Glossary of Escape Room Terms

Definitions are written for someone who has never played. Where we have a longer article, the term links to it.

Playing

• Escape room. A themed physical space where a team solves connected puzzles against a clock, usually 60 minutes, to reach a goal.
• Venue. The business. One venue usually runs several rooms. On this site, venues are the dots on the map; rooms are listed on each venue's page.
• Room (also game, experience). One playable scenario with its own theme, puzzles, and timer.
• Game master (GM). The staff member who briefs you, watches the game on camera, sends hints, and resets the room afterward.
• Briefing. The rules-and-story talk before the door closes.
• Hint (also clue, nudge). Help from the game master. Some rooms limit them; most don't.
• Escape rate. The share of groups that finish in time. Venues quote it as a difficulty signal; 30% is hard, 70% is friendly.
• Private booking. Your group has the room to itself. The alternative is a public or shared booking where strangers fill remaining spots.
• Immersion. How completely the set, sound, and story make you forget you're in a strip mall.
• Reset. Returning every prop, lock, and puzzle to its starting state between groups. Usually 10 to 20 minutes.

Puzzle structure

• Linear. Puzzles must be solved in a fixed order; each unlocks the next. See Linear vs Non-Linear.
• Non-linear (also open, parallel). Several puzzles are available at once and converge later. Better for big groups.
• Meta puzzle. A final puzzle that combines the outputs of several earlier ones.
• Gating. Anything that blocks progress until a condition is met: a locked box, a hidden door, a powered-off light.
• Bottleneck. A point where the whole team waits on one puzzle. Designers try to avoid them; players feel them.
• Red herring. Something that looks like a clue and isn't. See Red Herrings.
• Reusing objects. When a prop is needed for more than one puzzle, or looks like it is. See Reusing Objects.
• Flow. The pacing of discoveries; good flow means the team always has something to do.
• Aha moment. The instant a puzzle's logic becomes clear. Designers build rooms around producing these.

Locks and props

• Combination lock. Digits, letters, or directions dialed in order. The Locks category covers each kind.
• Directional lock. A padlock opened by a sequence of up, down, left, right pushes.
• Maglock (magnetic lock). An electromagnet that holds a door or drawer shut until a controller cuts power. The workhorse of modern rooms.
• RFID. Radio tags hidden in props; a reader under a shelf detects when the right object is placed in the right spot.
• Prop. Any object in the room. A functional prop is part of a puzzle; a set dressing prop is decoration.
• Controller. The small computer that watches sensors and fires locks, lights, and sound. See How a room is built.
• Blacklight (UV). Reveals hidden ink. Common enough that experienced players check for it early.
• Cipher. A rule for turning one text into another. The Ciphers category explains the ones rooms actually use.

People and industry

• Enthusiast. Someone who has played dozens or hundreds of rooms and travels for them.
• TERPECA. The Top Escape Rooms Project Enthusiasts' Choice Awards, an annual ranking voted by experienced players worldwide. Rooms marked TERPECA on our map appear in it.
• Room Escape Artist (REA). The longest-running review and analysis site for the hobby.
• Owner-managed listing. A venue page on this site that its owner has claimed and can edit.
• Reviewer-verified. A listing a human on our review team has checked against the real world.

On this site

• Explore. The map and list of venues.
• My Rooms. Your personal record of venues you've played, shown on a map once you sign in.
• Provenance. Where a piece of our data came from: scraped from public sources, supplied by the owner, or verified by a reviewer. Every venue page states it.