Escape Room Employees Share 25 Of The Funniest Fail Attempts They’ve Seen

Once in a way there’s a Reddit thread that takes an unusual turn. When one netizen got curious about the craziest things that go down in escape rooms, the results were unexpectedly hilarious.  Scroll below to read all about the women who come to escape life itself in the escape room or what happened when a group of engineers got locked in. The escape room fail tales below have plot twists worthy of a few chuckles at least. So enjoy a little “escape” from the usual stories we hear about as you peruse this entertaining collection. 

#1 A friend works at an escape room. A group of Mom's come in once every few months but do not even attempt to solve any thing...they all just lay down or relax in the silence! I think they come to "escape" life for a bit. The workers all know them and they are lovely women who just need to escape.

Image source: jersey8894, Rene Asmussen/Pexels (not the actual photo)

#2 The escape room I worked at had a real fire alarm inside the room… I’m sure you can see how this ended up.

Image source: DieselPickles, Nothing Ahead/Pexels (not the actual photo)

#3 A huge group came into our escape room. Halfway through the game the cameras went out. Managed to facilitate the game with audio only but the group still did absolutely horribly, they barely made it through half the room. Went back in once they were done - they’d gotten behind the wall and unplugged the cameras so they could p**s in the room. Didn’t even bother with most of the puzzles.

Image source: cowboylore, cottonbro studio/Pexels (not the actual photo)

#4 Did a Silent Hill escape room once. You had to get past Pyramid Head to escape. Me and my friend were convinced it was animatronic and was gonna jump at us when we went by, so we wasted time throwing slippers from the previous puzzle at/near it to try to trigger it.

Image source: goodgollygopher, Jack Gittoes/Pexels (not the actual photo) It was not an animatronic. We got out to the guy running the room doubled over laughing. We had run out of time but he'd let us finish because he saw and heard us panicking over PH and wanted to see what we'd do. He said no one else had ever done that before. ??‍♀️?.

#5 Had a work group play as a team building. The second puzzle was to find a key to unlock a desk. The middle compartment lifts up after you unlock it.

Image source: JustA_Ghost103, Tyler Lastovich/Pexels (not the actual photo) The person who unlocked it tried to pull it open, wouldn’t budge, so instead of then trying to lift proceeds to tell the whole group “guys we need another key to unlock this drawer”. Now I thought surly someone would double check this persons work but no. Everyone believed them and no one else gave the desk a try. I chime in asking if they’d like a nudge since they did unlock it and I don’t want them to be stuck but they shoot me down and say no. 30 minutes go by and they finally cave and ask for a clue. I tell them that desk is in fact unlocked they just need to lift it open. They were very pissed off at the one person and did not make it out.

#6 I once saw a group of top tier Microsoft engineers come in for a team building exercise... and fail a Pirate themed room that 12 year olds successfully solve all the time.

Image source: ParticularEscape6730, A Vasan/Pexels (not the actual photo) They were obsessed with doing weird things including: -listening for Morse code in the ambient wave noises -climbing on each other's shoulders to change the source channel on the projector that showed the intro video -deciding our novelty SpongeBob picture of his pineapple house was a reference to the Pineapple Express airstream and then trying to stop the ceiling fan with their bare hands -taking apart the pirate ship wheel on the wall with a swiss army knife, down to removing the ball bearings inside -debating where North on a permanently mounted map was, based on where they must have been angled in the room and where our physical building was in relation to the ocean (there was a compass rose PRINTED ON THE MAP) Software engineers are the smartest fools in the whole wide world. P.S. We kept trying to radio them to stop when things got dangerous, but they kept switching the single designated walkie talkie channel as though this is also a clue source.

#7 My husband and I have done so many of them, and we usually do fairly well, but this one was our first. We got stuck.

Image source: CalligrapherActive11, RDNE Stock project/Pexels (not the actual photo) We were handcuffed to a bed at what was supposed to be a prison or mental institution (I don’t recall, as it was years ago). It was the very first clue, and we were supposed to find the key. There were codes, equations, random words, etc. all over the four walls. We spent 35 minutes out of the hour combining these scribbles in the most complex ways possible and trying to do complex math in our heads. At one point, I embarrassingly thought some of the words needed to be translated into Ancient Greek. The workers on the intercom kept telling us to slow down and just look at the wall. We kept saying, 'We are looking at the wall!!! We’re trying!' The key was literally just hanging in the middle of the large wall at eye level

#8 Not an employee, but I went on a date years ago with a girl and her work friends. They were all very nice, but.... let's say not the most likely to be solving puzzles.

Image source: jimtow28, Peter Herrmann/Unsplash (not the actual photo) We go in, they close the door, play the little introduction that tells you where to get started, and say "GO!" Apparently, I was the only one who paid any attention, because IMMEDIATELY everyone races around the room picking things up, trying to turn knobs, moving things to look behind them, opening drawers, legitimately trashing the place "looking for clues". The employee watching us on camera is flabbergasted. We couldn't solve several puzzles because things were no longer the way they were set up. We didn't even come close to escaping, and I obviously said no the next time I was invited to go out with them. It was for axe throwing, and there was just no way.

#9 Had one group get stuck on the thought a lock was the next solution. Even after basically telling them the solution and that it wasn't that lock, they ran back to it. It wasn't even a lock they were supposed to open. It was one for us. And they wasted 75% of their time on it.

Image source: HasSh*ttyIdeas, Bich Tran/Pexels (not the actual photo)

#10 I went to one once and we had the code for like 15 minutes and the lock just wouldn’t work. Guy running it finally came in, couldn’t get it either… ended up giving us a screw driver to take off the side of the lock instead… was pretty dumb.

Image source: Phraoz007, Harrison Haines/Pexels (not the actual photo)

#11 Me and my buddies (after a few drinks and a lifetime of construction) did an escape room that had multiple red Xs painted on the wall, and our first instinct was to just kick in the drywall. It turned out you were supposed to put mirrors or pictures or something on the Xs and you could read a code for a door, but we did not get that far. We just put person-sized holes in every wall and were immediately kicked out. We’re idiots, but it was bound to happen. They just got unlucky that it was five people who can rip drywall down really fast

Image source: Hour-Shake-839, Andrej Lišakov/Unsplash (not the actual phtoo)

#12 Oh, I have a story. But, I am not am employee.

Image source: the_amatuer_, Petr Magera/Pexels (not the actual photo) We had a group from work go for team building. They got into the elevator and it stopped working. They spend 15 minutes trying to figure out if the elevator was meant to be part of the escape room. Didn't want to press the emergency button because wasn't sure if it was some reverse psychology thing. Ended up getting really hot and one of the dudes started panicking. Took off his shirt while in the elevator. Basically spent the whole time debating. Ended up getting a call from the escape room people about if they were going to miss the appointment. Waited another hour for the fire department. Got out and had to come back to work. Team building things have been on hold since. No one talks about naked Brian.

#13 Not an employee but did an escape room with my family once. There was one wall with a magnet on a chain on it. My dad spent 20 minutes playing with the magnet while my mom, sister and I actually solved the clues.

Image source: OrangeTree81, Kev Seto/Unsplash (not the actual photo) Eventually we opened a door to a room on the other side of the wall. There was a maze of the other side of the wall and a key on the ground. Turns out, we were supposed have someone on one side of the wall using the magnet to move the key while someone else told them how to get through the maze. The employee later told us he never saw anyone get the key out of the maze by just randomly playing with the magnet. .

#14 Every first date couple that thought an escape room was a good idea for a first date. Always super awkward.

Image source: crunchybucket86, Phạm Trần Hoàn Thịnh/Unsplash (not the actual photo)

#15 Had a radio in our game that linked to a specific station using an FM transmitter.

Image source: bornacidgaming, Brett Sayles/Pexels (not the actual photo) When the player tuned to the correct frequency it played a nice, clear, loud message from the game character giving a clue. Players thought they had the right frequency but this was in fact a real radio therefor they accidentally tuned to an actual radio station. The announcer gave the phone number for the radio station and one of the players called it thinking they would get a clue. I reminded them that phones weren't needed and gave them some extra time for the clever effort.

#16 Customer/contestant - work social event.

The room had a sign saying "keep off the grass". The floor was AstroTurf. A group of six of us managed to balance on a plinth, which had enough space for 2-3 normal sized people in a big group hug. After balancing up there for 20 seconds we hear over the intercom: "Erm... that's adorable. But no. Not part of your room. Please don't fall off. Injury reports are a massive faff". We only missed out on the room record by only 2 minutes 16 seconds, and best the 3 other teams by a good 10-25 minutes so we were still pretty pleased. Image source: basketballpope

#17 I'm 100% positive that I'm the subject of one of these stories. My group once put me in charge of a puzzle involving wires during crunch time, since I'm a tech geek.

Image source: MaximumZer0, Nikita Korchagin/Pexels (not the actual photo) I stood there with a handful of wires being completely useless, and it took a couple of precious minutes to get the team to stop panicking with their own projects before they realized what was wrong. I'm colorblind.

#18 The guy that used a hammer on the drywall, because he swore there was a secret door, because he could “see the seam”.

Image source: Tangboy50000, Ksenia Chernaya/Pexels (not the actual photo)

#19 You get these kinds of people from time to time, but there are people that no matter how much help you give them, they just cannot understand what to do. You get people sometimes where you can straight up tell them "put the code 1234 into the lock that you're holding to unlock it," and they just will not get it. We have a room where there are backpacks that you find with items inside. In an escape room, if you ever find a bag, usually, the first instinct is to open it. So I had one team where I told them to check out the backpack in the room, and they just picked the backpack up and then said, "Now what?" And I had to tell them that they're supposed to open it and see what's inside.

Image source: LilyWednesday666, Isabella Mendes/Pexels (not the actual photo) Also, FYI, when we say that we'll be watching your game, we're telling the truth. If you ever go to an escape room, understand that someone is always watching and they can see absolutely everything that you do and hear everything that you say. I've seen and heard many things that I wish I could forget, don't be all over your partner to the point where you're borderline f*****g in the rooms and please, don't play an escape room at the same time that you have a phone appointment with your doctor, I learned more intimate information about a woman who is a complete stranger than I ever wanted to know.

#20 Not an employee, but the first (and only) time I've been to an escape room, one of the guys in my group (a friend's husband) thought he was going to be a bada*s, and just break his way out of the room. So he whipped out a pocket knife and tried to jimmy the door latch open so he could break out. There was so much 2nd hand embarrassment that I suffered from that. Just super cringe. Like dude, just play the fkn game.

Image source: alwaysmyfault, ALTEREDSNAPS/Pexels (not the actual photo)

#21 Went for a friend's girlfriend's birthday. She wanted to do the hardest room they had, so we did, but none of us had ever done an escape room before. She ended up basically having a meltdown and yelling at us. We didn't solve anything, but after about 40 minutes, one of the employees let us use our hint to solve the rope puzzle where someone was tied to the middle of the room

Image source: nfSan, Marcelo Jaboo/Pexels (not the actual photo)

#22 My wife and I got stuck on a door. We unlocked the door. We pushed it, we pulled it, for like 5 minutes. We had to ask for help. It slides open. We still solved the escape room otherwise.

Image source: elvishfiend, Jack Gittoes/Pexels (not the actual photo)

#23 We had a group of 10-year-olds come in for a birthday party. The adult accompanying them into the room took the walkie-talkie and refused to accept any hints. We even tried to talk through the walkie-talkie with freebies (maybe check under so-and-so), and they just wouldn’t do it. Needless to say, they didn’t get anything accomplished in an hour, and it was the easiest reset

Image source: BustyRucketBay, Dorran/Pexels (not the actual photo)

#24 I somehow got into being an escape room tester, and I've seen some bizarre behavior. Usually a new place will get some friends/family to come in, and then a couple more experienced folks, and the totally new folks can get weird. Was doing an Edgar Allen Poe themed room and this lady just sat down and started reading the prop books telling us "the answer is in here". 40 minutes of reading for this lady.

Image source: MaverickDago, Bacho Grigolia/Pexels (not the actual photo)

#25 Not as funny as the others on here, but the least successful (not really even an attempt) was a group of completely drunk bachelors party (already drinking in the parking lot at 10 in the morning drunk, was so close to just not letting them participate) that did not manage to solve more than two riddles. Gave all of the tips I could up to the point of telling them the solution and they just did not believe me. One of the guys sat down on a chair and straigt up fell asleep after 5 mins. Rest stumbled around and I was never as scared before and after that they will break something. Worst group ever.

Image source: MCMC_aka_DrStoner, ramy Kabalan/Pexels (not the actual photo)