How to Use Escape Room Puzzles to Unite Your Team

Escape rooms have become increasingly popular in recent years as a fun and challenging activity for friends and families to enjoy. But did you know that escape room puzzles can also be a valuable tool for team building in the workplace? 

By bringing colleagues together to solve puzzles and work together towards a common goal, team members can improve their communication, collaboration, and problem-solving skills. We sat down with the Confetti Games Team to give you a glimpse into Confetti's Escape Quests and the unique benefits they offer your virtual teams. Keep reading to learn more!

What is an Escape Room? 💭

Escape rooms have gained immense popularity over the last several years, and for good reason. These physical, cooperative adventure games are designed to challenge your problem-solving abilities, teamwork skills, and creativity.

The concept of escape rooms is simple. You and your team are “trapped” by a unique challenge (physically or virtually) and must use your wits to solve puzzles, uncover clues, and unlock secrets that will ultimately lead you to the key to escape.

The challenge is that you only have a limited time to finish before the clock strikes zero. Rather than being an individual, or team-based game, the idea of an escape game is that you're working as a group towards a shared goal. Escape room puzzles can range from math problems to word puzzles, hidden object searches, and riddles told through immersive storytelling, graphics, soundscapes, and more.

Escape games are perfect for employees looking to have an incredible team building experience that improves their connection, communication, and collaboration skills in the process.

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How do teams benefit from Escape Room games? 🤝

When talking about the benefits of escape rooms Tyler, Confetti's Senior Games Coordinator and Games Development Specialist, started by saying "When you gamify, instead of competition-based work, you’re building camaraderie, you’re building kinship, you’re putting emphasis on the celebration of learning and growing together vs. doing things for the simple reward.” 

He then went on to elaborate on how Confetti measures customer satisfaction and where participants see these benefits differently in VEQ compared to other game structures. “Pitting employees against each other never works well,” Tyler said. “In game design, there’s often a winner, but we’re building experiences where winning is the least you remember about the experience. We’re creating moments where everyone can flourish and shine. We want people to forget who wins at the end.”

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What makes Confetti's Virtual Escape Quests unique? 🧐

Savvy, Confetti's Head of Games, believes it's the most collaborative game-making experience that the Confetti Games Development currently has. "We find ourselves falling in love with individual moments of games, like one puzzle or one graphic that we think is so much fun." 

Tyler can put his theater background to good use by writing new stories, adding elaborate sound design, and better overall narrative to the game structure. "The level of immersion they can get into with our Virtual Escape Quests gives us a leg up from other competitors," said Savvy.

A Virtual Escape Quest experience has the capacity to be the most multi-dimensional experience for teams. For example: 

• A person who likes to read can solve an anagram that unlocks a password to a video
• The person who's an expert at navigating can solve the Google Maps puzzle
• The math whiz who likes to problem solve can do your ciphering and math puzzles...and so on!

In Virtual Escape Quest, Confetti's game team "creates puzzles that appeal to different thinkers and has the capacity to give individuals a moment to shine," says Tyler.

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Use escape room puzzle ideas to gamify the workday 🧩

Gamifying tasks can be a fun and effective way to increase motivation and engagement during the workday, especially when doing repetitive, tedious, or difficult tasks. Start by identifying the tasks that you and your team find less enjoyable or more challenging to do. These are the tasks that can benefit the most from gamification.

Here are some ways to gamify tasks:

1. Define your goals: Decide what you want to achieve by gamifying your tasks. Is it to increase productivity, improve teamwork, or simply make work more fun?
2. Choose the game elements: There are many game elements you can use to gamify tasks such as points, badges, leaderboards, challenges, and rewards. Choose the ones that fit best with your goals and company culture.
3. Integrate technology: Consider using technology tools to help you gamify tasks. There are many apps and software available that can help you track progress, set goals, and offer rewards.
4. Keep it simple: Make sure your gamification strategy is easy to understand and doesn't add unnecessary complexity to the tasks at hand.
5. Track progress and adjust: Track progress and adjust your strategy as necessary. Use data and feedback to identify areas for improvement and make changes accordingly.

Uh-oh! Looks like Dave from IT decided that hacking your laptop was the best way to cure his boredom. Solve his 4-letter code hidden message to get back in! Think you cracked it? Find the answer at the bottom of the blog!

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Escape room puzzle ideas 💡

Everyone's familiar with jigsaw puzzles, but many common escape room puzzle types are utilized in Confetti's Virtual Escape Quest.

Here are some categories of puzzles (more than your average jigsaw puzzle ideas) to get you started thinking of your own DIY escape room puzzles and other gamification strategies:

• Cipher puzzles: Use a substitution cipher to hide a secret message that players must decipher to proceed.
• Physical puzzles: Puzzles that require players to move around the room, such as navigating a maze or arranging objects in a specific order.
• Hidden object puzzles: Hide objects around the room, in well-disguised spots or perhaps even in plain sight, that players must find to progress.
• Logic puzzles: Create a series of logical challenges that players must solve to move on.
• Sound puzzles: Use sound clues to guide players through the room, such as playing a melody that corresponds to a code.
• Color puzzles: Use colors to create a puzzle that requires players to sort or match items based on their color.
• Tangram puzzles: Create a set of tangrams that players must arrange to solve a puzzle.
• Word puzzles: Use wordplay, anagrams, or crossword puzzles to challenge players' vocabulary and language skills.

Create printable escape room puzzles if you'd like to come up with a tactile experience for those working in your hybrid office!

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Book your Escape Room game with Confetti 🎉

If you're looking for an immersive and engaging way to bring your virtual team together, Confetti's virtual escape quest experiences are the way to go. In Escape Quests, Confetti offers a unique and thrilling team building experience that will challenge your team's problem-solving skills, creativity, and collaboration, all while having a blast and making unforgettable memories.

Does your team have what it takes? Turn your colleagues into expert escape room players with Confetti's Virtual Escape Quest! 

P.S. The answer to the riddle is "Play"! 

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Meet Savvy & Tyler 👋

Savvy is a game designer based in Princeton, NJ. She is passionate about women's representation in the gaming industry, and is beyond thrilled to be on the Confetti internal team as their Head of Games. She and her team are also behind the content for all of Confetti's games, including Virtual Escape Quest, Coworker Feud, Trivia, and more.

Tyler graduated from NYU with a degree in Theatre Education, and spent a decade teaching and making theatre with young artists around the world in public and private schools and with the Lovewell Institute for the Creative Arts. He was one of Confetti’s first game hosts in 2020 and is now the Senior Games Coordinator and Games Development Specialist.