Escape rooms aren’t meant to be easy. There are plenty of red herrings that do absolutely nothing to help you win, so it can feel like a hopeless endeavor trying to get out. But with these 9 strategies under your belt, you’ll have a much easier time of trying to find the right answers.

1. Play With People You Know

In your first Escape Room Marlborough, you don’t want to take on the challenge with strangers. That’s a recipe for disaster. Pick people that you know well and will actually help you put the clues together and solve them.

2. Yelling Helps

When you find something out of the ordinary, don’t mutter it quietly to yourself. Yell so that the rest of your team can hear you so that they can start working together on figuring out how it fits into the puzzle.

3. Contribute, Don’t Spectate

There’s no point in participating in an escape room if you’re just going to sit there and not do anything. The point is to participate so that different ideas can be shared in order to solve the puzzle.

4. Creating A Discard Pile

As mentioned earlier, there are going to be a lot of red herrings to throw you off. When you find a clue that you realize isn’t going to help you, put it in a discard pile along with any other useless clues you might find. That way, you can focus on the right clues before you.

5. Organizing Objects

If you keep everything organized, then you’ll have an easier time finding what you’re looking for. You’ll also be able to connect the items more easily together. If the room is dimly lit, then you should place all of your necessary objects in the brightest spot in the room.

6. Divide and Conquer

This isn’t to say you shouldn’t work together. Rather, you should divide people up into teams to work on different areas of the room as well as different parts of the puzzle in order to save as much time as possible.

7. Search Carefully

That means looking under and behind everything that isn’t completely nailed down. Clues can be expertly hidden in the places you least suspect, so don’t leave anything unturned.

8. Don’t Forget To Ask For Hints

Stuck on a part of the puzzle? It doesn’t hurt to ask for a hint. Some escape rooms allow for a certain number of hints to be given. The game master is there to help push you in the right direction.

9. What To Ignore

It can be difficult to figure out the red herrings from the clues. As a general rule, ignore any electrical components in the room such as power cords and outlets. And forget about moving ceiling tiles to find clues; that is generally a waste of time.

With these tips under your belt, hopefully your next experience with an escape room will go a lot smoother now that you know what to do. Ready to put yourself to the test? Look up the nearest escape room event closest to you and give it a go.