Traditional escape rooms have players locked in a room and the goal is to escape from the room. We realized quickly that that would not work when running test events in other people’s homes! Instead, Twisted Traps typically involve players being safely bound together with handcuffs and needing to free themselves, or charged with locating a specific object within a clearly defined space (that does not involve any of your own furniture). We also do not limit the amount of time players have to solve the puzzles, which is especially great for kids and teens who like escape rooms, but don’t have the experience to be successful (without adult assistance!) in traditional escape rooms.
For groups of players larger than 5 or 6, we recommend splitting into smaller teams that play in tandem as we find that the players engage better in smaller groups. In larger groups sometimes less assertive people will not have a chance to do much as the more forward people will naturally just get excited and take over. Ideal team sizes range from 2 to 6 players.
A typical hosted event involves multiple “rooms” (based on the number of players and teams), each of which lasts between 20 to 30 minutes (depending on the speed of the players in solving the puzzles). Players will complete one room, then have a 10-15 minute break while the rooms are reset, and will then play a second room. Thus, total event time is approximately 1.5-2 hours (depending on the speed of the players).
Learning is Important
The puzzle-oriented approach of escape rooms lends itself well to “learning moments” as puzzles often involve interesting technologies and scientific concepts (i.e. thermachroic paints, UV light-reactive objects, magnets, sound, electronic sensors, etc.) as well as teaching logic and problem solving skills as players must gather information from the objects before them to identify connections between problems they have (e.g., how do I open this box using lego, a picture frame, and a wooden board?) and clues they can find (e.g., this riddle suggests there might be a key hidden in that object).
The solution often turns out more beautiful than the puzzle —Richard Dawkins
Covid Precautions
All of our staff are fully vaccinated and are happy to wear masks upon request. However, due to the nature of the games, team members will be in close contact with each other and touching common items throughout gameplay.
Twisted Traps 