Escape room tips — how to get out in 60 minutes

Before the game: the right team

Four to six people is the best size: enough hands to search, few enough that everyone gets a say. Every room works for two — but then go for The Witch (level 2) or The Chinese Box (level 3.5). Your first room? Don't start with level 5. Seven Kingdoms is brilliant, but with two beginners it gets tight.

Arrive 15 minutes early. The briefing isn't small talk — it's where you learn how to get hints and what not to touch.

The first five minutes: search everything

Most teams don't lose time thinking — they lose it overlooking. So: everyone takes a corner, opens everything that opens, and puts every find in one shared place — table, windowsill, middle of the floor. Say out loud what you find: “Card with a red border!” helps more than quietly pocketing it.

Look up, under rugs, inside books, behind pictures. What won't move is decoration — leave it.

The room tells you what it wants

Every task tells you what answer it wants: four empty fields want four characters, a row of symbols wants an order. Don't look for “the solution” — look for what fits what is in front of you.

When you get it right, you notice: a light comes on somewhere, something hums, something opens that was a wall a moment ago. If nothing happens, it wasn't the right idea.

Stuck? After two minutes without progress: swap puzzles. Fresh eyes see the pattern you've stopped seeing. And accepting hints costs no pride — we give them so that you still find the answer yourselves.

The four mistakes we see every day

• Everyone on the same puzzle. Split up as soon as two puzzles are open.
• Force. Nothing in the room needs to be broken open. If something won't give way, you are still missing a step.
• Reworking solved puzzles. What has opened once stays open. Put used finds aside.
• Forgetting the clock. At 30 minutes, regroup briefly: what's open, what's missing? At 10 minutes: everything on the last puzzle.

And if you get stuck?

Then you are not on your own. We follow your game for the full hour — not to judge you, but to say the right thing at the right moment. A keyword, a question, a tip exactly when it moves you on. That is what we are here for, and what we are trained for.

That is why our teams make it — level-5 rooms included. You solve the puzzles yourselves, we just make sure you don't spend twenty minutes stuck in the same spot. You get the team photo afterwards either way — and a little surprise is waiting at the exit.