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doodlemunster · 4 months

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You can't just leave me hanging with "great stories"! Would you kindly share your some stories from your Escape Room days that were the:

1. Craziest

2. Silliest

3. Wtf-iest (moment that made you go wtf/question humanity)

LMAO oh I am more than happy to tell them!! Strap in, cuz I def have a few!

Some of these stories kind of fall into all three categories and mixtures of both, but I'm gonna do my best!

Craziest

would have to be a story that I tell almost every time someone asks me about my time as a game guide cuz it THREW me for a loop.

Okay so, my workplace would offer group deals for companies looking to do 'team building exercises'. We have four themed rooms, so all four would be blocked off for their entire company to split up into. This was absolute chaos cuz our place was s m a l l and every time these events happened, it was damn near elbow to elbow.

Anyways, we had an insurance company come in to do the rooms and I was tasked with guiding them through our basketball themed room. This room had two hidden rooms separated by doors you had to solve and unlock. Each one even had its own TV too.

My team comprised of all women and they were pretty quiet, so I had to give them some extra nudges, but otherwise they did well and at the end, really got into the spirit of things! Sadly tho, they didn't break out so I went in to show them how and boy howdy, this is when things get interesting.

One puzzle you have to complete is this brochure with a cross word puzzle. Many people think you have to use this brochure for the entire game, but that's not true. It's a one and done thing. However, these ladies were CONVINCED it was crucial. Anyways, they handed it off to me and this piece of paper is SOAKED. Like, real soggy and its ripping apart. I'm confused because this is the worst state I've ever seen one of our brochures in. Didn't question it, continued to show them everything and ask if they had a good time.

As I'm ushering them up to the front, one lady approaches me and tells me that she panicked in one of the rooms. See, this room is about the 'rules of basketball' and that someone is running in to steal it and you have to find them before this mysterious thief gets it, so the TVs will periodically do emergency broadcasting beeps and have a panicked basketball player telling you you are their only hope. It DOES indeed get people panicked and makes kids cry at times.

So, she continues to tell me she believed the brochure was the actual Rules of Basketball and needed to hide it where no one could find it. At first, the way she worded it, I didn't quite get it till the whole group was done and gone. MY DUDES, SHE STUFFED THE BROCHURE IN HER PANTS.

She was sweating and this brochure had been stuffed next to her cheeks. As with all rooms, we game guides sit in the back watching and hearing the group to give them clues. I watched these people like a hawk, but she sneaked that brochure down her pants with EASE. So, in conclusion, I had a sweaty ripped brochure covered in booty sweat.

Silliest

I got two stories for this category as they are simply silly and light hearted.

The first one is a big family that also did the basketball room. One of these family members is this little girl, who couldn't be much older then like, 5. The adults were in a tizzy trying to figure out the answer to this puzzle, which was a number combo. It's loud and a lot of members are talking over each other, until I hear this little girl just spit out the answer but NO ONE heard her.

In these rooms, there is a small TV up above where I send clues and when I send one, it'll be beep. So I immediately sent them a message 'the little girl just said it! she said the answer!'. The family reads the clue and immediately, ALL the attention is on this little girl. All the adults are like 'What is it? What did you say??' and the girl is NOT prepared for this attention. She's giggling, smiling shyly and saying 'I don't know! I can't remember!' and the adults are scrambling to figure it out.

So, because the whole family was already SO close to breaking out and technically a member of their party DID say the right answer, I repeated what the little girl said to the group and they got the puzzle. It was really funny and a great time.

What running these rooms have taught me is that kids are VERY good at these escape rooms. They can by pass the bullshit and get to the actual puzzles/answers. They just need an adult to keep them focused, that's their only downside. I had SO many kids blurt out what they think the puzzle is and have adults straight up ignore them. So, I'd take the extra step and tell the adults to listen to their kids.

The second silly story is about a group of four who came to do our Y2K inspired room. This room theme was about how you are stuck at a New Years Eve party and its just about to be the year 2000, but its up to YOU to stop the computers from crashing and the world ending. I liked this one cuz you could listen to early 2000's music while the room ran. I always knew I had 3 minutes remaining in the room once Mambo Number 5 played.

Long story short, this group was struggling with a puzzle and one of them suggested to google the answer. Not sure how they would do that, but regardless, I was about to send them a message to NOT do that.

My worry was totally unwarranted, as another from their team blurted out 'You can't do that!! It's the year 2000, phones don't EXIST YET'. Which had both me and the rest of the group cracking up.

WTF Moments

as much as I loved being a game guide, I did experience a lot of fuckery in the rooms.

There is a reason most of the stuff in escape rooms are bolted down. People WILL try to destroy the room. Usually not intentionally, but some shit heads will try to on purpose, even AFTER you tell them to stop. So, sadly I do have quite a few stories.

I had a group of women come in to do our Civil War themed escape room. This room was all dark except for the lanterns you would use to pick them up and see around the room.

I had one lady yank on the portraits on the walls which I told her they do NOT come off. I told her once, she ignored it and continued. I had told her a second time and she STILL didn't heed it and RIPPED the fucker off the wall. This thing was ANCHORED INTO CONCRETE. I don't know how she did it.

Our cameras weren't the best so through the dark, the talking and everything else, I don't think I knew she did this till I came into the room to find the picture on the ground.

In the hidden room there was a pipe that is attached to the wall but is pretty fragile. This same lady kept grabbing it and pulling it at it, in which I had to tell her multiple times to STOP. She finally did after goading from both me and her team mates (her team mates especially because they were catching on that I was only sending them messages about her messing up the room). I was about to kick them out, but thank god she finally stopped.

Another group, two women, got mad at me for penalizing them for being super tardy (this isn't some unspoken rule, its a common rule at most escape rooms and is both posted on our website AND in the lobby). So, they picked every lock open in the Y2K room, messed up the flow of the puzzles, and in turn, didn't break out (womp womp).

Another group of two, a wife and a husband, did our Y2K room as an anniversary activity. The wife was nothing but smiles and was super excited to play. Her demeanor and attitude did a total 180 once the room started.

The husband got to looking at the walls, the decor, the drawers, etc. and was speaking out loud "hey, i think this might be a clue" "hey, I think this might be a puzzle", so on and so forth. She never really replied to these questions, instead ignored him and looked elsewhere. He then began solving these puzzles on his own and opening things up, which sent her into a TIZZY.

All of a sudden, she is getting pissed. "You've done this before haven't you?" "well how did you get that so fast? you done this before!" just over and over. He continued to deny it and would calmly say 'no, I haven't. I just found this and figured it was a puzzle'.

He gets to the secret room all on his own and now she is SUPER mad. Convinced he did this on his own, she sits herself down on a chair and exclaims 'Well, since you've clearly done this room before, I'll just sit here till your done' and crosses her arms.

Well, this is real fuckin awkward and I have....no idea what to say. I had tried to send freebies, but it didn't seem to help ease the tension nor make her any less pissed.

Toward the end, she did sort of try to help, but it was more like angrily stomping from place to place. At one point, she retorts 'I didn't think you would get it. You usually aren't this smart'.

which gob smacked the hell out of me. Holy jesus. This woman was terrible. I was reeeaaally not looking forward to coming into that room to ask them how things went, but ya know, its part of the job.

That's when her demeanor changed AGAIN. I opened up the door and said 'Oooh I'm sorry you guys didn't make it! Did you have fun tho?' and this woman turned to me, beaming and cheerfully saying 'omg yes it was so much fun! Were we close?' and while I was thankful it wasn't horribly awkward, it had me so incredibly confused. The poor guy was quiet but still very kind with me, but I just felt awful for him. If she was like this in an escape room, how was she like behind closed doors at home??

We also had some racist asshats come into our rooms and we had to kick them out and ban them from ever playing again. I wasn't there when this happened, so I don't have the full deets, but like damn dude.

Honorable Mentions and Other Tidbits

I had a group from Australia come in and give me a little nudge nudge, wink wink to tell me their 'coffee' was definitely not coffee. They were awesome.

I had a group forget my name, so they just called me God to ask for clues

On one of my first couple days of work, I looked away from my group for only a few minutes before discovering they had unscrewed and taken the vent cover off in my room. I never typed so fast in my life to tell them THERE ARE NO CLUES THERE OMG PLEASE DON'T STICK YOUR HAND IN THERE

I wasn't there for this, but my co-worker told me a story of a couple who played the basketball room, only for them to break up half way in. They sat on opposite ends of a bench in silence till time ran out

I had several instances of people getting VERY mad at me for giving them freebies.

A lot of people weirdly just...straight refused to pay attention to the TV where I gave clues. This was a bigger problem then I thought it would be for some reason.

If I had to give any tips on going to an escape room, It'd be this:

Be nice to your game guide. This should be a given, but you'd be surprised the amount of times people would forget I can see and hear them and say nasty things about me. If you are kind, you can get yourself some freebies in crucial moments or, in some super rare cases, even get some time added to your room. They WANT you to break out and are just as excited as you when you make it!

When a game guide asks if you have questions, def ask some! There is NO such thing as a dumb question. Escape rooms in of themselves are weird and not many people even know what they really /are/ or what the goal is. I know I was more than happy to answer them if asked. You'll feel better and do better if you ask.

Definitely get there at least 10-15 minutes early. Most escape rooms require you to sign a waiver and the guide has to go over all the rules before it starts, so it just makes it easier on them to keep their rooms on time. Like I said, most places have time penalties if you are late and that's simply to make sure the schedule doesn't get messed up. If you are lucky and the escape room place is small, like ours, you could get away with it, but there were times where even /we/ had to put our foot down and enact the policy.

Thank you so much for asking Mysc!! ^o^ So so sorry its a HUGE WALL of text lmaooo I tell stories in text just like I do irl -- long winded and too much context. But I freaking LOVE telling my stories from my game guide days. It was such a hoot.

#WALL OF TEXT INCOMING I APOLOGIZE #I always get so excited to talk about being a game guide #it was a fun ass job even some days it test me lol #escape rooms #asks

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possessedartist · 8 months

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hihi this is probably a lil stupid so feel free to ignore but i saw in one of your posts about playing persona 1 and i was just wondering how you managed to play it? cause I've been wanting to play p1 (n p2) for the longest time now so i was wondering the way you did it? if its like a spefific emulator or something or if you could point me in the right direction anyways this is probably a bit silly but thank you anyways n i hope you have a good day!!

OMGG you’re so good don’t worry!! I really love getting asked about stuff esp emulating wise cause i like helping out so thank you so much, this made my day!!! You actually asked this at a pretty good time, I just got done making a guide on basically just that because I was hooking up some irl friends who aren’t too emulation savvy, which you can look click right here to look at!! It includes the emulator itself (I use ppsspp) all three games, and a install guide I typed up.

I can mention outside of that though, most of the time for looking at emulators, I personally use emulatorzone to download them from, it’s a pretty direct website that gives you a comprehensive directory for what you’re looking for, such as psp emulators. For ROMS/ISOS themselves, it can kinda depend on what you’re looking for but with psp isos in particular, I use this site! It doesn’t give me any issues and you can look around on it if you’re interested in getting any other psp games!! ^^

Lmk if you have any more questions!! My dms are always open even if u just wanna like live react to whatever’s happening in game lol

#ask #asks #THANK U AGAIN FOR THE ASK i love love getting asked stuff whehaa also lmk if you have trouble w the links for some reason!!#the guide in there is kinda lengthy bc i was trying to test savestate stuff (which u can do if u want if u somehow get stuck in game ig??)#but i suggest giving the entire thing a read i tried to set up a pretty good guide on there plus i linked a bunch of guide/walkthrough stuf #most emulators and getting iso/rom stuff (which is like the raw game file) is kinda easy once you’ve done it once or twice though if you’re #looking to get into it. i will say past like ps3 or so they do get tricky to emulate so you’d have a easier time w older games #i say this like ik what i’m doing (half lie lol) but i have a irl psp i’ve sat down and modded heavily so i know psp stuff prett intimately #ILL STOP RAMBLING NOW but good luck!!#OH i nearly forgot to mention i put specific roms in that first link uh it’s p1 with the og music and then p2 is and ep with the jp voices #which is how i played them bc p1s psp music kinda ruins it but if you want the roms to the games w the og music or eng voice acting lmk and #i can shoot a link to their download pages. ANYWAYS i’ll stop actually rambling now lol

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