Escape Rooms With Friends: What the Team Research Shows

Yes, an escape room is a reasonable way to spend an evening with friends, and there is some evidence it improves how a group communicates. There is no evidence it makes friendships stronger, because nobody has measured that.

What do we know about escape rooms and teamwork?

Scott Nicholson’s 2015 white paper “Peeking Behind the Locked Door” surveyed 175 facilities and found the average team was 4.58 people. The earliest well-documented room he found was SCRAP’s Real Escape Game in Kyoto, July 2007, for teams of 5 to 6.

Two studies look inside the room. Cohen and colleagues (2021, Journal of Patient Safety and Risk Management) put 62 hospital teams, 280 people, through a 45-minute game. Cohesion scores were higher right afterward and a month later, and half the teams escaped. O’Szabo and colleagues (2022, Scientific Reports) filmed 40 Hungarian teams, 171 players, and found that the longer two players had known each other, the more they talked.

Why would a clock help?

A one-hour limit hands everyone the same problem, and Nicholson notes that players are “eager to look at something other than a glowing screen.” It is the same logic as side-by-side activities or a Dungeons & Dragons night, with a deadline added. No study isolated the clock, so that part is a guess.

How strong is the evidence?

Thin. Cohen’s study had no comparison group and tested coworkers. O’Szabo’s is correlational, from two rooms in one country. Neither tested friends choosing an evening out.

The 41% average escape rate in Nicholson’s survey hides a spread: Europe reported 52%, the Americas 26%, all self-reported by facilities.

Friends who like a shared deadline may also like a pacemaker role in a race.

The friends who would see a skipped wake-up in DontSnooze can be the same ones crouched over a padlock beside you, 40 minutes into the hour.