“So we will see you, or not, in 60 minutes or less. Good luck.” You hear those words, the door locks. What do you do now?? Survey the Room, AKA Take Inventory Let's change the scenario for a minute. You crash land on a desert island. You have never been there before. You need to know what you have to help you survive. What is the first thing you do? That's right Sherlock, you take a few minutes to size up the situation. Didn't you see that movie? To find the treas

So we had a group in Science Lab. They were trying really hard and having a great time. But then they got stuck and here is what we heard: "What did she say we were supposed to do?" "Get out however we can, I think." "So let's pull this out of the wall." Now that helped them open a locked cabinet, but here is the problem (Besides them breaking our room). Now they had all of these clues that were there to help them open the cabinet the right way - but they did not know w

“I can’t leave my phone in a locker, what if I need it? What if I need to look something up? Are there math problems inside? I won’t have my calculator. What if someone needs me during that 60 minutes? You took away our phones, how were we supposed to figure THAT out??” This is an everyday conversation at the School of Hard Locks. So we started asking ourselves, 'Why?' Is there something we have created that is so difficult we can’t figure it out using our basic mental

"Why is there a dog on the School of Hard Locks timeline? Is that the same dog in different pictures? What does he have to do with the escape room? Do we need to know anything about him?" You bet, it's me, Chiave XV. You think you are something because you are a Jr.? I am the fifteenth in the long line of SoHL mascots. If you know Anything about Australian Shepherds you will know I am More than capable of typing my own Blog, thank you very much. I do occasionally have t

In the Spirit of Hiram Mack our illustrious founder, we are thrilled to publish here our weekly blog that celebrates ingenuity, brain boosts, mind revitalization, team spirit, a passionate love of learning for learnings’ sake, practical drills and tips to master Escape Rooms, or create new and faster routes through Escape Rooms, and optimize overall focus, by refocusing on skills left far behind, remixing cutting edge technology combined with neuroscience and practic

ABOUT SANDY THE PUZZLEMASTER Thank you for reading our Gaming the Brain Blog. About a year ago Tony and I founded an Escape Room in my hometown of Carlsbad, California and to date, over 2000 people have been our guests. Why an Escape Room? Well, it is the culmination of a lifetime fascination with logic puzzles, anagrams, as well as my passion for theater and competitive sport. As a kid I wiled away hours doing puzzles (logic puzzles were my favorite). I grew up in New Jers