If you’ve ever been to an escape room, you already know where this is going. If not, let us tell you: It’s a mess. A pure, unadulterated mess. Every decent escape room adventure includes a unique scenario, a bunch of puzzles to solve, no idea where to look for the real clues, and lots and lots of chaos. Basically, it’s a real-life video game, minus the respawns and cheat codes. Just you, your teammates, your wits, and a ticking clock to add a pinch of anxiety to it.
A setting like this makes for the best escape room stories, packed with all the chaotic moments a group of random people can involuntarily come up with. From customers disassembling furniture to a group who started the game by finding the very last clue and winning the game in a minute, every escape room experience is one of a kind!
If you also happen to be a Reddit user, you know it’s a hub for all kinds of stories, and escape room stories are no exception. That’s where we went and handpicked the craziest, most epic, and funny escape room stories, shared by both the brave and adventurous customers who took on these challenges, as well as the hardworking and dedicated workers who helped make these experiences possible! You’ll find them all below, waiting for you to upvote your favorite ones! Ready?
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"Oh my god, my time has come.
People do dumb stuff in escape rooms constantly, but that’s the whole point, and it’s usually in good fun. The best part of my old escape room job was that it was literally right next door to a brothel. People would frequently come to our door not realizing that they were one door over from where they wanted to be and ask 'Hey, how much?'
Me, in my customer service voice: 'Well it depends on how many people you bring, it’s $40 each if you’re a group of two, and goes down to $32 each if you’re a group of eight. Usually, we recommend groups of 4 to 6 people, that seems to be the sweet spot.'
Their looks of horror will make me laugh forever."
"As players: We walk into a pirate-themed escape room, there is a treasure on the floor, a cannon a parrot, scattered maps... and a piano. My friend is like, 'Oh cool, I can play some backing music.' Proceeds to play the 'Pirates of the Caribbean' theme, and CLUNK, the door unlocks and the game is over. The whole point was to solve puzzles to collect pieces to the music sheet of the theme. Best thirty seconds and 20€ ever spent."
"Went to an escape room for a work bonding thing. Bunch of mathematicians and engineers with ASD. A few things in the room were broken (LEDs wouldn't light up to reveal clues, pulleys were out of alignment, etc. I think the people right before we broke a bunch of things). My group fixated on repairing those things and wouldn't look for clues. We ended up finishing just in time (I found most of the clues) and the workers thanked us for fixing stuff and gave a discount. Apparently, one clue never worked consistently until a coworker took a soldering kit out of his pocket and repaired the wires."
This is awesome all around; players had fun and fixed things and grateful staff gave them a discount
"I was at a heist-themed escape room over Christmas, which featured a bit where you have to maneuver past lasers and get a diamond. If you tripped the laser the display case would close and you needed to go back to the start of the room to reset everything.
After we finished the room we were told about a group of 4 elderly women who just walked through the lasers, and had one of the group stay at the beginning, resetting the trip.
Absolute geniuses. I can just imagine it. The cackling as they break the system."
"We got out of the escape room (a super amazing nuclear explosion room in Chattanooga Tennessee). The room operator was cracking up laughing. I guess at one point in order to get keys or clues my overenthusiastic husband had picked up my 8-year-old nephew by the ankles upside down and was shoving him in barrels. I had no idea he was doing this but the operator was dying."
"Not sure if this counts. I did an escape room with a group of friends. In the end, you found a flash drive that was supposed to be plugged into a computer. We opened the document and there were instructions to print. We got to print, and the printer gave us an "out of ink" error. We assumed this was part of the game and started looking for a magenta cartridge. Then an employee slipped into the room, replaced the cartridge, and told us to hit print again.
Apparently, it was not part of the game. They just ran out of ink."
"I went to one where there were three identical rooms in which teams competed in at the same time. If you finished you then got to watch and listen to the other teams. Our team did pretty well and we got to watch the other two teams try to complete it.
Anyway, there was this one lock which was a number combination and you solved it by finding some sheet music in a book, with five notes on it, which corresponded to numbers. The piece was entitled 'The Key' or something similar so you knew you needed it for the lock. Anyway, this other team instead of converting to numbers and putting in the combination chanted this five-note tune at the lock. When it did not work they tried again, then again, then someone else tried. This went on for 10 minutes and got louder and louder. Eventually, the game master stepped in and told them it was not going to work. Apparently, they were the only team ever to do that."
polarbearstina replied: "Theater nerds."
"So this isn’t necessarily absurd on the player's side, but instead from the Gamemaster. One time our players were doing the bank heist theme, (done in the dark and you have headlamps) and after about 4 puzzles one of my employees realized they had an item in their pockets still. So we brain-blasted for a couple of minutes and decided the best course of action was to pretend the employee was a 'security guard' and walk around the bank. So we went over the room intercom and warned them to hide cause it looked like the security guard was coming to them. Seeing all of the players hide in complete fear was priceless. One guy wasn’t even hiding, he was just sprawled up against the wall. Our 'security guard' walked around, said 'Everything seems good' and placed the item down on the desk. It was legendary that they didn’t suspect anything."
"One time my friend tried picking the lock and the game master just came in and said, 'NO.'"
"I was doing an escape room with three males friends. I’m a smaller girl. It was nautically themed, and the game started with the four of us having our ankles chained together. We had to figure out how to get the key to unlock ourselves. So I just took off my shoes, slipped out of the shackles, and grabbed the key from across the room."
"Our whole group was struggling to open a combination lock in one of our puzzles, every single one of us tried at least twice and couldn’t get it.
Then a paper slipped under the door and it was instructions for how to use a combination lock."
"The clue was hidden in a computer, but the keyboard was hidden in the escape room somewhere. Knew that windows had an onscreen keyboard, so logged in with that instead of finding the physical keyboard."
"In the Netherlands, there is this prison escape room where everyone is a prisoner and you have to escape prison (it is done in an actual ancient prison). There are about 300 participants and 85 actors (mostly prison guards and some prisoners).
They have over 15 storylines that you can follow and there are other inmates (actors) who will lead those storylines and send you one quest.
Coming back to the question, at the beginning they warned everyone that no physical contact is allowed because, during the first time, people would actually threat each other to get money and guards have been attacked. Also, they had to warn people that you weren't supposed to try climbing the 50 feet high prison wall..."
"I feel kinda bad about the time our group unscrewed half the pictures on the wall using a paper clip since none of us had the sense to think that maybe the pictures being screwed down was a sign we weren’t supposed to look behind them."
Momimamomumu replied: "I mean... if I worked in that escape room, I'd be hella impressed you got it all undone with a paper clip."
"Not a worker, but the local escape room in my town has an absurd thing the players do to get clues if we're stumped - we have to do the YMCA dance motions if we need help."
"Had one lady use a stolen credit card to buy a game for a group of 8. We worked with the police to set up a sting operation. They were mid-game when we had 7 officers enter their room and handcuff them.
Fun day."
"Stupid but with a twist. In one escape room, we were told (no less than three different times) that we wouldn't need to take anything off the wall. Halfway through we discover three plaques that you had to... Take off the wall.
So the secret ingredient for that escape room was a dash of civil disobedience..."
"I did an escape room with my family and the workers have to tell you not to lick the light bulb. This is because some guy thought if he licked the light bulb the answer would be revealed on the light bulb. The only answer he found was light bulbs are hot and can burn you."
"My buddy guessed a lock's combo which gave us the final clue, but we had not found the other ones. We ended up solving the room backward.
When the room administrator came in she had nothing else to say but, 'What the hell did you guys do.'"
"I interviewed for a job at an escape room. They told me that one of their standard instructions you MUST tell every group is to not stick things in electrical outlets because too many people did it."
scytaledarkwing replied: "What's f*cked up is. I went to an escape room in LA where one of the puzzles was literally to stick a fork in a socket. Everyone told me I was insane when I suggested it. But two of the prongs were folded back and there was fake soot around the fake outlet. I did it and boom gave us the next clue. I thought it was super stupid though... Why risk people learning that behavior and trying it elsewhere?
"Had a group come in, I noticed they had been drinking a little, but seemed mostly fine. So I let them into the room and start the clock.
They were just wandering around. At the half-an-hour mark they were laying on the floor and rolling around. They didn’t do any harm to the room. I don’t remember if they even solved one puzzle. When I let them out after an hour they claimed it was fun. But they didn’t really do anything? And did they remember it the next day? I don't know."
askyourmom469 replied: "That doesn't sound like they were drunk, it sounds more like they were tripping."
apinkparfait replied: "Somewhere there's a group of friends that love to tell about when they tried to do a scape room while tripping."
Somewhere there is a group of friends who actually think they were briefly kidnapped… and then just freed.
"I don't work at one but my coworker went to one last year and his story was hilarious. He's a really serious guy from Boston, and got talked into going to one with his wife and a few old friends that had come down for vacation. He said as soon as they walked in he saw a broom that looked completely out of place so he grabbed it. He thought they'd need it at some point. They made it out of the first room.
They go to the second room and he's still got the broom. He swears it was just too out of place to not be part of the puzzle at some point. They make it through the second room. In the third room, they get stuck.
They're reading the clues over and over and he gets fixated on the broom while everyone else is searching the room. He's looking it over up and down, checking the handle for markings (mind you he has a terrible near-sight vision), and checking the bristles. Times running out and he's arguing with his wife at this point that the broom has the final clue.
Time runs up, they walk out and the crew is just dying laughing at him. Someone left the broom by mistake, nothing more, nothing less. He carried that damn broom through three rooms. He got a good laugh about it later but he was embarrassed at the time. It was a great story he told the next morning at work."
"Mate worked at an escape room and he told me that some guys tried to smash a hole in the wall to get out because it was an Alcatraz-themed room."
"Attended a 'Saw series' themed escape room with my SON and some randoms since the room required 4-6.
We get locked in to start, chained to fixtures like the dark room scene from the movie - lights are off. As soon as the thing starts one of the randos says, 'I have a gun in case we need to shoot someone.'
I thought he was joking. We all did.
Eventually, the lights turn on and he pulls out a real gun and sits it in the sink, and says, 'I'm leaving the gun in the sink in case something happens to me. It's for everyone.'"
KOTPF replied: "It was nice that he planned ahead and offered it to everybody."
"One of the rooms is based on Jumanji and has a waterfall with real water in it. Enough people have tried to drink the water that they had to tell people not to in their opening spiel."
"Former escape room worker here. Once had a pair take almost 20 minutes to work out what 1+2 is. I wish I was joking. In the end, we had to tell them."
"Escape room enthusiast here. We spent far more time than I care to admit trying to figure out what the hell the numbers written in sharpie on the underside of the rug in the middle of the room meant.
Turns out they were an inventory number from the thrift store the designer bought the thing from, and nobody else had ever noticed them before. We still won, but that wasted a LOT of our time."
*escape room participants start reading each other’s underwear labels* “Hey, wait a minute…”
"I once had a group of drunk guys go in and they ran through their allotted hints pretty quickly. They asked for another hint and we said over the speakers that they were out of hints.
One of the guys threatened to start taking off his clothes until we gave another hint."
"Once did an escape room with work. One in Birmingham (UK), Sherlock Holmes-themed room. I walk in last, spot a flat cap on the door and, as I have an innate need to wear any hat I find, I stuck it on my head. 25 minutes later we still haven't cracked the first clue which requires us to find a key. You'll know where this is going, we asked for help, 'The Detective likes his hat'. Lo and behold the first clue has been on my head for almost half the allotted time."
That other guy threatened to take his clothes off. With this guy they had to tell him to take some clothes off.
"Not an escape room worker, but the second time I went to one the owner told me that once a group decided to smash all the locks because they found the hammer (on which a clue is written).
They had to replace all locks and it is now a toy hammer.
I'd like to say those people were morons but when we found it the same idea was discussed in our group."
"Not a worker at one but lived above one that had a piano. The number of people that thought they were in a Scooby-Doo episode, trying to play the right key or set of notes on the piano to get the bookcase to move was too damn high."
DANG IT NOW THE THEME SONG IS STUCK INSIDE MY HEAD 🎵Scooby dooby doo, where are you🎵
"I actually used to manage an escape room! We had one that was Frankenstein themed and we actually had an actor as part of the game(usually me cause it was fun). We would always ask the groups ahead of time if they wanted Frankenstein to come in, and of course, let them know it was obviously just an actor. I still got punched 3 times."
That reminds me ... I work at a haunted house every Halloween and I get punched at least once a year (once in the stomach and twice in the face). Most of the time it's probably out of fear but I think every once in a while it's on purpose.
"I was the player here.
This was a horror-themed escape house with people in costumes screaming at you from time to time with chainsaws and stuff.
We were in a room with an open jail cage and we knew the next clue was in that cage but it's pretty obvious that cage was designed to scare the stuff out of whoever was inside. I waltzed in, the cage door slammed shut behind me. I took the note and slipped myself out between the bars.
We waited for several minutes until I slipped back into the cage so the game could progress.
Later on, the workers told us they were really surprised when I had slipped out of their 'trap' and were trying to figure out what to do next."
The usual customers must be a little “chunkier” than this person.
"Had a group of three people play in one of our smaller rooms. Two guys were solving puzzles rather enthusiastically while their friend took a seat and just napped for ~50 minutes."
"I did a prison escape and one of the fake prisoners would help you escape if you gave him your shoelaces. Several people did, but then the shoelace guy got a bit too enthusiastic and fell down the stairs. He went off to the hospital with a broken elbow and several players went home with no laces in their shoes."
"I don't work there but a few people before me pulled the caps off of every bauble on the Christmas tree in the lobby before they went in the room because they thought there would be clues in them. The employees were pissed."
"This was actually a 'break-in' format where you were supposed to recover some locked-up MacGuffin. We were really close and the next step evidently was to unlock a door. We solved the puzzle that we figured would allow us to do this, but then when we tried the door, it wouldn't open. So for the remaining fifteen minutes or so, we scramble frantically looking for more clues to figure out how to open this damn door, but failed. When we asked about it afterward, the guy was confused because the last puzzle we solved was the one that should have opened the door. After some back-and-forth, it turns out, the door just has a bit of a funny handle. Not part of the puzzle in any way, just a door that works differently from what you're used to. That's all that stood between us and sweet victory."
Lol, that'd be me! Figure out how to unlock the door then not be able to open it
"I had one couple come in to do a room, tried to solve a puzzle, failed, then spent the next hour just standing in the corner chatting."
"The only time I've been to an escape room, one of the workers there told us to ignore everything with a yellow tape over it because it's not part of the game. They introduced this thing when one day someone completely destroyed the air conditioner on the wall hoping to find clues inside it."
"I went to one where the final puzzle was to use a piece of wire to extend two wires that couldn't reach and I had to connect it with my bare hands (and it was like 14 ga wire). I wondered if there were some wire nuts or something we were supposed to find, but there was 30 seconds left and I was with a 10-year-old who was too young to die in a plane wreck."
"At an escape room near me, they had a group of lads on a stag does.
These guys got very drunk and during the escape room, thought they could escape via the sewers. They managed to rip out the manhole cover which was bolted down into the concrete. This cover is now permanently broken as it's too expensive to fix they said. Advised us to not escape via the sewers..."
"No really, haven't you seen Shawshank Redemption? We escape through the sewer!"
"My friends and I did an escape room a couple of years ago. We have to count the number of candlesticks on the carpet pattern or something like that. Instead of just counting them normally my friend got on his hands and knees on the carpets and went around counting them. When we finally escaped the guy told us that he had never seen someone do that before and thought it was hilarious."
"Not a worker but was with a group of people and one of them became so overwhelmed that almost immediately after walking in, they spun around and walked right back out again."
"My dad owns an escape room in a Smöl town in Norway and the weirdest thing someone has done is probably trying to punch the camera, the guy was like 150cm tall and couldn't reach it. After trying 3 times to punch it he gave up."
"Finding the page numbers in a book and thinking it was a phone number."
"1-2-3-4-5-6-7-etc."
"One time, a group was trying to figure out the code to a locked compartment. So this huge guy in the group decided this was a waste of time and tried to rip off the compartment door with his bare hands. He was almost successful, but we stopped him before he could do further damage to the door. He didn’t understand what was wrong."
"A group came in that disassembled some of the furniture (a bed and a desk), ripped some of the wallpaper off the walls, and pulled the heads off some stuffed animals."
"I genuinely thought picking the lock with a hairpin on the floor was the solution, turns out it was just a drop from the last group of guests.
We skipped like 60% of the puzzle and got stuck at the final door."
*last group of guests accidentally leaves a bull castration tool on the floor. Chaos ensues*
"Picked up a dead mouse and asked if it was a clue and asked if he could take it with him. This was in a barn, so there were multiple animals around."
"A room I did had an in-room basket for us to put our coats and bags. The person telling the rules had to announce that there weren't any clues in that basket because previous players had dumped all their stuff on the floor in order to root through it for clues."
If I worked at an escape room I would assure all the people in the room that “We have not hidden any clues behind the eyeballs of any of you.” Then I would slowly wink at them and leave the room.
"I was in a group (ended up leading it) when someone went rogue and started tearing the evacuation map on the wall because it was paper. I guess some tend to believe anything destructible would be part of the game."
"First thing I had to learn working at an escape room: Everything, yes EVERYTHING, in the room was going to be dismantled, pulled on, or messed with in some way. Have a screwdriver in the room? Maybe there's a clue in the light switch cover. Blacklight? Must have taken it completely apart. TV for clues? Must have to unplug/change inputs. And anything not nailed down is bound to be broken."
"I was a player and I was in a large cage, through the bars I had to open a heavy lock. The cage was dimly lit with LED bars on the floor. I got the lock open but due to it being heavy and me having to handle it through the bars I dropped it, on the LED bar. At first, I thought the light turning off was part of the room. Turns out I broke the LED."
"Not a worker, but when I went one of my friends was convinced that the clue was in the lighting fixture 10 feet off the ground. They ended up picking up the coat rack, (which also wasn’t a part of the game) and smashing it into the light. The clue wasn’t there. We got broken glass all over the floor and were immediately asked to leave. Thanks a lot, Jane."
"One of them believed the clue was inside them."
OhSevenSeaSix replied: "The files are in the computer."
"Pulled the air vent covers off the walls/floor. Had to add an official disclaimer in the rules I did before they went in the room, 'NO CLUES IN THE AIR VENTS!' Customers were stupid a lot, but it was a pretty sweet gig overall!"
"One of the rooms has a bunch of museum-style display cases with glass covering the top with different puzzles inside. One of has sand in it and small holes in the top. Someone tried to tip the display case over and get the sand out so they could read the hidden message. When the game master told them to stop doing that she stopped momentarily and then tried again 2 minutes later. The game master told her if she did it again she'd be kicked out and the woman said, 'Just making sure you're paying attention.'"
Automatic eviction for that. Who knows what she's doing when she's not being observed?
"Another one happened where a group was handcuffed and they couldn’t find the key. The game master was trying to give them clues to find the key but they still couldn’t find it. So one group member thought it would be best to use his leg. There was a table in the room with some items on it. He proceeded to knock over all the items with one kick. That group didn’t win."
"We had a room called the Prison Break. The players were starting in a cell and to make it realistic, there was a toilet in there. Gladly people didn't take a piss or a dump in it but also refused to touch it although we were giving a hint there is a hidden key by the toilet. Later in that game, they had to search for a specific case file for a murderer but they just searched for their own file as if we would put a file for every new player in there... a lot of people lost their game on that spot as it was the last quest to do."
Lol. Ive searched a lot of toilets working in a jail. It's one of the most common spots to hid things for prisoners. I probably would have been the first to put my hand in the toilet.
"Somehow the last door opened by itself in the middle of us solving the puzzles. Someone from the staff team had to get in and close it back properly for us to proceed. I guess it didn't count as a win."
After years of being told "if something is screwed down, it's not supposed to move" we're in a prison escape room where you were supposed to use a fork to unscrew the toilets from the wall and yank them back to climb through the wall. Took us forever, on that step but we ended up winning it with 2sec left!
Not dumb, I'm just hella proud. Wife took me to a Jack the Ripper themed escape room for Valentine's Day. Just the two of us. We didn't make it out, but the game master said we were probably 5-10 minutes from solving it. The gm was really surprised. We're like "what¿ are we that dumb¿" And she replied "no, you're that smart. That's our hardest people and the recommended party size is at least six people." Go us go¡
I did one with friends, and the game master literally laughed at me for being stupid. He probably gave us 20 free clues I'm not joking.
Not dumb, I'm just hella proud. Wife took me to a Jack the Ripper themed escape room for Valentine's Day. Just the two of us. We didn't make it out, but the game master said we were probably 5-10 minutes from solving it. The gm was really surprised. We're like "what¿ are we that dumb¿" And she replied "no, you're that smart. That's our hardest people and the recommended party size is at least six people." Go us go¡
I did one with friends, and the game master literally laughed at me for being stupid. He probably gave us 20 free clues I'm not joking.
