Almost anyone that has tried one would say escape rooms are fun. Part adventure, part intriguing storyline, and an assemblage of puzzles and riddles you and/or your team need to solve to make your escape. Escape rooms are a combination of a theater, physical adventure, critical thinking and gameplay.
Purportedly, the first escape room opened its doors in Japan in 2007. Since that time, escape rooms have been a massive success around the globe. In the United States, Puzzle Break, America’s first escape room company began operating in 2013 in Seattle, Washington. Research on the topic of escape rooms indicates the experience of these rooms appeals almost evenly among women and men, making it an appealing choice when any makeup of folks are looking for a fun group activity to do together.
Although the themes of escape rooms are often whimsical (e.g., zombie apocalypses, haunted mysteries, treasure hunting adventures), educational escape rooms have been popping up as well. For example, Heidi Eukel, Jeanne Frenzel, and Dan Cernusca of North Dakota State University, Fargo, report on a diabetes-themed escape room that was used to improve the knowledge of pharmacy students. When we are having fun, not only does time often fly, but we also seem to retain more of what we learn too.
So, what makes escape rooms so fun for such a wide range of people?
Here are five reasons escape rooms are fun according to science:
- Escape rooms promote engagement and task persistence
Escape rooms are usually timebound. Having a time limit in which a task must be accomplished creates a sense of urgency and risk, adding emotional investment and commitment to the experience of an escape room. The provided storyline of an escape room (e.g., a murder mystery inspired by Agatha Christies’ novels) can produce a passionate response in some players. Also, good escape room narratives are designed to make us curious and eager to get to the bottom of the story. Experts explain that the need to close a good story gap promotes our intrinsic motivation, one of the reasons why escape rooms can be such great learning tools (Clarke et al., 2017). Moreover, escape rooms present the opportunity to provide us with a successful outcome—the ending comes to an apex where we reach the “sweet spot” between entertainment, education, escapism and aesthetics (Poulsson & Kale, 2004).
- Escape rooms can be a bridge to peak experience and flow
Escape rooms are immersive and engrossing. Well-designed rooms are visually appealing and engage most of our senses. Professor Tomaz Kolar studied escape rooms around the world and found that they can offer extraordinary experiences to participants. You arrive an ordinary joe and, if triumphant, emerge a hero. Although the time spent in an escape room is not necessarily long enough to be life-transforming (Kolar, 2017), the experience can offer a healthy dose of adrenaline, as well as an ego boost (when the outcome is successful). If the experience is totally immersive, you might be lucky enough to find flow—a state so consuming that nothing else seems to matter playing the game.
- Escape rooms encourage us to think outside of the box
Puzzle solving is a form of problem-solving. The process requires creativity and often requires us to think in a nonlinear fashion. Our brain is an amazing organ with almost boundless potential. However, it does have its limits. One limitation of our brains that sometimes prevents us from finding the best solution is known as the Einstellung effect. The Einstellung effect highlights our brain’s tendency to stubbornly cling to familiar solutions at the cost of forsaking better ones (Bilalić, McLeod, & Gobet, 2008). Escape rooms are an ideal opportunity to make us aware of the Einstellung effect. Quality escape rooms will often penalize us for doing what is expected and force us instead to use the more creative side of our brain if we want to move forward.
- Escape rooms enable us to reconnect with our inner child
Playing games is in our DNA. We know that Ancient Egyptians, dating back to 3500 BC, had board games (Clarke et al., 2017). Amazing escape rooms tap into our youthful playfulness, as well as our fascination of wonder. Johan Huizinga, a Dutch historian and cultural theorist, called our species Homo Ludens (or Playing Man) and argued that culture and civilization arise from “the play spirit” (Huizinga, 1949). Somewhere, in almost all of us, there is a kid that loves to solve mysteries, explore the unknown, be the hero or the adventurer looking for hidden treasures. Unfortunately, often this curious/creative part of us has been pushed aside by the “grownup” part. Great escape rooms can give us back that sense of excitement and wonder. In an escape room, the child within all of us has an opportunity to use imagination, push boundaries and play with friends.
- Escape rooms help build relationships
Escape rooms often require cooperation and teamwork. They are also an excellent way to get to better know people and build bonds in a short amount of time. To be successful at an escape room built for groups, individuals need to know how to effectively communicate with each other and lean on each other’s skill sets. When a team comes together to achieve a common goal, it gives the group a feeling of satisfaction and closeness. That is probably why escape rooms are being used by companies more and more as team-building exercises (Kolar, 2017). Role-playing within an escape room environment gives us an opportunity to move out of our comfort zone and engage with people in new ways.
If you have firsthand knowledge that escape rooms are fun, please leave your favorite experience in the comment section below. (My current favorite is EscapeSF.)
Sources & further reading:
Bilalić, M., McLeod, P., & Gobet, F. (2008). Why good thoughts block better ones: The mechanism of the pernicious Einstellung (set) effect. Cognition, 108(3), 652-661. doi:10.1016/j.cognition.2008.05.005
Clarke, S., Peel, D. J., Arnab, S., Morini, L., Keegan, H., & Wood, O. (2017). EscapED: A framework for creating educational escape rooms and interactive games for higher/further education. International Journal of Serious Games, 4(3), 73-86. doi:10.17083/ijsg.v4i3.180
Eukel, H. N., Frenzel, J. E., & Cernusca, D. (2017). Educational gaming for pharmacy students– Design and evaluation of a diabetes-themed escape room. American Journal of Pharmaceutical Education, 81(7), article 6265.
Huizinga, J. (1949). Homo Ludens: A study of the play element in culture. London: Routledge and Kegan Paul.
Kolar, T. (2017). Conceptualising tourist experiences with new attractions: The case of escape rooms. International Journal 0f Contemporary Hospitality Management, 29(5), 1322-1339. doi:10.1108/IJCHM-12-2015-0687
Nicholson, S. (2015). Peeking behind the locked door: A survey of escape room facilities. White Paper available at http://scottnicholson.com/pubs/erfacwhite.
Poulsson, S., & Kale, S. (2004). The experience economy and commercial experiences. The Marketing Review,4(3),267-278.
