Few people deny the importance of teamwork. The ability to cooperatively solve problems and find innovative solutions to questions are daily necessities. Vince Lombardi eloquently captures the essence of teamwork: “Individual commitment to a group effort – that is what makes a team work, a company work, a society work, a civilization work.” Michael Jordan, world famous basketball player, echoes Lombardi’s quote, “Talent wins games, but teamwork and intelligence win championships.”
Team building skills develop with problem solving. Thus, if you are looking to grow together as a team, group of friends, or family unit, enter an environment where problem solving is necessary to succeed! Regardless of the size of your team, tackling an escape room is a worthy team building challenge. Below, we’ll explore the nuts and bolts of an escape room, the number of people who can be involved in the challenge, and a few of our favorite themes.
What Is an Escape Room?
Put simply, an escape room is a first-person adventure full of puzzles. You and a team are placed in a realistic environment, surrounded by riddles – to escape, you must locate clues and solve problems. Once each cipher is solved, your team emerges victorious!
Firstinspired by interactive adventure games, where the user could click on secretive elements in their environment, escape rooms seek to replicate this mysterious format in reality. The first escape room, designed by SCRAP in 2007, exploded in popularity in Japan, China, and the rest of Asia. Soon, themed rooms loaded with puzzles, ciphers, and clues popped up around the continent.
Around 2012, escape rooms first appeared in the United States. A few years later, EscapeWorks Denver opened and has since become the most popular escape room in Colorado by building intensive, immersive, and fun environments. In essence, escape rooms are one giant problem, waiting to be solved by a close-knit team.
How Many People Can an Escape Room Hold?
We commonly receive this question. After all, your group may consist of a family of eight or a duo of two! So, how many people can you bring to aid in your escape? Many escape rooms are strategically designed to accommodate a party of two or a team of twelve. At EscapeWorks, we believe the ideal group size is six or more, allowing for collaboration. Why?
With a larger party, more minds interact with the escape room at once. A larger variety of skill sets are present to solve clues, suggest new ideas, and decrypt challenging puzzles. Hold up! Won’t a larger group make cohesion more difficult? If everyone talks at once, how will anyone hear ideas? These are valid concerns – however, these very concerns are what makes escape rooms such a unique, team building experience. Solving an escape room encourages participants to work together, listen closely to input, build off suggested ideas, and respectfully disagree… all while fighting the clock. Sound intense? We think so!
Although we tend to recommend a larger group, parties of two can also thoroughly enjoy the escape room experience.
What Are Some Pros and Cons Involved with Activities in Smaller Groups?
Pros
Smaller numbers allow for a more streamlined experience. If you are bringing close friends, you may enter the room with more focus. As we referenced earlier, more people equals more voices and opinions. Essentially, if your posse consists of two or three key players, your escape room experience will be streamlined and epic – even if every person carries more strategic responsibility.
Cons
As we also referred to, more people bring more ideas and varied perspectives. A tendency among smaller groups is to get stuck on a small portion of the room or on a single puzzle. The statistical probability of succeeding drops when groups are stuck for a long period of time. However, statistical probability does not have the final say. As Mark Twain stated, “Facts are stubborn, but statistics are more pliable.”
What Are Some Pros and Cons Involved with Activities in Larger Groups?
We referenced a few pros of bringing a large group into your escape room adventure. However, a few more pros (and cons) should be discussed for a holistic view of large parties.
Pros
The ability to split up and cover more ground is a good escape room strategy, one that is enhanced with a large group. A bigger group logically results in more eyes scouring the room, more hands picking up clues, and more brains deciphering puzzles. Furthermore, escape rooms are excellent opportunities to practice soft skills required in many areas of life. Offices, sports teams, and classrooms frequent escape rooms for this very purpose.
Cons
As aforementioned, message interference can be a problem in large groups. Most individuals are familiar with interference: a distraction that interrupts information passed between two parties. With the chaotic excitement of a full escape room, the successful transfer of information can be difficult. However, these cons are not unavoidable. Simple preparation, from assigning roles to refocusing the group, can dissuade many large group problems.
EscapeWorks Denver: Our Favorite Themes!
Now that you know the pros and cons of escape room team sizes, a proper room can be chosen. Below, we’ll list a brief summary of our favorite rooms at EscapeWorks Denver. Take the info to your team, large or small, and schedule your next adventure.
Outbreak
A deadly virus has taken hold of the world. In 60 minutes, you must pick up abandoned vaccine research, vaccinate your group, and find the way out before the oxygen runs out.
Beyond the Flower Shop
In 1926, alcohol is banned, and police collude with criminals. You are placed into a flower shop – but is it just a flower shop?
Egyptian Tomb
In 60 minutes, your dream team must retrace the footsteps of a famed archaeologist, find out his fate, and escape.
Casino Heist
Your team has been planning a heist for months, but the mastermind has gone rogue. In 60 minutes, your team must get from the casino to the vault and escape – without getting caught.
Do you have any remaining questions about our escape rooms? Feel free to contact us today at (303) 945-6521 or via our online contact form!
