latest reason for shame-drenched suicidally-ideating drive home of shame: did escape room too well, leaving the other group of people feeling like they didn’t do anything
I tried to vocalize all my thoughts and why I thought things and where I thought things would go! So did the two people with me! We got stuck on several puzzles! But the manager had to pull them aside at the end and ask if they were okay, I heard it when we were walking out. Then I went back in after they left, and he said “No, you guys didn’t do anything wrong, you were fine, it was just that they were here for a birthday party, and they felt like you guys were so on top of things, they didn’t get to do anything.” which you may recognize as a description of us NOT being fine and, in fact, making other people have a bad time!
…your Escape the Room parlor combined multiple parties that didn’t show up together? I really, really don’t think this one is on you. This one is on the event-organizer putting things together in a shitty way.
(Seriously, there is no way to ensure a “correct distribution of fun” when the activity at hand is puzzle-solving. The variables are just too…variable. If all the people involved are friends, it’s fine, because you’re just going to go Full Communist with the experience. But it’s obviously going to fail with strangers, unless by some miracle they’re super-well-matched in terms of puzzling skill.)