30 Times People Did So Badly In Escape Rooms Even The Workers Got Concerned
Interview With Expert
Alright, team. We’re trapped in a spaceship that’s going to self-destruct in one hour if we don’t reset the control panel and reroute the vessel back to Earth. We’ll need undivided attention from our most brilliant minds on this project. Ready? Let’s go!
Escape rooms can be an exciting and fun way to disappear from reality for an hour and focus on solving a series of puzzles and riddles. And while you might believe that what happens in an escape room stays in an escape room, that’s not really the case. Because employees are watching you through cameras the entire time. Redditors have recently been sharing the funniest and most embarrassing escape room fails they've witnessed, so we’ve gathered some of their tales down below. Keep reading to find conversations with Gord and Liz of Review the Room and David Spira of Room Escape Artist, and be sure to upvote the memories that you think people are hoping to escape from!
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A friend works at an escape room. A group of Mom's come in once every few months but do not even attempt to solve any thing...they all just lay down or relax in the silence! I think they come to "escape" life for a bit. The workers all know them and they are lovely women who just need to escape.
To learn more about escape rooms from a couple of experts, we reached out to Gord and Liz, creators of the Review the Room blog. They were kind enough to have a chat with Bored Panda and share where their love for escape rooms came from.
"We were introduced to escape rooms by a friend of ours back in 2015," Gord and Liz said. "At first, we weren’t hooked, and it was a few months before we played another. We then started playing more and more, and it’s been a slippery slope ever since (just this last weekend, we played our 500th game)."
"It sounds cliché, but we love the ‘escape’ of it all," the bloggers shared. "For that 60 mins (or more or less) we are on a mission, and all our focus is on that. Everything that’s going on in the outside world just fades away, and we get to escape reality for just a little while."
I once saw a group of top tier Microsoft engineers come in for a team building exercise... and fail a Pirate themed room that 12 year olds successfully solve all the time.
They were obsessed with doing weird things including:
-listening for Morse code in the ambient wave noises
-climbing on each other's shoulders to change the source channel on the projector that showed the intro video
-deciding our novelty SpongeBob picture of his pineapple house was a reference to the Pineapple Express airstream and then trying to stop the ceiling fan with their bare hands
-taking apart the pirate ship wheel on the wall with a swiss army knife, down to removing the ball bearings inside
-debating where North on a permanently mounted map was, based on where they must have been angled in the room and where our physical building was in relation to the ocean (there was a compass rose PRINTED ON THE MAP)
Software engineers are the smartest fools in the whole wide world. P.S. We kept trying to radio them to stop when things got dangerous, but they kept switching the single designated walkie talkie channel as though this is also a clue source.
Oh, I have a story. But, I am not am employee.
We had a group from work go for team building. They got into the elevator and it stopped working. They spend 15 minutes trying to figure out if the elevator was meant to be part of the escape room. Didn't want to press the emergency button because wasn't sure if it was some reverse psychology thing.
Ended up getting really hot and one of the dudes started panicking. Took off his shirt while in the elevator.
Basically spent the whole time debating.
Ended up getting a call from the escape room people about if they were going to miss the appointment.
Waited another hour for the fire department.
Got out and had to come back to work.
Team building things have been on hold since. No one talks about naked Brian.
We also were curious what Gord and Liz believe makes a successful (or a not so successful) escape room. "For an escape room to be great, it needs the full package; great puzzles, a strong narrative, a well designed set, and great hosting, or, in a word – immersion," they shared. "You can have good rooms that are lacking one of these elements, but we tend to find the rooms that stand out are the ones that have taken that extra step to immerse you in their world from the minute you walk through the door."
"Escape rooms are interesting as what one person loves, another may hate (and vice-versa)," the experts continued. "We generally find a room less exciting if it is just a bland room full of padlocks, no narrative, and very minimal decoration. I’m not saying padlocks are bad, they’ve just got to be used in the right way."
I'm 100% positive that I'm the subject of one of these stories. My group once put me in charge of a puzzle involving wires during crunch time, since I'm a tech geek.
I stood there with a handful of wires being completely useless, and it took a couple of precious minutes to get the team to stop panicking with their own projects before they realized what was wrong.
I'm colorblind.
My wife and I got stuck on a door. We unlocked the door. We pushed it, we pulled it, for like 5 minutes. We had to ask for help. It slides open. We still solved the escape room otherwise.
My husband and I have done so many of them, and we usually do fairly well, but this one was our first. We got stuck. We were handcuffed to a bed at what was supposed to be a prison or mental institution (I don’t recall, as it was years ago). It was the very first clue, and we were supposed to find the key. There were codes, equations, random words, etc. all over the four walls. We spent 35 minutes out of the hour combining these scribbles in the most complex ways possible and trying to do complex math in our heads. At one point, I embarrassingly thought some of the words needed to be translated into Ancient Greek. The workers on the intercom kept telling us to slow down and just look at the wall. We kept saying, 'We are looking at the wall!!! We’re trying!' The key was literally just hanging in the middle of the large wall at eye level
We also wanted to know how often Gord and Liz estimate people fail to complete their missions in escape rooms. "Many escape rooms now want everyone to succeed and will do everything they can to help players get through the game, especially the independent companies," they shared. "Escape rooms are often passion projects of the owners, so they want everyone to see their full creation and get that wonderful dopamine hit when you succeed."
"Saying that, escape rooms do use ‘success rate’ but this can be more of a guide to help new players understand the difficulty level of a game (and should be taken with a pinch of salt)," Gord and Liz added.
The escape room I worked at had a real fire alarm inside the room… I’m sure you can see how this ended up.
I mean, for safety reasons I understand that there is a fire alarm, but then the company has to make sure to instruct people to not touch it.
Not an employee but did an escape room with my family once. There was one wall with a magnet on a chain on it. My dad spent 20 minutes playing with the magnet while my mom, sister and I actually solved the clues.
Eventually we opened a door to a room on the other side of the wall. There was a maze of the other side of the wall and a key on the ground. Turns out, we were supposed have someone on one side of the wall using the magnet to move the key while someone else told them how to get through the maze.
The employee later told us he never saw anyone get the key out of the maze by just randomly playing with the magnet. .
The guy that used a hammer on the drywall, because he swore there was a secret door, because he could “see the seam”.
"In 500 games, we have failed to escape on perhaps three occasions, but this comes with a caveat," Gord and Liz told Bored Panda. "Of those three games, two were ‘broken’ in that they couldn’t be solved due to a reset or tech error and the host didn’t realize in time to correct the problem. The third time we did complete the game, just in ‘overtime’ as that wonderful host gave us a few extra minutes to solve the final puzzle."
We had a group of 10-year-olds come in for a birthday party. The adult accompanying them into the room took the walkie-talkie and refused to accept any hints. We even tried to talk through the walkie-talkie with freebies (maybe check under so-and-so), and they just wouldn’t do it. Needless to say, they didn’t get anything accomplished in an hour, and it was the easiest reset
Not an employee, but I went on a date years ago with a girl and her work friends. They were all very nice, but.... let's say not the most likely to be solving puzzles.
We go in, they close the door, play the little introduction that tells you where to get started, and say "GO!"
Apparently, I was the only one who paid any attention, because IMMEDIATELY everyone races around the room picking things up, trying to turn knobs, moving things to look behind them, opening drawers, legitimately trashing the place "looking for clues". The employee watching us on camera is flabbergasted.
We couldn't solve several puzzles because things were no longer the way they were set up. We didn't even come close to escaping, and I obviously said no the next time I was invited to go out with them. It was for axe throwing, and there was just no way.
Axe throwing with people who don't listen to the instructions. What could go wrong? 🤔
A huge group came into our escape room. Halfway through the game the cameras went out. Managed to facilitate the game with audio only but the group still did absolutely horribly, they barely made it through half the room. Went back in once they were done - they’d gotten behind the wall and unplugged the cameras so they could p**s in the room. Didn’t even bother with most of the puzzles.
"Escape rooms exist for fun," the bloggers continued. "If you get out within the time limit, then that’s great. But even if you don’t, having fun is the key thing. The Games Master is there to ensure you have the best experience you can, and they want to see you succeed. Don’t be afraid to ask for clues if you need them, sometimes you just need a little nudge to get you back on the right track."
"When you’ve decided to do an escape room, have a think about what theme may interest you," Gord and Liz suggest. "Always wanted to rob a bank, raid a temple, stop AI taking over the world, or perhaps just break into an office? Whatever theme interests you, there is almost certainly an escape room that will match."
You get these kinds of people from time to time, but there are people that no matter how much help you give them, they just cannot understand what to do. You get people sometimes where you can straight up tell them "put the code 1234 into the lock that you're holding to unlock it," and they just will not get it. We have a room where there are backpacks that you find with items inside. In an escape room, if you ever find a bag, usually, the first instinct is to open it. So I had one team where I told them to check out the backpack in the room, and they just picked the backpack up and then said, "Now what?" And I had to tell them that they're supposed to open it and see what's inside.
Also, FYI, when we say that we'll be watching your game, we're telling the truth. If you ever go to an escape room, understand that someone is always watching and they can see absolutely everything that you do and hear everything that you say. I've seen and heard many things that I wish I could forget, don't be all over your partner to the point where you're borderline f*****g in the rooms and please, don't play an escape room at the same time that you have a phone appointment with your doctor, I learned more intimate information about a woman who is a complete stranger than I ever wanted to know.
Every first date couple that thought an escape room was a good idea for a first date. Always super awkward.
My first date with my current boyfriend was at an escape room. It was hilarious and we were both frightened and jumped into each others arms whenever something scared us. Best date ever for me!
Did a Silent Hill escape room once. You had to get past Pyramid Head to escape. Me and my friend were convinced it was animatronic and was gonna jump at us when we went by, so we wasted time throwing slippers from the previous puzzle at/near it to try to trigger it.
It was not an animatronic. We got out to the guy running the room doubled over laughing. We had run out of time but he'd let us finish because he saw and heard us panicking over PH and wanted to see what we'd do. He said no one else had ever done that before. 🤦🏻♀️😂.
"People often think escape rooms are scary, and don’t get me wrong, some are. But many are family friendly, we’ve even seen people playing escape rooms with newborn babies strapped to their chests," Gord and Liz shared.
"There’s often debates in the escape room community if ‘escape room’ is even a correct term for these experiences," they added. "Puzzle rooms, Adventure rooms, or even Immersive experiences could be a better name for them. Whatever you call them, give one a try, and lose yourself in a different reality."
If you'd like to hear more about Gord and Liz's experiences or get some recommendations for great escape rooms in the UK, be sure to visit Review the Room!
I somehow got into being an escape room tester, and I've seen some bizarre behavior. Usually a new place will get some friends/family to come in, and then a couple more experienced folks, and the totally new folks can get weird. Was doing a Edgar Allen Poe themed room and this lady just sat down and started reading the prop books telling us "the answer is in here". 40 minutes of reading for this lady.
Not an employee, but the first (and only) time I've been to an escape room, one of the guys in my group (a friend's husband) thought he was going to be a bada*s, and just break his way out of the room. So he whipped out a pocket knife and tried to jimmy the door latch open so he could break out. There was so much 2nd hand embarrassment that I suffered from that. Just super cringe. Like dude, just play the fkn game.
We did an Escape Room for a work Christmas event. First puzzle was a lock. One of my coworkers pulled out his lock picking set...
Had a radio in our game that linked to a specific station using an FM transmitter. When the player tuned to the correct frequency it played a nice, clear, loud message from the game character giving a clue. Players thought they had the right frequency but this was in fact a real radio therefor they accidentally tuned to an actual radio station. The announcer gave the phone number for the radio station and one of the players called it thinking they would get a clue. I reminded them that phones weren't needed and gave them some extra time for the clever effort.
We were also lucky enough to get in touch with David Spira, President of Room Escape Artist, to learn even more about escape rooms. David shared with Bored Panda that his passion for escape rooms started in December of 2013 while planning a trip to Budapest and Prague. "As I was browsing things to do on TripAdvisor, I found a business with a ton of 5 star reviews called 'Claustrophilia.' That name and all of the stars warranted further investigation, and it turned out that it was an escape room. I immediately fell in love with the concept before playing one," David says.
"Back then, I loved the puzzles and the challenge. Today, I love some of the absolutely insane games that high-end escape room creators make," he continued. "If you’ve never played a top escape room, you can’t comprehend what these amazing people produce. I also truly love the escape room player community. It’s a wonderful group of people."
I went to one once and we had the code for like 15 minutes and the lock just wouldn’t work. Guy running it finally came in, couldn’t get it either… ended up giving us a screw driver to take off the side of the lock instead… was pretty dumb.
These things can happen, and it's probably the most frustrating to deal with ever. You've solved the puzzle, but something's not working... (Samuel Jackson time: ) Samuel-Jac...f98d63.jpg 
Not as funny as the others on here, but the least successful (not really even an attempt) was a group of completely drunk bachelors party (already drinking in the parking lot at 10 in the morning drunk, was so close to just not letting them participate) that did not manage to solve more than two riddles. Gave all of the tips I could up to the point of telling them the solution and they just did not believe me. One of the guys sat down on a chair and straigt up fell asleep after 5 mins. Rest stumbled around and I was never as scared before and after that they will break something. Worst group ever.
Had a work group play as a team building. The second puzzle was to find a key to unlock a desk. The middle compartment lifts up after you unlock it. The person who unlocked it tried to pull it open, wouldn’t budge, so instead of then trying to lift proceeds to tell the whole group “guys we need another key to unlock this drawer”. Now I thought surly someone would double check this persons work but no. Everyone believed them and no one else gave the desk a try. I chime in asking if they’d like a nudge since they did unlock it and I don’t want them to be stuck but they shoot me down and say no. 30 minutes go by and they finally cave and ask for a clue. I tell them that desk is in fact unlocked they just need to lift it open. They were very pissed off at the one person and did not make it out.
According to David, "A great escape room can be a beautiful blend of game design, set design, storytelling, intellectual stimulation, physical activity, and whatever else the creators have in their bag of tricks. They can be wondrous, intense, scary, or just feel like an adventure. There’s a game in the Netherlands called The Dome that literally feels like a hallucination without mind altering substances. Great games are thoughtfully designed, tested, and refined. These games are brimming with care and craft," the expert continued.
However, David says there are plenty of things that can kill the good time in an escape room. "Poor customer service will ruin just about anything (escape room or otherwise). The common sources of bad feels in mediocre escape rooms are broken and unmaintained props, bad puzzle design, and while it is possible to make a great escape room on a budget… the overwhelming majority of cheaply built games are pretty lame," he told Bored Panda.
We did one in NYC that was totally busted.
They prepped the room with the wrong answer key, which made it impossible.
They had one puzzle that didn’t work and the employee at the end just told us “oh yeah you guys solved this one quickly but the button doesn’t work”
Another puzzle we had access to was missing 1 of 4 blocks, and due to having a mechanic where we’d be locked out for 10 minutes in 3 wrong answers then 5 minutes every time after that we couldn’t even just try to input random things for the missing digit (we did eventually but were locked out the whole time)
So we got stuck impossibly 20-30 mins in then just sat around. It sucked.
Customer/contestant - work social event.
The room had a sign saying "keep off the grass". The floor was AstroTurf. A group of six of us managed to balance on a plinth, which had enough space for 2-3 normal sized people in a big group hug. After balancing up there for 20 seconds we hear over the intercom:
"Erm... that's adorable. But no. Not part of your room. Please don't fall off. Injury reports are a massive faff".
We only missed out on the room record by only 2 minutes 16 seconds, and best the 3 other teams by a good 10-25 minutes so we were still pretty pleased.
Went for a friend's girlfriend's birthday. She wanted to do the hardest room they had, so we did, but none of us had ever done an escape room before. She ended up basically having a meltdown and yelling at us. We didn't solve anything, but after about 40 minutes, one of the employees let us use our hint to solve the rope puzzle where someone was tied to the middle of the room
David also shared that in the early days of escape rooms (2013-2017), the majority of players actually failed escape rooms. "However, escape rooms have evolved from puzzle gauntlets into a medium for storytelling," he noted. "Escape room creators construct themed adventures, often with characters and narrative arcs, and they want the players to get the full experience. Plus, winning customers are more likely to come back. So today, while the games are still challenging, they are often more balanced, with better hint mechanics to help teams succeed."
Even David has failed a few himself. "I think my worst failure was just my wife Lisa and I playing a game designed for 8-10 people. We just didn't have enough people to do all the puzzles," he added.
Had one group get stuck on the thought a lock was the next solution. Even after basically telling them the solution and that it wasn't that lock, they ran back to it.
It wasn't even a lock they were supposed to open. It was one for us. And they wasted 75% of their time on it.
I’ll flip it a bit. A while ago there was a national eacape rooom championship. We decided to try to participate, sounded fun. Basically you got a slot of 2.5 hours, where you had 10 min each for 20 mini-rooms. You were timed. It was a disaster.
The slot before us ran over by more than 90 minutes. When we finally started the cast majority of rooms were way too complicated. Out of the first 10 we maybe solved three - and one do them was because the lock fell on the floor and openend itself. You could see the times of teams before/around you.
There were at least 6/7 rooms that no-one had been able to solve all day. We ended up walking out as it was getting late and we were seriously over it.
There has not been a repeat championship….
My wife sh*t herself inside of the escape room. And she ran out into the car fully embarrassed. And I had to finish the escape room by myself ( I didn’t finish). I assumed the employees thought we broke up because she dashed out so quickly. And when I lost, they still asked me to take a photo… by myself.
Before heading into an escape room yourself, it's important to know that they're primarily communication challenges, David says. "They are all about making connections. To succeed, you just need to speak up whenever you notice something, and listen when your teammates share their thoughts," he explained.
"Also, like all entertainment, all escape rooms are not created equal. The best ones can be epic adventures where you and your teammates are the heroes, or intimate emotional stories where you connect with characters," he added. "Do your research and find a recommended game with a theme or story that excites you. The recommendations guides at Room Escape Artist are a great place to start."
One memorable attempt involved a group who spent the entire hour fixated on a single clue, convinced it held the key to their escape. Despite hints from staff, they refused to move on. When time ran out, they realized they had ignored crucial clues early on, which highlights the importance of teamwork and time management in escape rooms
Me and my buddies (after a few drinks and a lifetime of construction) did an escape room that had multiple red Xs painted on the wall, and our first instinct was to just kick in the drywall. It turned out you were supposed to put mirrors or pictures or something on the Xs and you could read a code for a door, but we did not get that far. We just put person-sized holes in every wall and were immediately kicked out. We’re idiots, but it was bound to happen. They just got unlucky that it was five people who can rip drywall down really fast
"I co-host a podcast, Reality Escape Pod with two time Survivor player Peih-Gee Law about escape rooms and immersive games," David shared. "We interview amazing creators from around the world about the art, business, and craft of making adventures for people. Season 7 is coming soon."
"We put a lot of love into each episode and have had some amazing guests including Elan Lee (Exploding Kittens), Neil Patrick Harris (Box One), AJ Jacobs (best selling author). You can find it wherever you get your podcasts."
And if you'd like to learn more about David or find a great room to escape from yourself, be sure to visit Room Escape Artist!
Customer. Was part of the office’s social committee consisting of three members. We set up a night at the city’s most popular pub followed by a round at the nearby escape room. We advertised for two months.
The only people to show up were the social committee.
When they asked for a team name I said ‘the antisocial social committee’. Before I even knew people were printing antisocial social club on clothing.
Note: this post originally had 46 images. It’s been shortened to the top 30 images based on user votes.
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My turn! I once did an escape room with my family where one of the objectives was to put a bowl of soup on a stand to activate some lights. We were standing around for about 5 minutes playing with clock hands and looking in a barrel, and we had to take a hint. In the same room, we solved a puzzle, and the next one required us to place some chess pieces on a board. We used hair ties and a phone as placeholders for about 5 minutes before we realized that a door on a cupboard opened and the pieces were inside.
Here's a few tips from a Game Master: Communicate with your group. If you find something, make sure everyone knows about it. Double-Check each other's work. People miss keys and clues because someone else already looked in that spot. Escape rooms don't typically require you to have a lot of outside knowledge. For example, we have a room that contains braille, there's a key somewhere else in the room. Also, please remember that your game master can hear and see everything happening in the room.
i've only been to one escape room, with my mom and brother, and oh boy when we ran out of time sirens started wailing and everything got dark. Holy s**t, could've heard my brothers screams miles away. i started screaming too. s**t was scary, we finished tho, took extra time but still. also one of us had to be handcuffed so as my brother was the least useful 😑 we handcuffed him. and his hands were small enough to shimmy out of the handcuffs, ha! we figured this out outside the room and didn't tell the hint people. as soon as we went in, we remover his handcuffs and carried on 😂
My turn! I once did an escape room with my family where one of the objectives was to put a bowl of soup on a stand to activate some lights. We were standing around for about 5 minutes playing with clock hands and looking in a barrel, and we had to take a hint. In the same room, we solved a puzzle, and the next one required us to place some chess pieces on a board. We used hair ties and a phone as placeholders for about 5 minutes before we realized that a door on a cupboard opened and the pieces were inside.
Here's a few tips from a Game Master: Communicate with your group. If you find something, make sure everyone knows about it. Double-Check each other's work. People miss keys and clues because someone else already looked in that spot. Escape rooms don't typically require you to have a lot of outside knowledge. For example, we have a room that contains braille, there's a key somewhere else in the room. Also, please remember that your game master can hear and see everything happening in the room.
i've only been to one escape room, with my mom and brother, and oh boy when we ran out of time sirens started wailing and everything got dark. Holy s**t, could've heard my brothers screams miles away. i started screaming too. s**t was scary, we finished tho, took extra time but still. also one of us had to be handcuffed so as my brother was the least useful 😑 we handcuffed him. and his hands were small enough to shimmy out of the handcuffs, ha! we figured this out outside the room and didn't tell the hint people. as soon as we went in, we remover his handcuffs and carried on 😂
