What are the secrets of the success of the escape rooms - why do we like this pastime so much from all the variety of pastimes available to us, why do we want to come again and again to as many escape rooms as possible. What makes them successful?

There was a time when nobody knew about the attraction, property owners didn't even want to rent their place to entrepreneurs. If in the world the trend of escape rooms was already alive and kicking, in Israel when they said escape rooms there were those who thought they were pool rooms and not escape rooms, and a game by the hour sounds like an escort agency. Unbelievable that just a few years ago, escape room was a term that almost no one knew what it was.
Today the trend of escape rooms is so common, that we are talking about hundreds of thousands of escape rooms around the world and a few hundred in Israel as well.

So why do we love escape rooms so much?
There are several reasons that explain in a fairly intuitive way why we are so drawn to spending time in escape rooms.

The first reason is the fact that it is a game. In our daily lives we are required to be serious, responsible, to behave according to certain codes, but inside - we are still children who want and love to play. This is exactly what an entire field called GAMIFICATION is based on, which makes use of the fact that if we ask to do a task, assignment, work or anything else that we need to do - in the form of a game - we automatically increase the desire and motivation to do the task, invest in it, and give more of ourselves with less sense of effort . This is exactly what happens in escape rooms.

The second reason It is our connection to movies, which stems from our fondness for escapism, escaping to other worlds, to other experiences, to leaving our character and our everyday life for another character and another life. It excites and attracts us. Therefore, escape rooms designed as the setting of a movie, science fiction and fantasy, introduce us to an alternative world, an experience that we want more and more of.

The third reason It is the inherent competitiveness in us. We love and want to win, be first, compete with others and thus show others and ourselves that we are better than others. Both about ourselves and as parents, we like to see their children win and reach better achievements than other children.

The fourth reason It is the opposite of the third and is actually a collaboration. You can see this clearly, in that escape rooms have become a favorite family pastime, especially in Israel. If families have gotten used to the fact that joint family time always involves a compromise - either doing something the children want to do and the parents compromise, or doing something the adults want to do and the children compromise, suddenly a form of recreation comes along that allows everyone to spend time together, bond and enjoy themselves, without anyone having to compromise. We also see it on dates, it's always a successful pastime or a test of how well the partner cooperates, helps, solves on his own, brags and more...

Now that we understand the reasons that attract us to hang out in escape rooms, the 5 factor formula, without it the chances of an escape room being successful are not high:

What is there to escape from?
One of the most important things in an escape room is the theme, the story, or in other words - what are we escaping from? The backstory can be interesting, intriguing and tight, but it is very important that it contains a clear and immediate reason why the players must run and get out of the room within an hour. Otherwise, even if the story is interesting, from the beginning it will not provide a critical sense of something critical to escape from.

The wow effect
If you walked into the room and said "wow", the room did its job in that respect. Remember we talked about how much we love escaping from our reality and entering another reality, like in the movies? A good escape room should provide us with this feeling, whether through the design, the setting, the accessories, the sights, the sounds and even the smells in the room, so that we feel the most realistic experience possible.

The first success
Solving the first puzzle is of the greatest importance. If the players get stuck on the first task in the room, the feeling of failure can demotivate them and cause them to lose patience. That is why it is very important to take care of a feeling of success and victory in the first puzzle, to encourage the players to rush towards the other puzzles, at the peak of their strength.
In this context, unlike other countries, it is very important for the Israeli audience to finish the room, on time, with as little help as possible. The fact that the success statistics of finishing an escape room in time is 90% in Israel is probably a result of the way rooms are built, so that the Israeli players will finish the room in time and without significantly getting stuck or getting significant help. This makes the escape rooms in Israel a more complex business, because you would think that they need to be built with a level of difficulty and challenge so that they are not too easy (finishing a room for which we paid hundreds of shekels in 20 minutes sucks and is not really fun and challenging) and on the other hand that they are not too difficult. In other words, they should be at a difficulty level that allows for a solution in an average time of 50 minutes, even though the players are a different and diverse crowd of people. Not easy when you think about it…

see the end
When we play in an escape room and move from one puzzle to the second to the third and progress through the natural flow of the room, we as players don't really know how many puzzles are still ahead of us until the entire room is solved and exited. That is why it is important to find the way in which the players know how to divide their time before they ask for a hint in order to finish the whole experience in time.

Applause of success
We love escape rooms partly because of the psychological importance of our personal and group sense of victory, our need to feel that we can and are capable, that we are good. They want to be proud of their success, and rightfully so. Therefore, a good escape room is such that when the players successfully complete the room, they go outside to a celebration of external reinforcements for their success: applause, a victory photo as a souvenir, compliments and praises from the employees at the place, and everything that completes the experience of success in a full and proper way.