Patty Cady is no stranger to escape rooms.
She’s tested and finished hundreds of rooms, tackling thousands of different puzzles in the process. Each room brings her a new experience, a new memory that she said stays with her regardless of success or failure.
Cady, owner of Moscow’s Puzzle IQ Escape Room and Washington State University English instructor, said her love for the experience led to her business’s creation.
“It’s almost surreal that we’re just now coming up on our one-year anniversary — we have so much still in store,” she said.
Puzzle IQ opened November of last year and quickly began to attract Palouse residents. With the newest room, “Ring Around the Rosie,” available until Nov. 3, Cady said she aims to attract students interested in holiday activities.
“We wanted something that was really, really creepy but not necessarily gory or scary,” she said. “It all starts with the story — the puzzles and riddles come after.”
Participants are given 45 minutes and two hints to solve the room, which can hold up to six people.
Starting off in a dark room with only a red flashlight, groups must work together to uncover the secrets and surprises in store.
Cady and her staff communicate to groups via radio, and watch the events unfold via the cameras positioned around the different rooms.
Max Rothenberg | Argonaut
“I always try to do something different and surprising,” Cady said. “Our Santa room was first gen, no tech. Soon we added tech and better set design. This one, we completely blew the budget, did more set design and more surprises.”
Cady said she rotates puzzles in existing rooms every few months, so anyone who has already played the room can still get a unique experience. Additionally, she said her goal is to always have at least one family friendly room available.
“It’s so funny, because kids are great at escape rooms since they can just find anything, yet the number of times parents don’t listen, even if their kid is correct,” she said. “We don’t want overanalyzing and overthinking, so it’s interesting to see that communication breakdown between parents and little Tommy when parents don’t believe him, but we’re back here thinking, ‘No, Tommy’s right.’”
Puzzle IQ rooms are public by default, meaning anyone can join an open party if there is space. However, if four or more people have booked a room, it can be made private upon request.
Cady said success rates for her rooms can vary anywhere from 18 to 35 percent.
“We found when we take out puzzles, we tend to make things harder — we want people to succeed and often we’re fighting against ourselves because we want people to win so they come back,” she said. “But you can only give them two hints, two nudges. If they win, great. If they don’t, you have to let them fail because it’s part of the experience.”
In addition to the Halloween-themed room, “Entombed” allows players to venture into the magician Merlin’s final resting chambers, where they soon uncover a deadly curse.
Cady said the keys to a successful escape room are a sense of immersion and moments of shock and awe.
The general rule is one-and-done — use a key once, an item once and don’t try to read into anything too much, she said.
“One I still remember was a Wild West room with incredible tricks and props, but things that just didn’t fit,” she said. “We got our clues from a television screen of all things, and although there were cool moments like playing a piano to open a door, I was pulled out of the immersion so often that it was difficult.”
Cady’s rule of thumb is 10 to 15 puzzles for a 60-minute room, and these are typically a combination of physical locks and other actions participants must perform. She said beta groups are brought in to test new rooms up to 20 times before they are made available to the public.
“A lot of these puzzles are layered, we found people really like tactile challenges because it gives them a greater feeling of success,” Cady said.
Looking ahead, Cady said she has a number of different ideas in store. While “Entombed” will remain open until early 2019, another holiday-themed room is set to replace “Ring Around the Rosie.”
Future ideas also include competition rooms where teams compete against each other and rooms where teams are split up and must help each other in order to succeed.
“There’s always crazy ideas, we’re always looking to up the ante,” she said. “We want those ‘wow’ moments that stay with players for a long time.”
Cady said while many other escape rooms give players unlimited hints upon requests, she feels it’s necessary to work together as a team and reach a solid level of engagement.
“You don’t want to feel like someone handed it to you, you have to earn it,” she said. “A lot of the time, the quietest person in the room is the one who observes the most, and often they just don’t assert themselves even if they’re correct. Escape rooms aren’t about how smart you are, they’re about how observant you can be.”
Max Rothenberg can be reached at [email protected]