Why Escape Rates And Difficulty Levels Are Meaningless

Have you ever wondered if that “expert level” escape room is truly as challenging as advertised? The truth might surprise you.

I’ll let you in on a secret: Escape rates and difficulty levels mean absolutely nothing. I’m going to explain why and how escape room owners use these arbitrary numbers to influence your experience.

Sales is fundamentally about emotional persuasion. “How to Make Friends and Influence People” is a bestselling sales book, and its title tells you everything you need to know. People make purchasing decisions emotionally, not logically, so businesses must connect with customers’ emotions to generate sales. This principle applies directly to those meaningless metrics known as difficulty levels and escape rates.

Have you ever seen a game with a difficulty level of 2/10? Probably not—they’re exceedingly rare. Why? Imagine booking a game labeled as 2/10 difficulty. You and your friends arrive confident, anticipating an easy win and maybe even setting a record. But once inside, you discover the puzzles are surprisingly complex. Nothing makes sense—the numbers are confusing, the letters don’t connect, the objects seem out of place—and frustration builds toward whoever designed this “simple” game. Time expires, and you’ve failed. The sting is particularly sharp because you couldn’t solve a supposedly easy room—you feel incompetent.

Now, imagine that same exact room labeled as 10/10 difficulty. Suddenly, failure doesn’t feel so personal. You didn’t escape, but hey—it was a 10/10 challenge! At least you gave it your best effort.

This psychological aspect is precisely why difficulty levels exist in escape rooms. As owners, we understand that failing a game shouldn’t leave customers feeling bad about themselves. We inflate the numbers so if you don’t succeed, you won’t leave discouraged. If you don’t feel discouraged, you’re more likely to return and spend more money.

The hard truth is that difficulty is entirely subjective. What’s simple for me might be challenging for you, and vice versa. If you encounter a math-heavy room and you struggled with mathematics in school, that room will feel impossibly difficult to you, while someone with strong mathematical aptitude might breeze through it.

A Canadian meta-analysis of three small escape room businesses revealed a telling pattern: people who beat rooms tend to come back and spend more money, people who don’t beat rooms tend to never return.

As escape room designers, most of us don’t intentionally create unsolvable challenges. We want players to win because winners become repeat customers. A 100% escape rate would be ideal for our bottom line—but it’s impossible to design a room that everyone can solve. We all think differently. If I asked you to imagine a blue house, yours would undoubtedly differ from mine. Neither mental image is inherently easier to conceive than the other.

The best way to improve your chances of escaping any room is simply bringing more friends. More friends equals more diverse thinking approaches. Industry veterans acknowledge that “it’s difficult to build a room that works equally well for two people as it does for four”—and this is absolutely true. When escape rooms require a minimum of four players, it’s not because they dislike couples. If that were the case, they’d just charge couples the same price as larger groups to fill that valuable time slot. The four-person minimum exists to ensure you have a positive experience. Pairs rarely succeed in well-designed games unless they’re highly experienced.

Apply the same psychological principle from difficulty levels to escape rates: You play a game and fail. Afterward, you ask, “What percentage of groups escape this room?” Your game master replies, “Well, it was 100%, but now it’s 99%.” Can you see why establishing artificially low escape rates benefits business owners?

Now that we’ve established why difficulty levels and escape rates are meaningless, let me briefly discuss our games at Prototype Escape Games in Jacksonville, Florida.

Now that we’ve established why difficulty levels and escape rates are meaningless, let me briefly discuss our games at Prototype Escape Games in Jacksonville, Florida.

All games at Prototype Escape Games feature non-linear design, which is inherently more challenging than linear gameplay. If you bring just one companion to tackle a non-linear room, the odds are stacked against you. I deliberately design rooms to emphasize teamwork, constantly asking myself: “How can I make this impossible for one person to complete without help?”

Some of our rooms have minimum player requirements, while others accommodate couples. Based on observations across numerous groups who’ve played our games, I can make these general statements:

• All our games are non-linear, making them more challenging than many other escape rooms you may have experienced.
• Dog Days and The Locker Room present similar difficulty levels.
• Cannibals in the Catacombs (three person minimum) is challenging primarily because players often get distracted or startled by the scare actor(s), making it harder to focus on solving puzzles.

That’s it—those are the only objective conclusions possible after watching countless groups tackle our rooms. Everything else is entirely subjective.

Instead of relying on meaningless difficulty ratings, escape room enthusiasts might want to check out apps like Morty, which allows users to rate and review escape rooms. By seeing which rooms are rated highest by fellow players, you can make more informed decisions based on actual user experiences rather than arbitrary difficulty scores.

So there you have it. I’ve revealed one of the industry’s open secrets. Next time you encounter escape rates and difficulty levels, remember that owners simply don’t want you to feel discouraged if you don’t succeed.

If you’re in Jacksonville and want to test your problem-solving skills, visit us at Prototype Escape Games located at 3546 St. Johns Bluff Rd. S UNIT 113, Jacksonville, FL 32224. Whether you’re looking for “escape rooms Jacksonville” or “escape games” in the area, we offer unique, challenging experiences designed for groups of all sizes.

By Joseph W. Brazfield
Owner and Founder
Prototype Escape Games
Jacksonville, FL

The views expressed in this article are my personal opinions based on experience in the escape room industry.