How Escape Rooms Work (and What to Expect)
Never done one before? Here is exactly how an escape room works, from booking to the final photo, so you know what you are walking into. It is simpler, safer and more fun than most people expect.
An escape room is a live, themed game where a small group (usually 2 to 6 players) has 60 minutes to solve a chain of puzzles and complete a mission. A game master briefs you first, the room is yours alone (you are never grouped with strangers), and you can ask for hints any time. You are never actually locked in, the door opens from the inside for safety. At Rush, rooms run from $70 per player across four Melbourne venues.
What an escape room is
You and your group are placed inside a room built around a story, and you have 60 minutes to solve a chain of puzzles, uncover clues and complete a mission, whether that is defusing a bomb, breaking a curse or surviving a haunting. It is the closest thing there is to stepping inside a film, and every Rush room is a different world.
How a booking works
You pick a venue, a room and a time, and book online. Every Rush booking is private, it is your group only, never mixed in with strangers. Rooms suit 2 to 6 players, and bigger groups split across rooms at one venue and compete.
What happens on the day
Arrive about 15 minutes before your session. A game master greets you, runs a short briefing, the story, the rules, how to ask for hints and how any unusual locks work, and then starts the clock. You play the 60 minutes, calling for a hint whenever you are stuck, and finish with a team photo. Plan for about 90 minutes on site all up.
How long it takes
The game is 60 minutes. With the briefing and the photo, allow about 90 minutes at the venue.
How much it costs
From $70 per player. Crew Night runs groups of 4 to 6 for $250 to $300 (Monday to Friday from 4pm), and Cheap Tuesday starts from $45 per player. Corporate daytime bookings are priced by the room. See prices and deals.
Are escape rooms scary?
Only some of them. Most Rush rooms are not scary at all, they are adventures, heists and mysteries. A handful are built to frighten, using darkness, sound and set design. There are no live actors in any Rush room, and nothing ever touches you. See our horror and scary rooms and their scare ratings.
Can kids play?
Yes. Many rooms are all-ages, and players under 16 play with a participating adult. See escape rooms for kids and families.
Do you actually get locked in?
No. Being locked in is part of the story, not reality, the door opens from the inside and you can leave at any time. Escape rooms are built to be safe.
What to bring
Nothing, really. Leave bags and phones in the lockers provided. A wristwatch can help you track the time, and bring reading glasses if you need them.
Frequently asked questions
- How long does an escape room take?
- The game itself is 60 minutes. With the briefing and a photo at the end, allow about 90 minutes on site.
- How much is an escape room in Melbourne?
- From $70 per player at Rush, with Crew Night for groups of 4 to 6 ($250 to $300) and Cheap Tuesday from $45 per player. See prices and deals.
- What is the minimum age?
- Players under 16 are welcome with a participating adult. Many rooms suit all ages; our scariest are recommended 16+.
- Do you actually get locked in?
- No. The door opens from the inside and you can leave at any time, being locked in is just part of the story.
- What if we don't escape in time?
- Many groups do not finish their first room, and it is still a great hour. Your game master shows you how it ended.
- How many people can play?
- Rooms suit 2 to 6 players. Bigger groups split across rooms and compete, see escape rooms for large groups.
Keep reading
The hour is a chain of gates
Underneath the story, every escape room is the same structure. A gate is something that will not open. A puzzle is the thing that opens it. Behind the gate is either another puzzle or the end. Sixty minutes is how long you have to work down the chain.
That is worth knowing before your first room, because it tells you what you are looking at. A padlock is not a challenge in itself. It is a signal that somewhere in the room is the information it wants, and that the information will be in a form the lock can accept. Four digits, four numbers. Five letters, a five-letter word. The lock tells you the shape of the answer before you have found it.
Linear or parallel, and how to tell which one you are in
Rooms are built one of two ways, and it changes how a group should organise itself in the first two minutes.
Linear
One chain, one orderPuzzle one opens puzzle two opens puzzle three. Everybody works on the same thing at the same time. Clean, easy to follow, and the reason it suits new players is that nobody can get lost. The weakness is that six people crowding one puzzle means four of them are watching.
Parallel
Several chains at once, convergingThree or four independent threads run at the same time and their results combine at a later gate. Everybody has something to do from the first minute, which is why bigger groups play better in these. The weakness is that a group which stops talking will hold three finished threads and not realise they fit together.
Most good rooms are parallel early and linear at the end, so a group spreads out to begin with and comes back together for the finish. If you walk in and see several unrelated things demanding attention, split up. If you see one obvious first step, do it together.
Why sixty minutes
It is not an arbitrary round number. It is roughly the point where a group's attention peaks and starts to fall, and it is short enough that the pressure never really lifts.
At forty-five minutes there is not enough room for a group to go wrong and recover, which is where most of the enjoyment lives. At ninety, the middle sags, people get tired, and the clock stops feeling urgent because there is always more of it. An hour keeps the whole thing taut, and it is why the format settled on it worldwide rather than by anyone's preference.
Budget an hour and a half on site all up. The briefing happens before and the photograph after, and both run longer than people expect.
What the game master is actually doing
Watching, from a control room, for the entire session. Not to catch you out, and not passively either.
The job is reading the group. A game master can see when a group has found something and misunderstood it, when two people are working on the same thing without knowing, and when the energy in the room has dropped from stuck to defeated. The nudge arrives before the last of those, and it is calibrated: a question first, a direction second, and the answer only if the group asks for it outright.
They are also the reason nothing goes wrong. If a mechanism fails, they know before you do. If somebody wants out, the door opens immediately. If a group is quietly having a bad time, they can change the shape of the session without anybody feeling managed.
What you need to know beforehand, which is nothing
Every escape room worth playing is a closed world. The information required to finish it is inside the room, and no outside knowledge is assumed. You are never expected to recall a date, a capital city, a formula or a piece of trivia. If a room needs you to know something, it teaches you inside the hour.
There is also no physical requirement beyond walking, bending and the occasional crouch, and nothing is achieved by force. If something feels like it needs strength, it is the wrong approach and the room is telling you so.
Five things people expect that are not true
- That you are locked in. You are not, anywhere, ever. Every room opens from within, so walking out is always available to you. Being trapped is the premise, not the arrangement.
- That someone is in there with you. We use no live actors, in a single one of the sixteen, at any site, at any point in the year. Nothing inside a room is a person.
- That something will touch you. Nothing does, including in the horror rooms, where the fear is built out of darkness, sound and set design.
- That you play with strangers. Every booking is private. Whether there are two of you or six, the room is yours alone.
- That you have to be clever. The trait that correlates with finishing is not intelligence, it is saying things out loud before you have finished thinking them.
Not finishing is the normal outcome
A large share of first-time groups do not get out, and rooms are built expecting that. If most groups finished comfortably, the hour would have no tension in it and the last ten minutes would be a formality.
When the clock runs out, the game master comes in and walks you through the rest so nothing stays a mystery. Groups who miss it by two minutes talk about the room for considerably longer than groups who finish with fifteen to spare.
What it costs
Weekdays. An adult is $50 across Monday to Thursday, all day once 3 are playing, and a pair is $148 for the room.
All day Tuesday. Cheap Tuesday is our lowest published rate, excluding public and Victorian school holidays.
Weekends and public holidays. From $74 a player, reaching $70 in a full room of six.
Anyone in the 9 to 13 bracket pays $42.
Every rate and group size is on prices and deals.
First-timer questions
How many of us should come?
Four is the number most first groups enjoy most. Two works and is more intimate. Six is loud and covers ground fastest, but somebody usually ends up spectating.
What should we wear?
Whatever you like, with closed-in shoes. There is crouching and in a few rooms some crawling, and heels are a genuinely bad idea.
Which room for a first attempt?
Something rated three out of five, at whichever venue you can reach easily. Difficulty and fright are rated separately for all sixteen on the scare scale, so pick a level for each independently.
Can we take photos inside?
No, phones go into lockers before the session. There is a team photo at the end, which is the one everybody keeps anyway.
What if we hate it after ten minutes?
Then say so and come out. It is rare, it is not a problem, and nobody will make you stay in a room you are not enjoying.