would speak as the "voice of Vade" through the PA system. He'd give us hints when we ask for them and would narrate story bits when appropriate.

Escape room employee here. Here are some examples.

• People who find keys, exclaim, "It's a key!" put it in their pockets, and forget about it. They don't make it out.
• Had a woman who would insist on pulling her group members away from CORRECT solutions so that she could waste time with incorrect ones so that she could be "right", to the point that I actually insisted that she shut up via the messaging system. She didn't, they listened to her, and they lost.
• It's amazing how many times a day I type "If it's unlocked, OPEN IT."

The room had electronic components, so there were electric wires that were tied down but looped around the room. One Friday night, someone tried licking them, just in case.

My friend runs a place with four escape rooms. One guy got frustrated in the last chamber and just started messing with wall panels, assuming they were all hidden doors. He ended up pushing one and finding that it seemed to have a little bit of give to it. It was definitely not a hidden door. He went straight through it and put a very large hole in the wall. My friend and I had plans that night and he flaked on me because he had to fix the wall.

Ho ho, time to turn the tables!

The stupidest thing I've ever seen in an escape room: The final challenge/lock was a "locked" cabinet, consisting of a coiled up bicycle lock. The problem was that the bicycle lock was basically just a big 3-foot loop, and they'd only run it through the handles of the cabinet once, so there was more than enough slack to simply open the cabinet.

Within the first 5 minutes of the game, somebody in our group just walked up, opened the cabinet, and we were out.

My friend thought the key was in this small wooden box and ended up getting mad and smashing it, there was no key... just employees telling us to leave :|

It's amazing how many times I say "no excess force will be needed- brains over muscle" during the initial brief and people still hulk out and lose their minds.

We created an escape room for our library, and one of the decorative props was a potted plant. One group thought there was something inside the pot, and proceeded to pull the entire plant out, roots and all. There was dirt all over the floor and the poor plant was in shambles.

Worked a zombie themed escape room within a haunted house where you had to find the "cure" before your time ran out and you became a zombie. on part of the haunted house is a locker room type deal and you have to walk through the stalls to open up into the room itself.

Not an employee but a player.

I was working a puzzle on my own on one side of the room, and this tiki torch looking thing keeps falling down while I'm working on something else. I keep picking back up so it's not in the way.

Finally I get frustrated and slam it into this wooden stand with a hole in it. It makes a loud bang and part of the stand comes off.

Was going through one and my girlfriend brute forced a 4 number padlock in about 3 tries

Obligatory not an employee but many months ago my friends and I did an escape room. It was a King Arthur style room, and at one point you get a sword by lining up a group of statues. You were supposed to stick the sword in this device in the center of the room, however we were having so much fun swinging it around we didn't realize that.

Oh boy. In my story, the stupid customer is my husband and me. We have done a handful of escape rooms before, in larger groups and also just the 2 of us, and we are decent (not great but not bad) so we decided to do one in Montreal.

When we showed up the guy working there REALLY hyped up the room, saying that it has a 5% solve rate, it's the hardest room they have across all locations, etc. I think that really got into our heads.

The first time I did an escape room, the setup was that this little girl had died and was haunting her old bedroom. The guy giving us instructions literally had to tell us, "if you happen to have a knife on you, please do not stab the bed."

Apparently a former patron had ripped the mattress open with a switchblade to look for clues.

Not an employee, but I often ask employees about any odd rules they have.

This one room part of the goal was to identify the murderer. Also relevant is the story location was Tokyo. There was a bluetooth lock on one of the doors, and so there was also a phone. It being a murder the escapees thought to call 911. The staff was smart enough to remove the sim card, but didn't realize you can always call 911. So they connect to the real emergency services. The operator gets a call that they think is a legit emergency and the escapees assume that it connect to the game master. Everyone was very confused when they said there was a murder in Tokyo and the operator says that's on another continent why are you calling me?