Escape Rooms: Manipulation for Fun and Profit! | Extra Credits Gaming

All right, gang. I am so glad I was finally able to schedule Nick drawing a bunch of us on the EC crew getting together and checking out this escape room I've heard so much about. I don't know if y'all know this, but I flipping love escape rooms. You know, it is just so nice sometimes to get out and play games instead of just talking about them all the time, you know? OH, HEY, IT'S ZACH and Christian from Doors of Divergence. Fancy meeting you gents here. Ooh, did you guys design the escape room we're doing today? Oh, thanks. What's this? Our first clue maybe? Hold on, this is a script. Wait, it says we're already in the escape room. Fellas, I just wanted a chill night. Is this an episode? WHERE IS EVERYONE GOING? RIGHT you are, Zoe. Who am I kidding, I love talking about this stuff. Okay, so let's take a moment to learn about some of these psychological hacks that escape rooms use to keep us all locked in. This Great Gaming Escape is brought to you by you, our lovely patrons over on Patreon. Your support makes this show possible. Thank you so much.

The modern escape room is actually way more complex than it lets on, and that is by design. So, in this episode, guest writers and hijackers of my night out, Zach and Christian, are going to spill all the tea about innovative design techniques, time-tested psychological hacks, and reactive and interactive game elements that escape rooms bring together to trick your brain into feeling like you are the hero in your own otherworldly adventure. But first, because you know we love it, some history. Escape rooms can trace their roots through a wide variety of media and time periods. Victorian parlor games, theme parks, haunted house design, video games such as Myst, and adventure games on websites like Newgrounds and Miniclip. Heck, even the name escape room supposedly came from a flash game in the early 2000s. Though the first credited physical escape room is widely considered to be The Real Escape Game made by Takao Kato's company SCRAP in 2007. It was held in a small room in Tokyo and gave players an hour to escape by solving a series of puzzles

and riddles. While simple for the time, this did prove an inflection point for the entire industry and soon after escape rooms began taking off like wildfire. There are now an estimated 50,000 rooms in at least 44 countries. But, as escape rooms grew in popularity, so did the prevalence of many other forms of entertainment, meaning that escape rooms really needed to vie for attention against bigger and more visible competitors. So, to survive in this uphill battle for audience's attention, modern escape rooms have not only had to grow in scope and scale, but also began borrowing a plethora of psychological tricks from things like video games and theatrical experience design in order to make their IRL games more impactful. Heck, from the second you step in the front door of your local escape room, you're already being hit with enough misdirection, memory tricks, and good old-fashioned flimflam to give everything from P.T. Barnum to P.T. on the PS4 for a run for their money. Actually, to start, let's focus on that first moment when you arrive at an

escape room. Most escape rooms are training you how to play even before you enter the {quote} game. And I don't just mean when they tell you where the emergency exits are and not to break anything. Because escape rooms are immersive worlds, you the player need to be invited into said world in a way that's different from experiencing other forms of media. Like when we watch movies and theater or play video or tabletop games, we intrinsically understand that we're only dealing with representations. There is a screen, table, proscenium, or the like between us and the action. And these things make us more willing to suspend our disbelief because you know that you're not really Master Chief killing the Flood or falling in love in a less-than-good TV show or singing his I Want Song I'm Not Throwing Away My Head Shot in the Halo hip-hop musical I am working on. Eat your heart out, Lin-Manuel. But, because escape rooms ask you to be the protagonist while you are physically immersed in the experience around you, getting you into that gameplay of role

requires a bit more work by the designers. And that's where they bring in a little magic to help out. Oh, I am, bud. And for once it's not about a collectible card game. I'm talking about using a design technique called the magic circle, a term coined by Dutch historian Johan Huizinga, and is, in essence, the idea that when we play, we need to create a space outside the rules of normal society where we can all agree upon shared illusions. And this right here is the first real trick, folks. Without explicitly stating it, a well-designed escape room will give its players permission to play along with being immersed in their world. They typically do this in a two-stage process. First, you want to establish the world the player is going to inhabit. There are many ways to accomplish this, and most escape rooms use a combination of these, such as themed video introductions, letters, or game masters who wear a costume and speak to you in a particular accent or something. This not only instructs you on the rules of the game, but also

starts to mentally prepare you for the new reality that is waiting for you beyond that first door. Then, stage two. They give the players someone to be within this world. No extensive backstories or the like, but something simple that a player can use to frame their experience. We like to call this an endowment. It may be a title, like detective or magician. It also may be something physical, like a badge or mask or letter they need to deliver. The best versions of this are simple and archetypal, something easily understood by the players and that gives them something to act upon. Because those things will pull the players even further into the magic circle and encourage them to dip their toes into the narrative pool and fully suspend their disbelief. Okay. Now the players are ready to believe in the fantasy, but how do designers ensure that said fantasy world is not only fun, but also a place where they can instruct their players into having the best time possible? And by instruct, I of course mean manipulate. Actually, more

importantly, how do they do that without overwhelming and confusing their players? Well, enter tricks of the trade such as color, lighting, and the concept of the weenie. No, not that kind of weenie. You see, when a player first enters a new space, especially a highly themed one like most escape rooms are, people have a tendency to get overwhelmed. Choice and analysis paralysis, which we've talked about on this channel before, can cause a player to slow down or lock up. Of course, an escape room designer wants to encourage and guide their players' progress more than they want to impede it, but seeing how you can't throw up a marker on a player's HUD or something to indicate where they are like they would in a video game, what are we as designers to do? Well, there are a number of techniques at the designers' disposal, color being the most common in escape rooms. People are naturally drawn to colors or patterns that stand out. Red, yellow, and orange are the most common with a number of evolutionary reasons they jump out at us. Some studies suggest that a heightened awareness of the color red, for instance, helped our

ancestors distinguish ripe fruit from surrounding green foliage. And the visibility of red and yellow is why OSHA standardizes those as warning colors. Sorry, this apple was delicious. Anyway, depending on the circumstances, any color could work. For instance, if you are in the official and apocryphal Heknomancer escape room, that I will remind you also does not exist, starring everyone's favorite Heknomancer, THE BLUE ONE, blue objects are probably going to end up being pretty important. It's an easy method to latch the player onto the story they're about to experience in a subtle way that they probably won't consciously realize. Another technique becoming more prevalent as escape rooms grow increasingly theatrical is of course lighting. Lighting not only lets you highlight important objects and places, but also helps set the mood and tension as well. A subtle red wash might lend more menace to an abandoned hospital or a flickering fireplace casting shadows might set players on edge just before a

big reveal. Of course lighting isn't just for tone setting. Actually one of Christian's favorite lighting techniques is pulled from the worlds of both video games and immersive theater. Because escape rooms take place in the real world, it can be very difficult to get people to stand where you want them to without telling them to directly do so. But because of people's natural aversion to darkness, in real world situations, you can trick people into standing somewhere. Need to get them out of one room and into another? Simply dim the lights in the current room and bring up the lights in the room you want them to move to. Or need to get all the players on one side of the room for a big ending? Only light that side. Even without direct instructions, players will naturally follow the implied direction. But it can go further than that. For instance, let's say they just can't find that one last puzzle piece they need. Well, as the designer, you could plan to hit that hiding spot with a pulsing soft light. Not anything super blatant, just a little brighter or suddenly in a different color than your regular lights. This is something that the guests won't notice per se, but

their brains will. And suddenly, boy howdy, that missing piece they needed to win will be found all on their own. And that's a really great feeling that you're engineering for your players. And then there's the favorite technique of our other writer Zach, the weenie. The technique again is called the weenie. I'm not calling Zach Zach, I'm not calling you a weenie man. I'm Okay. All right. If you've watched our other videos on theme park design, you'll know this technique well. But let's go over the basics again. This juvenile term was coined by Walt Disney during the design of Disneyland. And the weenie was a big object in the center of each of the themed lands to draw guests in as well as give them a reference point to navigate with. In escape rooms, this usually is a large puzzle built into a big object in a room. Players are instantly drawn to this puzzle first because, you know, big, and rapidly discover that more often than not, in order to solve this puzzle, they need information from a number of different smaller puzzles strode about the space.

This naturally causes teams to break into smaller groups to investigate the other puzzles. It also creates this sort of delicious information imbalance, so players begin to talk to each other. This can help with groups that maybe have that one guy who's a little too into escape rooms, as well as creating space for different kinds of play. But, most importantly, it creates a sense of choice. Do I, the player, want to hunt down the three books on how to rewire the missile? Or do I want to crack the safe that has the launch codes? Ooh, maybe I'd prefer to work on getting the chemistry of the jet fuel for the rockets just right. With all the solutions feeding back into a central or meta puzzle for the room, teams quickly start collaborating and building a quick sense of camaraderie, even among strangers. It truly is awesome to see. Um Uh what was I saying? Sorry, I just moved into the next room and totally forgot what I was doing. Uh That's right. Another common problem

that designers run into is known as the doorway effect. Ever get up and walk into a different room only to immediately forget why you did that in the first place? Same. That, my friends, is the doorway effect. This fun little flaw in the human mind involves what psychologist Endel Tulving called episodic memory. See, he believed that when our brains organize memories of everyday events and experiences, we do so within the context that memory was formed. Basically, he thought it's easier to remember something when you're in the environment in which you learned it. So, if you learn something in room A, then immediately walk through a door into room B, the surrounding context of that memory has changed, and your brain is more likely to, well, dump it. This is especially true for escape rooms, because the gameplay often involves actual doorways you have to step through. Not to mention, scenery will change drastically as you move space to space, which makes your brain want to say, "Oh, squirrel!" and forget some

previous info. Accordingly, the escape room designer needs to be very particular about both when and where to introduce new information. Many multi-room escape rooms use clearly visible notes and cutscenes not only to reiterate discoveries made in the previous room, but to deliver new information as well. Because if it's revealed that the butler had known about the blue hacknomancer's secret missile project the whole time, the designers don't want you, the player, to walk through the door into the next room and immediately forget it. This also works for more practical directions as well. For instance, if you backtrack and discover the launch key hidden in the first room you were in, most designers will place the ignition switch it unlocks in clear view of the door in the second room, as to remind the players where to go when they reenter the space. But, you know, some designers are not content with manipulating just their players' attention or memory. Oh, no. Some designers will take the controversial step of meddling with the player's sense of time itself. In escape

rooms, time is everything. Because only one group can be in a room at a time, just about every escape room is on the clock, and for the most part, clocks in escape rooms can be relied upon. But, do you know what escape rooms and NBA games have in common? The most exciting part is the last few minutes, when the heat is on, and only one stubborn puzzle stands between you and victory. Well, folks, that is where legends are born. And to fully tap into this feeling, some designers are not above, let's just call it a little manipulative chronomancy. For instance, 3-minute warnings might be given when there are actually 5 minutes on the clock. Also, some games have built-in buffers, so the game master has the option of giving out a few extra minutes to sneak players across the finish line. So, always be nice to your game masters. This can get rather elaborate, too. Timers and clocks that can actually slow down in real time, making each tick of the second hand last a second and a half or longer. Sometimes

a designer might include a timer that is less precise, like an electronic candle that is slowly burning down. Heck, some escape rooms are abandoning visual timers entirely and using a playlist of increasingly intense music, pre-recorded narrations, or some sort of elaborate special effects to mark time, all in service of getting players even more of that sweet, sweet end-of-game tension. Then, finally, once your emotions, behavior, information retention, and sense of time have all been lovingly manipulated for your enjoyment, you've done it. You escaped the room. And that means no more tricks on you, right? Wrong. The escape room you're at might insist upon taking a picture of your team and tagging all your players on social media. Or perhaps they'll ask for feedback on the room or record you talking about your favorite moments that you just experienced. Now, cynics will say that this is simply to make marketing content. And I mean, sure, but the truth is actually far more interesting. The art of the debrief is

actually all about helping you, the player, cement your memories about the great time you had in the escape room together. Players who discuss their experience immediately afterward, while the adrenaline is still flowing, will retain stronger recollections and positive association with escape rooms. David Spira, editor-in-chief at Escape Room Artist, often calls escape rooms {quote} machines designed to create memories. And designers take that idea very seriously. And that is a concept that helps both the players and escape rooms in general. Two things can be true at once. Because a group of friends who still talk about a last-minute save, or an awesome special effect, or even how they worked well together as a team, are much more likely to stop being one-time escape room players and start to become a escape room fans that enjoy them so much that they'll come back for more. So now, Freddos, I have a little homework for you. If you are able, head out to an escape room near you. And while you're

getting lost in the story and gameplay, also take a moment to identify these psychological gameplay elements that we've talked about today. And keep in the back of your mind how some designer had to craft the experience that solves the puzzle of giving you an unforgettable adventure. That's no small feat. Oh, hey, look! The rest OF THE CREW MADE IT OUT IN TIME. TAKE THAT, BLUE HECKLER MANSER. YOU WERE NEVER my favorite. Thank you once again to Zack and Christian for giving us a peek behind the escape room curtain. And be sure to check out their escape rooms they've designed in the description. Bonus points if you can find all of the tricks that they used. They did mention they kept one or two TO THEMSELVES. HA! THAT, TOO. Thank you everybody so much for checking out this episode and all of the tricks of the escape room trade. And this was made possible by all of you lovely patrons over on Patreon. Seriously, we could not bring EC back about once a month without all of your support, so it means the world to us. I've missed doing these so much. I'm really super pumped to be back, and you are making that possible. And if you happen to not be a patron yet, please consider joining. There's a bunch of cool perks up there. You get different

4K wallpapers for every episode. If you're interested in history, you get to vote on the topics we do over there. Heck, you can even make me read your name if you pledge high enough. Actually, if you want to hear how that sounds, I'll roll that in a minute. But seriously, thank you so much. You know what they say, you either die a hero or live long enough to see Angelo Valenciana, Arles Arles posting, Dominic Valenciana, Hunter Z, Joseph Blain, Kuya Koy, Lotus Wolf, and Zileads Architectures feed the best legendary patrons. That's how the saying goes.