Connection Without Conversation: How an Escape Room Replaces Small Talk
Many of us grow up believing that connection and closeness is created through talking, quick replies and confident story-telling. For some of us, that takes significant effort – especially with new people.
Recently, eleven Quieteers met at Locked In Escape Rooms in Camborne. We split into two groups. I was in The Smokehouse Curse. The others took on Pasty Escape. Some of us had known each other for a year or two, and some hadn’t met before – it didn’t seem to matter.
Charlie, our Gamesmaster, was part of the story from the start and stayed in character throughout. At one point he ran from the escape room as if something was chasing him, seemingly afraid for his life. We all laughed. His playfulness pulled everyone in immediately. Once the door closed, the room grew focused.
Clues moved quickly from wall to hand to table. In a group of six, keeping track of what’s been solved is harder than you’d expect. Objects move. Papers overlap. Someone holds something up and asks if we’ve used it. Three of us look baffled.
There was a puzzle involving counting items in an image. I counted carefully. The totals were correct. They just didn’t unlock anything. I went back to the clock, convinced I must have missed something there. I read the clue over and over. It was right in front of me. I kept missing it.
Eventually we realised the outcome needed reversing. We had read the instruction but hadn’t absorbed it properly. We got out with less than a minute to spare. The other team weren’t far behind.
There were proper moments of confusion. Heads bent over the same clue. Two people crouched down to peer beneath the floorboards where we could see… something. Padlocks clicked open. Codes were tried and retried. Items were carried from one part of the room to another. A hidden message was uncovered. A door we hadn’t noticed at first opened.
I didn’t feel the need to be the one solving everything. I enjoyed watching others do their bit. Someone spotting a detail the rest of us skimmed past. The laughter when we realised the red herrings we’d treated as crucial clues were leading nowhere at all. People moved around each other without needing to decide who was leading. Someone stepped in. Someone stepped back. It worked.
In one of the escape rooms, the role of speaking to the gamesmaster was given to someone new to the group. They were the one confirming clues and asking for hints. It meant they had a clear part to play straight away. Especially when you’re new, having something defined to do can make it easier to settle. You’re fully involved right from the start. You don’t have to find your way in -you’re in.
In both rooms, there were stretches of quiet concentration and bursts of laughter when something finally clicked. And in a group that size, keeping track of solved clues became its own puzzle as the pile on the table grew steadily messier.
When the doors opened, one group with less than a minute to spare and the other close behind, Charlie was there, fully in character, grinning and congratulating us. Outside, we stood in the cool evening air in small clusters, talking about the rooms and how differently they had unfolded.
We didn’t build connection first and then attempt the puzzles. We built it while we were solving them.
If you’d like to try an Escape Room in Cornwall yourself, Quieteers can use the code QC10 for 10% off at:
You don’t have to know each other well to step into a room together and start solving something.
