We’re frequently asked about the difficulty ratings of our escape rooms. Many people want to know what our intentions were when we designed our games; were they meant to be played by beginners? By experts? Are they fair? Do people usually escape? The thing is we don’t have difficulties associated with our games, and here’s why:
Difficulty Is Subjective
Each of our games is designed using types of puzzles that fit into its theme. That means that one game may have logic puzzles while another has mostly mechanical puzzles. While both types of puzzles can pose a challenge, one may be easier or more difficult given a player’s skill set. Some people are great at finding things, while other people are great at pattern recognition, so it’s tough to gauge difficulty since it will vary for different players.
Experience Matters
Playing an escape room is kind of like riding a bike–the more you play, the easier it gets. How much experience you have with escape rooms will determine how easy or difficult they are for you. Of course, this makes it virtually impossible to assign a difficulty rating to our games. If we tell you a game is easy, but your group is inexperienced, it will naturally seem difficult. A group that’s played a hundred escape rooms together is likely to find most escape rooms straightforward.
Hints Change Everything
Since we offer hints for all of our puzzles, you have the option of controlling the difficulty of your game. If you’re breezing through the game, then you can ignore the hint system altogether, making the game a bit tougher. Groups who are highly competitive or have a lot of escape room experience will often choose to ignore hints in order to challenge themselves. But if you’re stuck, you might want to use a few hints to help yourself along, thereby making the game a bit easier for your group to win. There’s no shame in using hints, that’s why they’re there to help you out, but there’s no doubt that using multiple hints will lower the difficulty of the game by giving a bit of extra information about the puzzles.