How to choose the best Escape Room (for you)

como elegir mejor escape room

Welcome, escapists, to this detailed guide that will help you find the ideal escape room! If you are looking for an exciting and challenging experience, an escape room is the perfect option, but not all games are equally immersive, fun or detailed and the spectrum of existing games is enormous today. The difference between an excellent (escape) game and a low-quality substitute is abysmal. In this article, we will give you the best tips for choosing the perfect escape room FOR YOU. From how to find the right theme to how to select its difficulty, we tell you everything!

If you have never played an escape room before, surely any experience will be fun and original enough for you. However, there is nothing worse than having a bad first experience that makes you lose the hope of getting to know this exciting universe of escapes that is gaining more fans every day, so avoiding this is crucial.

1. Look for recommendations and reviews

Before deciding on an escape room, the first recommended step is to look for recommendations and reviews, both online and in your trusted environment. Past clients can give you insight into experience quality, difficulty, customer service, and more. You can also ask your friends or family if they have visited an escape room and what their experience was. Many times the best recommendation will be given to you by someone who knows the sector well or who has tried different rooms. To do this, you can consult groups of veteran escape artists and people who know the sector well. There are groups on WhatsApp, Facebook and other social networks or platforms, such as Room Escapers (https://www.facebook.com/groups/roomescapers) or Escape Room Players (https://www.facebook.com/groups/escape.room.jugadores), where you can ask for advice. In any case, today it is easier to find someone in your environment who has sufficient experience in Escape Rooms, since since 2017 – when the strong Escape Room ‘boom’ began – there are regular players in this activity.
By the way: be sure to check out recent reviews! Some escapes, and not a few, have very neglected rooms with poor or no maintenance; with puzzles and props that are very deteriorated and do not even work, but these business live off the legacy of good reviews from many years ago.

2. Choose an escape room with good customer service

Customer service is an important factor to consider when choosing where to play. Make sure the escape room has a good reputation for customer service and is willing to answer any questions you have before your visit. Good customer service can make all the difference in your escape room experience. Virtually all Escape Rooms have a customer service telephone number. We recommend calling by phone to resolve your questions if they are urgent, since sometimes an email or message may take longer to be responded to.

3. Look at the official website, photos and other information you find

Before booking your escape room, you should look for photos and company information online. It is highly recommended to browse every corner of the Escape website you are going to visit. Why? Normally a good escape room will take care of its website; and if the website is well maintained, it is likely that the escape room is also in good condition. The other way around also usually happens: a crappy website gives you a glimpse of the quality that you could find the day you play the adventure, and although this is not always the case, our experience confirms that normally, website and games go quite – quite – hand in hand.

4. Choose a theme that excites you

The next step in choosing the perfect escape room is to select a theme that excites you or conveys something to you. Escape rooms offer a wide variety of themes: from the classic prison to fantasy, science fiction or horror worlds. By choosing a theme that interests you, you will feel greater motivation to solve the challenges of that adventure.
If you like that adventure a lot, it is very likely that you will later be able to play more rooms from the same company with the certainty that their other rooms are good. If you are disappointed, at least you played in a “universe” that conveyed more to you than a theme that you may find less interesting… and that’s what you take with you!

5. Make sure it’s in a convenient location

Many times it is worth travelling for higher quality games and themes that we are passionate about, although certainly the location of the escape room is an important factor to consider. Make sure it’s in a convenient location for you and your group. If you are visiting a new area, check to see if there are escape rooms close to your accommodation or the tourist attractions you are visiting in the area. Normally escape rooms are usually located in the center of large cities, although it is true that sometimes they are located in other strategic places, such as shopping centers or very touristy areas – as is our case -. Calculate travel times and the time to find parking, since it is always good to have enough margin given that many escape rooms do not have the possibility of offering flexible schedules (in this sense we are similar to cinemas and theaters, where sessions are pre-scheduled).

6. Consider the level of difficulty

Escape rooms can have different levels of difficulty, from beginner to expert. If it is your first time in an escape room, we recommend selecting a beginner level or looking for an adventure adapted to beginners. This way, you can familiarize yourself with the process and resolve challenges more easily. However, if you are an experienced player, you can select an advanced level for a greater challenge. In our escape room, Torrenigma, we follow a policy of adapting the games to the level of experience of the team, so that our adventures usually have different adjustable difficulty levels, although this is a not very widespread practice and the vast majority of escape rooms that exist are the same for all audiences – that is, they have a single level of difficulty. It is very important that you always tell the truth if you are asked to indicate your level of experience when booking. If you have questions, we advise you, again, to contact the Escape Room and raise your case so that the business itself can guide you before booking.

7. Check the allowed group size

Each escape room has a permitted group size, or capacity. The vast majority of games in Europe require a minimum of 2 players, and the maximum usually ranges between 4 and 6. It is important to check how many people can participate in the escape room to ensure that all members of your group can participate. If you have a large group, some escape rooms offer the option of booking multiple rooms at the same time, and, more rarely, there are rooms that allow competition mode, where teams play cloned rooms symmetrically. In any case, we generally advise against bringing more than 6 players to the same room, generally these are dynamics that make some of its components bored or feel marginalized, and that is NOT what you want!

8. Choose the time and day well

Choose the time you are going to play wisely. It may not seem like a very important factor, but you would be surprised by the extraordinary difference there is depending on the time at which the teams play. For example, in our experience as Game Masters with more than half a decade working in the sector, we can tell you that the teams that escape the least are usually those that play after having eaten or had dinner -because they are digesting- and those that escape the most They are those groups that come in the middle of the afternoon or having rested well.
It is also important to choose a day when the players can enjoy the activity as freely as possible, without someone on the team “having to run to work” or having any conditions that could distort the enjoyment of the experience.

9. Consider the price (but not how you are thinking)

Price is an important factor to consider when choosing an escape room, but be careful: cheaper usually means worse too! Prices may vary depending on group size, length of experience and location. Longer games will require more experience time, so will cost more per player, but will generally be worth the investment. Smaller teams will mean a higher cost per player as well, although players will have to “share” the experience with fewer people and will surely feel much more like a protagonist by doing many more things by themselves. Normally, a better game in design, setting, installation, etc. It will have cost more time and money to build, and therefore the company will charge more for the experience. It is advisable to compare prices to find the exhaust that fits your budget, but it is also advisable not to get carried away by this factor in isolation. Experience has taught us that normally the cheapest escape rooms are also the most ‘poorly designed’, or are businesses that focus on the quantity rather than the quality of their games.

10. Look for customization options

Some escape rooms (not many, honestly) offer customization options, like adding a surprise or a custom clue. These options can give a special touch to your escape room experience and make it even more unforgettable. For example, on one occasion we managed to implement into the game a series of riddles that a passionate player had prepared for us, for a totally surprise proposal to his partner. An unforgettable adventure without a doubt! In fact, we have already proposed four marriage proposals in Torrenigma.

Escapist final conclusion

In short, choosing the perfect escape room for you is a matter of considering several factors, from theme to difficulty level, location, and customer service. By following these tips, it will be easier to select an escape room that will most likely give you a memorable experience. Don’t forget that it is advisable to book your escape room well in advance and most importantly: enjoy the adventure!

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