We've scoured reddit for the strangest, most incredible and funniest stories from escape rooms around the world. Here are 10 of the best.
#10: The escape room trip that resulted in a headache the next day
This happened to one of my colleagues the last time we were in an escape room. In the room was this fake door whose purpose was to make people think it was the entrance and exit to the escape room (we were blindfolded as we were led into the room). One guy was so happy that he found the door in record time that when he tried to open the fake door, he banged his head so hard into it that the group in the next room got scared.
- magnolious, reddit
#9: Those who help are communists
I once observed a young couple in one of our most difficult escape rooms. They couldn't solve any of the puzzles, so instead they took off their shoes, sat down and started talking about everything. When I sent them clues to get them playing again, the woman started calling me a communist. It was strange, since I'm not a communist and the escape room doesn't have a communist theme.
- Hussain300, reddit
#8: Where nothing ventured, nothing lost
Employee here. I had a group once who gave up after five minutes and decided to just drink beer for the rest of the game. They paid 1100 kroner for the game.
- Tcimmi, reddit
#7: Time for a nap
There was once a player who emptied all the boxes in the escape room, dismantled the table in the corner, laid it down and then lay down on it to take a nap until the rest of the group escaped the room.
- AnArmedPenguin, reddit
#6: Escape rooms and love may not be a good cocktail
I've seen a relationship almost fall apart in an escape room. A couple insisted on trying our most challenging escape room, just the two of them. I told them it probably wasn't a good idea as the room is best suited for larger groups as it requires a lot of players, but they didn't care. It was very clear that the guy really wanted to impress the girl, but none of them were very sharp. I was forced to sit for an hour watching them get nowhere in the game while they argued over who was the dumbest. I offered to help them along the way, but they refused to accept help.
- WildyMegaWolf, reddit
#5: The mum who "carried" the team
I was in a space-station escape room where we were grouped with a mum and her two adult sons. The sons did a good job, but the mother was clueless. There was a fire extinguisher prop in the escape room that she was SURE was going to be used for something. She wandered around carrying the fire extinguisher for an hour and we didn't use it once throughout the game.
- Darwin57, reddit
#4: Files must be hiding INSIDE the computer
I work in an escape room and one of my colleagues once saw a group of players getting really destructive in one of our rooms. They started throwing the computer that was placed in the room on the floor to see if there were any clues hidden inside it. Of course there weren't, they should have just used the magnifying glass to read the monitor.
- RayRay223, reddit
#3: Policemen never take a day off
I visited an escape room where they had hired an actor to play a spy. The mission in the room was to solve the mystery of who the traitor in the room was. After we finished the game, it turned out that the traitor was actually the spy played by the actor. At the reveal, the spy pulls out a gun, which is very clearly a toy gun. This causes one of the players, who works as a policeman, to tackle and detain the actor until he realises that this is part of the game.
- IntenseItalian, reddit
#2: Elastic Girl exists
In our prison themed escape room, we have a laser maze that players have to crawl/climb through to deactivate and move on. Two players are needed to deactivate the laser maze (or so I thought) because there are 3 buttons to press, with the third button being out of reach from the other two.
A family came in to play our game, consisting of a younger boy, a girl in her mid-twenties, their parents and their grandfather who was on crutches. They are playing the game and come to the laser maze as they are a bit pressed for time. The girl gets through relatively easily, but they have to move quickly as time is running out. The young boy then has a great idea. "Here! Use grandpa's crutch!" he exclaims, before taking grandpa's crutch and throwing it to the other side of the lasers, to his sister. Although the crutch can now help her sister hit all three buttons simultaneously, it's still not quite enough. The girl decides to find the right spot on the floor, plants one foot there while walking in a perfect perpendicular line and places her other foot on the button, her hand on the centre button and the crutch on the last button.
The family came out of the room so proud and the sister bragged to the family about her daily yoga. She almost convinced me to sign up for yoga too because it was so impressive.
- Emjov, reddit
#1: The kid who wanted to propose to his girlfriend
In our escape rooms you can also arrange to propose. One day a guy calls to get it all organised, to which I ask which escape room he wants etc. I tell him the total amount to book the whole room for the proposal, but he insists on just booking two tickets for him and his girlfriend. The problem is that when you propose in an escape room, it stops the whole game and we can't have strangers who have nothing to do with the proposal interrupting the game they paid for. However, he refuses to pay, so I send him to my manager. For the next three weeks, the guy calls EVERY. EVERY. DAY to check that everything is (still) on schedule. We repeatedly tell him that there are no more things to plan and that we know what we're doing, but the guy continues his countless calls. The big day finally arrives and he has planned to come earlier so he can hide in the escape room. When we see the guy, however, we get a huge surprise. He's a teenager, no older than 16. We wonder if we should advise him against getting married at such an early age, but decide it's too late at this point. The teenager is hiding in the escape room when his girlfriend arrives and works her way through the game to the room where he is hiding. All the staff are gathered around the monitor to witness what is about to happen. The guy jumps out of the hidden room, holding a sign that reads: "will you go with me to PROM?". All of us employees boil with rage. For weeks this teenager has been getting on our nerves and all it took was a PROM posal?
By the way, the girl said no thanks to going to the prom with him.
- simonjester523, reddit
Note: All threads have been translated from the original English.