Have you gone to a room with your team and, despite your best intentions, left unsatisfied? An evening with friends did not go well? Don't know what went wrong? Read on and you will find out!
Did you know that it could be your fault?
"What do you mean, I pay, I demand!" - probably such a thought at the first moment circles on the borders of your consciousness. Sure - you pay for the fun, so it is YOU who should enjoy it, yes?
Seemingly, there is nothing wrong with this reasoning. There is only one tiny "but". You are paying for a room, chosen by you and booked by yourself. Expect high quality service and room, but you can't expect the room to be tailored to you. No can do!
Therefore, remember one important rule of choosing the escape room you go to - it has to please you. Sure - if the staff turns out to be unprofessional, the room itself simply uninteresting, then the fault lies with the staff or the company. But there are many unpleasant situations that can be avoided if you think already at the stage of selection. And it's worth it, because it's all about your fun, so you're doing it for yourself ;)
The most common mistakes made when choosing a room
The following examples are primarily based on reports from business owners. There are sometimes unfair opinions that result from the ill-considered selection of a room, and it is on the basis of these that the following list was created.
Level of difficulty
When it comes to the level of difficulty, it is easy to bend both ways. Experienced people are unlikely to have fun in a beginner's room, from which they will leave in 14 minutes. Similarly - people just starting to play with escape rooms are unlikely to cope with expert rooms, and may blame the room for their failure.
Therefore, let's take a look at the available difficulty levels on Lockme:
- For the first time - have you never been to escape rooms? Are you afraid that no one will let you out? Or are you going with children and want a good time, not necessarily difficult? If you identify with either statement, these rooms are worth a look. If, on the other hand, you already have experience in escape rooms, then keep in mind that the fun in such a room may be short and will not provide you with challenges.
- Beginners - this level is ideal for people who are just starting to play. If you have some newcomers in the group, it is worth directing your eyes to this category, because in more difficult rooms these people could feel lost and lose the fun. It is also a good category for those who are looking for loose fun, without "spin". Teams who have their first steps behind them and are looking for a challenge should rather avoid this level.
- Intermediate - this is such a level.... Well, it's kind of like this... Well in the sense of - well, you know.... You have your first steps behind you, you are unlikely to have first-timers in your group and want something more challenging? It's worth starting to look at this category as well.
- Experienced - OK, this is where it gets serious. These rooms tend to be complex and complicated, and are meant to be challenging to solve. If you don't feel confident in escape rooms, you will lose a lot of time embracing things that are completely unnecessary and your experience will just be bad. We are not saying that you are "weak" - it's just that before you visit difficult rooms, it's worth getting around how puzzle rooms work.
- Experts - these rooms are built so that getting out of them borders on the impossible. The tasks are difficult, their amount overwhelming, and the game scenario unforgiving. These are the rooms for the hardcore exiting players who take pleasure in abusing their gray cells. If you are completely fresh to the escape theme, the staff will do you a favor by not letting you into such a room right away. To appreciate it, you must really know what you are doing and be a very close-knit team.
So much theory, but how about practice? And so we know that many teams who have never been to the rooms or have visited one or two will pore over the expert rooms and later write in the feedback "illogical room", "too many puzzles" or "there should be more time". But maybe after reading this at least a little bit reduce the number of such behavior. For your sake, because it is your time and money :)
Remember also that the level of difficulty set by the business owners does not always perfectly reflect the level of difficulty through the eyes of the players. That's why it's always a good idea to look at room profiles to see how other players rated them. It helps a lot :)
Category
Once we get through the shroud of room difficulty levels, it's time to think about the room's theme. And before you say that the category doesn't affect the puzzles and fun, let me give you some real-life examples:
- Zenek is a typical puzzler. He participates in puzzle competitions and does quite well in them. Every day he eats several puzzles for breakfast, and instead of yo-yos he plays with manual puzzles in his free time. He loves to combine, think and solve tasks. His team thought a detective room would be a great idea. So they went. There, however, the plot revolved around a murder. And so Zenek, instead of doing what he likes best in the rooms, had to bite into the plot, reading files, letters, contents.... He left bored and unsatisfied. Probably if they had gone to a similar room in a different category, everyone would have had fun.
- Krysia, on the other hand, is a big fan of crime fiction. In her wallet, instead of a photo of her other half, she keeps her favorite page from a book, and from work she takes a three-hour streetcar ride home, because if she gets too busy, she rides in circles until the motorist chases her off. Her team for this has come up with a horror room. But Krysia doesn't like to be scared. And here she was scared. Poor Krysia :( Instead of working out the murderous mind, she had to force her mind to focus in an environment where she felt very uncomfortable. She did not have a good time. She didn't sleep well that night either. And yet all she had to do was choose a better room category to save on sleeping aids.
- Eustace and Gwendoline decided to initiate their children into the amazing world of puzzles. Since they are both fascinated by the 18th-century fashion of French cannons, they decided to combine fun with education and took their children to a historical room. The opportunity to play in 18th-century interiors drew them in so much that they didn't even notice when the children fell asleep in a corner. They certainly won't remember it well. And after all, all they had to do was think for a while and choose the "For Kids" category, an easy "Fantasy" or "Adventure" room. Surely the kids would have had a great time!
Such examples can be multiplied in abundance, but I think you already catch the point. If you don't like to be scared, don't go to a horror movie. If you don't like excessive plotting (which is sometimes combined with a lot of written text), then don't go for detective stories or historical rooms. And so on.
Additional markings
This is probably the most underrated element in choosing rooms. And in some cases, however, it's worth putting something out there. If someone in your team uses a wheelchair, choose a room that is marked as disabled-friendly, instead of being surprised later that the company is on the 8th floor without an elevator ;) If you have children in the team - make sure you go to a child-friendly room, and in the case of young people - make sure it is not marked as available for 16 or 18 years. In general, every designation is for something and gives someone something. So now, as an exercise, go through the list of available designations and remember to use them. Why get upset later ;)
Room description and feedback from other users
Room descriptions are another place where you can come across information that will help you refine your choice. There may be additional warnings about the room that are not included in the other sections. There may also be information that will trigger your "I MUST BE THERE!!!!!1111one". All the better :)
It's always a good idea to look at what others have written about a particular room. Although you won't find information about what awaits you in a particular room, there is still some very valuable information in them. You may come across something that will be of great interest to you, or, on the contrary, suggest that the room is not for you. Remember - even a room very high in the ranking may not appeal to you, because you simply have different tastes.
Everyone who has made it to this point is great <3
Thank you for your attention.
