From time to time you hear the term “red herring” in association with escape rooms. The term itself is loosely traced to the use of smoked fish to either train dogs to follow a scent, or to provide a strong scent to distract hunting dogs from the trail they are supposed to be following.
In literature a red herring is some sort of plot device to distract the reader from figuring out the truth too soon. In debate logic, a red herring is a type of fallacy employed in order to abandon an argument, presumably one that is being lost!
With escape room design, a red herring is a clue left in order to distract the player from the correct clues. Mr GER, who is principally responsible for the design of our escape rooms, is not a fan of red herrings, whether intentional or incidental.
“Mrs. GER and I were playing an escape room, and there were these laminated inkjet prints, so we looked them over closely and tried to remember elements of them as we played, looking for a connection. Once we solved the room I realized that no information on that piece had been used at all. The printout was a red herring full of text and images that had nothing to do with the game. I found it annoying, though I still had plenty of fun with my friends and my wife.”
Puzzlemasters at Gateway Escape Rooms note that people will invent their own red herrings. Mr. GER confesses to an instance where he did this very thing. “There was a deck of cards on the table, along with a bunch of poker chips. One player laid out the cards and determined there were some missing, and we sussed out which ones. I examined each and every poker chip for a clue. We sure could have used the 20 minutes we wasted to actually escape the room!”
Gateway Escape Rooms does not employ intentional red herrings, and we are careful to not include a large number of individual objects, so if a guest creates their own red herring they will not spend too much time on it. Our escape rooms have plenty of real puzzles, so we hope for guests to abandon a piece of decor that really is not a clue as quickly as possible.
1 Comment
My company is taking us to an escape room this quarter as a team building activity. I am really excited but don’t know what to expect because I have never been before. I appreciate the information on avoiding being distracted by red herrings that don’t actually matter. I will try and stay focused throughout the time.