Escape Room Etiquette

I should’ve known it would come to this, but in my defense, there were very clear guidelines that had been repeatedly ignored.

They were printed on the waiver. Not hidden, not implied—printed. Do not force locks. Do not remove items from the room. Work as a team. Sensible rules, I thought. The sort of thing one could reasonably expect a group of adults to follow for the duration of a forty-five minute activity.

I was, as it turns out, overly optimistic.

There were five of us in total, which is already too many. Four is manageable. Four allows for a natural distribution of roles. Five introduces friction. Six, I imagine, is simply anarchy. We had, in no particular order: a man who described himself as “actually quite good at puzzles,” a teenager who began filming before the door had even closed, a couple who seemed to believe the experience was primarily an opportunity to maintain physical contact, and a man who I initially took to be asleep.

He was not asleep. He was, as he later clarified, “just vibing.”

This did not inspire confidence.

The room itself was styled as a study of some kind—books, desk, locked drawers, the usual. I noticed immediately that one of the paintings was slightly misaligned. Not dramatically, just enough to suggest intention. These things are never accidental.

No one else noticed.

Instead, the puzzle man—who I will refer to as such for clarity—began pulling on a drawer with increasing force, as though it might respond to aggression.

“Don’t force it,” I said.

“It’s just stuck,” he replied, continuing to force it.

I have found that people who say things are “just stuck” are rarely open to alternative interpretations.

Behind me, the teenager was narrating into his phone. “Okay, so we’re locked in this haunted—”

“It’s not haunted,” I said.

He paused, as though I’d disrupted something important.

“It’s an escape room,” he said.

“Yes,” I said. “That doesn’t make it haunted.”

He resumed filming.

I took his selfie stick.

“What—”

“Recording isn’t permitted,” I said. “It’s in the guidelines.”

He stared at me.

“I was getting content.”

I placed the phone on a high shelf, out of his reach.

It’s important, in these situations, to establish a baseline of order early on. Otherwise things have a tendency to… drift.

The couple, meanwhile, had positioned themselves near the door, whispering to one another in tones that suggested neither urgency nor relevance. I heard the word “babe” used no fewer than six times in under a minute, none of which appeared to advance our progress in any meaningful way.

The man who was “vibing” had not moved.

I decided, at that point, to take a more active role.

“There’s likely a sequence,” I said, gesturing to the books. “Dates, perhaps, or a pattern.”

No one responded.

Puzzle man made a sound of triumph.

“I got it,” he said.

He had not "got it".

The drawer, now partially detached from the desk, hung at an angle that suggested irreversible damage. Inside, a set of cards had been dislodged, their arrangement compromised.

“Well,” he said, holding up a bent piece of wood, “that worked.”

It had not worked.

I felt, then, a distinct shift. Not frustration, exactly—something more precise. A recognition that the current approach was unsustainable.

“You broke it,” I said.

“He found something,” the teenager said.

“We have a limited amount of time,” I said. “It would be beneficial to approach this methodically.”

The couple nodded, though it was unclear whether they were responding to me or to one another.

Puzzle man had moved on to the door.

“It’s locked,” he announced.

“Yes,” I said.

“We should try to open it.”

“No,” I said, “we should try to solve the room.”

He pulled on the handle.

There is a particular kind of persistence that is indistinguishable from stubbornness. It is rarely productive.

I took a breath.

“Could you stop that,” I said.

“Relax,” he said. “It’s part of the game.”

This is, I think, where things began to escalate.

I approached him.

“Give me the key,” I said.

“What key?”

“The one you took from the drawer.”

“I didn’t—”

He paused.

In his hand, partially concealed, was a small brass key.

“I was just holding it,” he said.

“Of course,” I said. “May I?”

He hesitated.

I did not.

The key, when applied to the box on the desk, produced exactly what one would expect: a second set of clues, numbers arranged in a way that corresponded neatly with the dates I had already identified. It was not difficult. It simply required attention.

Within moments, the safe opened.

Inside was another lock.

Progress.

I turned to the group.

“If we proceed in a structured manner—”

The laughing woman—there had been a laughing woman, I realize now I hadn’t mentioned her, though she had been present throughout—clapped her hands.

“Oh my God, we’re doing it!”

We were not, in fact, doing it.

In her enthusiasm, she knocked into the desk. The box slid. The key fell. The teenager laughed. The couple said “babe” in unison, which I found unsettling.

The key disappeared under a cabinet.

There was a pause.

Then noise.

A great deal of noise.

I closed my eyes briefly.

When I opened them, nothing had improved.

At a certain point, one must decide whether to continue accommodating disorder or to correct it.

I have never been particularly fond of disorder.

“Could everyone just stand still,” I said.

No one stood still.

The teenager had begun climbing onto a chair to retrieve his phone. Puzzle man was applying more force to his jiggling of the doorknob. The couple were discussing whether or not the cabinet “looked important.”

The man who was “vibing” was sitting on the floor.

“Hey,” he said, pointing vaguely at the cabinet. “That thing’s, like… loose.”

No one responded.

I looked at him.

He shrugged.

“I don’t know,” he said. “Just looks loose.”

I knelt, reached beneath the cabinet, and felt along the underside. There, just within reach, was a small latch.

I pressed it.

There was a click.

The door, behind us, opened.

Light from the hallway spilled in.

For a moment, no one moved.

Then the teenager said, “Wait—did we—”

“I solved it,” said puzzle man.

“We solved it,” said the couple.

“Oh my God, we solved it,” said the laughing woman.

The man on the floor blinked.

“Oh,” he said. “Cool.”

The staff member entered shortly after, smiling in the way one does when one expects a certain outcome.

“Congratulations,” he began.

He stopped.

People often do that, I’ve noticed, when reality diverges from expectation.

“I don’t understand,” he said.

This struck me as unnecessary.

“It’s quite straightforward,” I said. “The guidelines were not being followed.”

He looked around the room—the broken drawer, the displaced furniture, the teenager retrieving his phone from a place he had not left it, the general atmosphere of… adjustment.

“You can’t—” he began.

“I didn’t use excessive force,” I said.

This was true.

“I didn’t tamper with staff.”

Also true.

“And we did, in the end, work as a team.”

This, I felt, was a generous interpretation, but not inaccurate.

He stared at me.

The others began speaking all at once. Accusations, clarifications, a great deal of noise that I found, once again, unhelpful.

I stepped into the hallway.

“Thank you,” I said. “It was, despite everything, quite engaging.”

As I left, I heard the teenager say, “No, literally, she just—”

I didn’t turn around.

In my experience, once a situation has been resolved, there is very little to be gained from revisiting it.

I should’ve known, of course, that not everyone would appreciate the effort.