It really goes without saying, but the best escape room games to play are the ones where you become totally immersed. Even though you’re surrounded by an artificial environment, you’re able to continuously suspend your disbelief. This elevates the game to be something much more than simply fun. Of course, that doesn't mean to say that there will not be times when you may be completely stumped. Some riddles or puzzles may take 5 or 10 minutes of your time. And you’ll still fail to solve them. If you finally get up the courage to ask the games master for a clue, and if that clue helps you solve it then you may find yourself smacking your forehead with the palm of your hand. It's amazing how some solutions are so obvious. Yet you can’t see them when they're right in front of your nose. That's because there is a certain psychology needed in order to solve escape room games. And keep in mind that the designers of these games understand this better than you. Meaning that the games and their puzzles are always going to be stacked against you.

In our modern day to day lives, we are constantly being stimulated by any number of visual images. These can come in the form of music videos, television shows and advertisements. Unfortunately, most of these huge advertising and television budgets are wasted as we may see the advertisement or programme, but unfortunately we do not remember them after five minutes. That's because the human brain needs to make a connection between the image and ourselves in order to create a memory. 

One of the major problems for players who are playing escape room games for the first time is that there is almost too much to take in. When you first enter the escape room your eyes will tend to to look at everything and yet see nothing. Because you're unsure as to what the actual clues or riddles might be, you are looking almost too hard, and will have a tendency to look past the important items. It's almost as if there are too many things for the mind to process.

This is called “decision paralysis” and we all suffer from this one hundred times every day.  Because our lives are full of so many choices, we can become nervous or even anxious, over the idea of choosing something incorrectly. For many people, this results in putting off decisions for a later date. This is because it's too stressful to make a choice right now. This is why, here at EscapeTheRoom, we suggest that you try hard to maintain an open mind. All escape room games will require you to think laterally and outside of the box. So it's important to relax and let your imagination run wild. Though there are a fixed number of puzzles in front of you, by keeping an open mind, you will find many different ways to solve each one of them.

Depending on your type of personality, you may well find yourself overcomplicating a puzzle.  Those players who may be more boneheaded may simply refuse to change their methodology. As you can imagine, this results in a huge waste of time. Some of the players may simply be overwhelmed with the number of puzzles and find it hard to decide a starting point from when they should commence. That’s why  it's important to be able to follow the original narrative that was given at the beginning of the game by the games master. This will contain clues as to the order by which puzzles and riddles might be solved. Finally, we should mention that there are some types of personalities who are simply too shy to give their ideas. Once again, this also can be a result of decision paralysis and the fear of being incorrect.

We have seen many teams become so immersed in their puzzles and clues that they totally forget there is a clock ticking down the time in the background. Unfortunately, there are some for whom this time limit does nothing but cause even more decision paralysis which shows itself in the form of procrastination. Sometimes, a team will become stumped by a puzzle and will make a decision to return to it later. But with the stress of the game, they simply forget and the puzzle is never solved. The time limit, which is normally 60 minutes, will fly by in an instant. And only once the game is over or near completion will someone suddenly remember about the puzzle that was previously forgotten. 

It's a basic truism that your perception is also your own reality. And it’s this reality that you're going to be basing your decisions on when trying to escape. Many of the objects within the escape room game will have both unusual and very specific functions. The problem comes when you perceive an object in a manner that you are used to seeing it. Yet in the escape room scenario, it may serve a totally different purpose. You should look at puzzle solving as a form of problem-solving in that your instant perception may be both irrelevant and even wrong. In other words, you can't judge a book by its cover. Because humans tend to see objects as having a single function, this “functional fixity” may hinder your progress at being able to see objects in a new light.

As humans, we pride ourselves on being the most intelligent of the world’s species. Yet you may well find that our brains are more stubborn than we would like. On many occasions we have seen players unable to move forward simply because they are stumped at a problem, unable to view it from a different perspective. On the other hand, there are those players who are able to whizz through escape rooms simply because they are able to remain open-minded. They understand the concept that things are not necessarily what they appear to be at first glance.

We suggest that if you find yourself getting frustrated because you’re drawing a blank whilst holding a puzzle in your hands, then you don't feel so bad about it. It's not really your fault. It doesn't mean that you should have studied harder at school. Feel free to blame biology and more specifically psychology. Keep in mind, that in its natural state, the human brain forgets much more information than it remembers. Once the game is over, and you and your team are sharing a drink or coffee and excitedly discussing what happened, you might be surprised as to how much you have already forgotten. That's just our human programming!