On Being a Gamesmaster

I work as a Gamesmaster in an escape room. It's a lot of fun and sometimes a bit frustrating. Sometimes I wonder how some people actually make it to adulthood! What is fascinating is human behaviour. People know they are being watched, of course, but they forget.

One thing that sometimes strikes me quite strongly is how so many couples stick so closely to traditional gender roles. Mostly men, but a lot of women facilitate their men's attitude towards them. And not just older men; young men, nerdy men, hipster men, men that you'd imagine would be all over equality in a relationship. This isn't a feminist rant, by the way, just part of my observations. (Although I am a feminist.)

Of course, there are many men who treat their wives and girlfriends as equals, there's probably more of them than those who don't (and there's a few relationships where the roles are reversed). But... it's still very prevalent for the male to be the bossy one; believing himself to naturally be the more intelligent, purely by dint of his dangly bits.

So. My respect to those chaps who value the intelligence of their feminine other half. As for the others, generally very nice unobjectionable people on the whole... I watch with fascination and not a little irritation while they order the wife off to fetch something or look at something or give a wholly incorrect explanation in a patronising lofty tone. Meanwhile she may be working her way around solving puzzles and essentially getting things done. I always make sure to congratulate her particularly on her achievements without (I hope) being equally patronising. Sometimes the men are indeed smarter than the women, of course, but on the whole it's equal distribution.

Playing an escape room, though, is more about logic, organisation and common sense than an intellectual leaning. And observation. I have seen some supposedly incredibly smart people, professional people, fail abysmally in the escape room. One charming and very attractive lady, who happened to be a doctor of medicine (and, I am very sure, very smart) spent the entire hour squealing excitedly and was unable to complete any part of any puzzle. Whilst others who have more hands on occupations might do very well.

Children. I like children, I have some of my own. However, there is an age below which young people's brains simply have not fully developed. In fact, it is believed that the part of the brain which is responsible for logic (amongst other things), the prefrontal cortex, is not fully developed until age 25. I have found that 14 is usually the minimum age where logic can be applied to follow a puzzle from beginning to end. We sometimes have teams as young as eleven playing and they can be a nightmare; but we've changed the rules recently and now insist that an appropriate number of adults accompany the little... er... darlings.

Not so long ago I had seven 13 year old boys locked in the room together. The puzzles tended to be too difficult for them, even with loads and lots of clues and hints. They naturally became bored. One boy hid two padlocks and it took me fifteen minutes to find them after the game ended. Another shut his friend in a large cupboard and barricaded him in whilst another was rambunctiously pushing his mate around on a wheeled office chair. Yet another was dangerously swinging a stick around like a weapon and had to be told three times to put it down. And all of them when they found something vaguely interesting (every few minutes), yelling at full volume "GUYS, GUYS, GUYS, GUYS."

Girls are not much better, they are just as loud, just as unable to do the puzzles, but they squeal a lot and pretend to be frightened of things. Having said that, 13 year old girls are more sensible, more engaged in the puzzles, than boys of the same age; but they are still not yet fully mentally equipped to follow the logic of the puzzles.

I love the elderly who play, they are full of wonder about the processes of playing an escape room, and many are very good, having spent a lifetime doing cryptic crosswords, playing board and card games and solving puzzles. They can have a little trouble getting down to floor level when looking at things.

My favourites are the people with humour, who laugh a lot and who don't take it too seriously. They enjoy the process of solving the puzzles without worrying too much about actually escaping.

Finally, there are the many "builders' cleavages" I have seen and averted my eyes from; and those who totally forget that they are being watched by a stranger; those are the farters. I will say no more about them.

I love the varied panoply of humanity that passes through my room; how boring it would be if we were all the same, hmmm?