5 VR Escape Room Tips for Beginners

Escape Rooms can be confusing - it’s the whole point of them, after all, to challenge your brain and fire up those puzzle-solving neurons. But when you layer VR technology on top of that, you might find yourself lost in an entirely different way. If you’re a VR novice: the first time in a headset can be overwhelming, especially when you’re thrown right into a thought-stoppingly immersive fictional world filled with magic, demons, lasers, and ticking bombs threatening the city (depending on which Escape Room takes your fancy).

That’s why we’ve put together this list of top tips for your first VR Escape Room experience. Combined with the assistance of your VR Master on the day, these little hints are sure to fast-track you through the game and straight to victory.

1. VR Escape Rooms are slightly different from real-life ones

If you’re a puzzle fan, you might have a few non-virtual Escape Rooms under your belt; or even a triumphant photo on some of their high-score walls of fame. But while that experience will certainly give you a leg up, be prepared to encounter some differences.

For one, our games don’t take place inside a room. That’s right, the name is a lie. Instead, you will be escaping huge prison complexes, maze-like haunted sanctums, floating islands connected by magic portals, and more. In VR, the game world can be as big and as grand as a Hollywood blockbuster, so expect the unexpected. You could be facing off against looming monsters, dashing across a ravine on a virtual zipline, or bringing down the very building around you with a sledgehammer. Not even the sky is the limit in a VR Escape Room.

2. Teamwork makes the escape work

Wherever it is you’re escaping from, you’re not trapped in there alone. You will have up to six of your friends at your side and the key to beating the game is to work together. Talk to your teammates, brainstorm solutions, bounce ideas off of each other - six heads are better than one. Sometimes the game will separate you, or reveal things to some players but not others so make sure to describe any clues you find to your fellow escapees to keep them in the loop. And make sure you stick together while navigating the sprawling virtual world. After all, a lone explorer lost in a spooky cave is easy picking for the monsters…

3. Teleport away

You might be asking yourself: but how do I navigate a world that isn’t really there? The answer is teleportation. The game lets you use your controllers to teleport yourself around the game world while staying perfectly still in real life. A press of a button will conjure a laser beam that you can point to where you want to move; then the game will simply transport you there. It does feel a bit strange and yes, it might take a moment to get used to. Luckily, each game begins in a waiting lobby that gives you time and space to practice and get comfortable.

4. Items are colour-coded for clue convenience

Another reason the games feel so much grander in scale than real-life Escape Rooms is the frankly overwhelming amount of items you’re going to find yourself wading in. You can pick up or interact with almost anything in the virtual world - but that doesn’t mean you have to. Most of what you find will be only set dressing, there to make the game even more immersive. To stop you from wasting precious time on grabbing each and every screw in the cyberpunk workshop, the items are all colour-coded to show you what they are. An outline will appear around every item you can interact with. If that outline is purple, you hit the jackpot - that’s an important item! If it’s yellow - keep looking, that item is useless. Items with a red outline are “heavy”, meaning they require both hands to pick them up; and items outlined in white are bonus trophies (five in each game, so keep an eye out). Thanks to this neat system, you can tell clues from clutter at a glance and breeze through the game like an expert.

5. VR Escape Rooms vary in difficulty

If you take a peek at the VR Escape Room section of our website you will notice a little padlock in the corner of each of the boxes with the games’ titles. Those are difficulty levels, with one padlock being the easiest and three padlocks - the hardest. Using those, you can gauge how much of a challenge each room is going to present to your group and pick the one that works best for you. The harder rooms have more complex and varied puzzles, plus they’re longer, which makes them trickier to complete in the one hour time limit. The size of your group matters too: we find that the bigger your party, the quicker your escape. Don’t let the three-padlock ratings intimidate you, though - the games offer hints for each puzzle and so does your VR Master who will be on hand to nudge you in the right direction if you need it. So if one of the harder Escape Rooms really catches your eye, go for it! It will feel even more awesome when you escape in the nick of time.