Escape rooms are tough. In fact, most groups don’t manage to break out. It’s not that people are too stupid to solve things; it’s a matter of strategy. I remember my first room. I was so young, naïve, and innocent, and I spent the first 15 minutes absolutely bewildered as to what I was supposed to do. Needless to say, we didn’t make it. But as I played more rooms, I began to notice certain things that worked and others that didn’t. Escape rooms aren’t really that hard at all. You just need to know what to do right. Here are 10 key ingredients for a successful escape!

1. Pick the Right Team
It’s not about what you know, it’s who you know. You want a good group to play with. It’s not necessarily about finding a bunch of smart people. You want to play with people you are comfortable …

There are psychological reasons behind why the escape room phenomenon is becoming so widespread. Remember your favorite computer games as a kid? Pajama Sam, Freddie Fish, and Putt-Putt are a few names that come to mind. It wasn’t the intriguing story that made them so addictive. Let’s face it, the scripts for these games aren’t winning any academy awards anytime soon. Their popularity was based on the fact that you had to click around, explore, and solve clues to complete tasks.

Human being are naturally inquisitive creatures. If you look into the nitty gritty reasons why we’re so attracted to escape rooms, you’ll find that our willingness to lock ourselves in a room with our closest friends and family members isn’t really that crazy at all. There’s even a game show on the Science Channel called Race to Escape, where two groups of strangers compete against each other to see …

The Escape Room craze has really taken off (especially here in Los Angeles) and I couldn’t be happier about it. Getting a group of my friends together, locking ourselves in a room, and solving a myriad of themed puzzles in order to escape (followed by our traditional donut run) is one my favorite ways to spend an afternoon or evening. Unfortunately, I can’t always get a full team together, or sometimes money is a little too tight to justify spending $20-$40 per person for an hour of puzzle-solving. Luckily, there are a ton of new board and card games that seek to bring the fun and mystery of escape rooms into your own home. These often work well with smaller groups, and they’re pretty much guaranteed not to break the bank.

ESCAPE ROOM IN A BOX

Escape Room in a Box, which has been licensed by Mattel after a very …