Which games are easiest/hardest?
One of the most frequent phone calls I receive is “I’d like to book a room but I don’t know which one would suit us best?” Most escape room venues have two or three rooms which makes the choice easy. We’ve got seven, with number eight testing in June (and number nine hopefully back on board soon after!) There’s simply too much choice.
So I thought I’d make a blog post out of my normal responses to the “which game should i play?” question, as well as the graphic below so as to make it easier to choose.
Difficulty and Puzzle Types
This graph shows which games are hardest, which are easiest, which have the most action*
At the top - the higher it it, the harder it is.
Across the bottom - the further right it is, the more action there is.*
*These are escape rooms - “action” means puzzles with a physical element. This isn’t paintball or gymnastics, you’re not about to work up a sweat. There’s no need to crawl or contort.
Saying one game is easier than another can be misleading. On this graphic we’ve ranked them according mostly on the difficulty of the hardest puzzles. However, Lauren, Dylan and I disagree on a lot of this. What’s hard for one person seems straightforward to another.
We all agree that Dragon Tower is the easiest game and that Depths of Osiris and Runaway Train are the toughest.
Pirate Plague has plenty of action in it and crewing a pirate ship is a lot easier with six players than two players. If we drew this chart according to difficulty for a team of two Pirates Plague would definitely move a fair way up the list.
Space Station Tiberia is a medium difficulty game if the group has some spatial awareness, but can prove trickier for some.
Manor of Escape definitely gets easier the more players you have, but it can still be tricky. Consistently regarded as a medium difficulty game though.
Time Travel Paradox is the hardest one to classify. It’s very much player dependent. Some find it simple. Some find it very hard.
Now for a couple of secrets…
As of May 2024 we are still waiting for The B-Block Breakout to be amended so that we can add it to our active escape rooms. It’s a jail break. It’s 100% puzzles and closer to the traditional escape room format than any of our other games. I’m holding off suggesting its difficulty level until I’ve seen several groups play it, but our in house play tests suggest it’ll be nearer the top than the bottom.
In June 2024 we begin play testing another game. It will fall somewhere in the middle difficulty wise - perhaps alongside Space Station Tiberia on the graphic above. Action wise it’ll be out to the right near Pirates Plague. Definitely one for those who want to try something that extends beyond the traditional escape room. (although it has plenty of that too.)
Hopefully that’s of use to anyone wondering about difficulty levels.
