Felt tired after coming home. Thankfully, it turns out I did some sketching at the rocket launch field today!

One was an exercise in combining the letters X, Y, and Z to see how they might fit together. Thought of it while trying to think of an insignia that could fit for a characters family coat of arms or something.

This is the 10th Tip of the Week on real-life escape gaming (and our rating rubric). This one is on letter combinations, mainly used to open letter combination locks.

Letter combinations locks seem to be fairly common in real escape rooms, especially those like the Master 1534D (the five letter custom wheel ones) or your typical four-wheel combo lock except with letters.

Due to the frequency that we come across these locks, it is possible to say that a good number of them will have a combination that actually forms a word. It's a simple way to determine if you got the right word from the previous puzzle (check out Monday's post as well). However, these locks sometimes make it rather simple to determine the right word without solving the puzzle.

Most letter combination locks only have about 10 or so letters on each wheel. With around 16 letters eliminated from each position, only so many words will remain. When players are required to pick a word from a list, good rooms will use wheels that permit most, if not all, possible answers (or use words that are permitted by the given wheels). Otherwise, it is simply a matter of elimination followed by brute force.

When options are not available, it is still possible to deduce the word answer. One important fact is that the answer is often thematically related to the room or the clue (this applies not only to locks, but to all word answers regardless of the answer input methods). If writing materials are available, listing the letters on each wheel and trying various permitted, thematically related words may result in the answer. If writing materials are not available, make a mental note of the vowels on the middle wheels and proceed from there, using the vowels as pivots.

Nonetheless, it is also possible that the right combination is not a word, so it's not wise to rely only on educated guessing. However, trying out some possible words may save you some time while the other 7 players on your team are crowding around the puzzle in question.

Thats it for today. Stay tuned for the Injustice review on Monday!

-xTheBHox

ESTJ PERSONALITY

ESTJs are representatives of tradition and order, utilizing their understanding of what is right, wrong and socially acceptable to bring families and communities together. Embracing the values of honesty, dedication and dignity, people with the ESTJ personality type are valued for their clear advice and guidance, and they happily lead the way on difficult paths. Taking pride in bringing people together, ESTJs often take on roles as community organizers, working hard to bring everyone together in celebration of cherished local events, or in defense of the traditional values that hold families and communities together.