It’s Fluid Intelligence, My Dear Watson

You’ve only got a certain amount of time to beat an escape room (you get 45 minutes at Krakit’s Vancouver escape game) before the clock hits zero and the mission is failed—or conquered.

What are the skills that are going to put you on the winning side?

There are many factors that come into play when trying to crack an escape room, but one of the main ones is your big ol’ brain. In order to put together all the clues like a regular Sherlock and make a successful exit, you’ve got to use your noggin.

However, there are different types of thinking to consider, especially when you’re putting together your escape room team. Intelligence boils down to two main types: fluid intelligence and crystallized intelligence.

Fluid intelligence is used to solve problems. It’s the ability to take on new bits of information (read: escape room clues), see patterns, make connections, and think abstractly. In short, fluid intelligence is the ability to think logically, and to use inductive and deductive reasoning. Inductive reasoning means gathering different pieces of information until you’ve got a likely solution to your problem. Despite being famous for “the science of deduction,” induction is actually what Sherlock Holmes mostly uses—and what is most going to help you at your next outing to Krakit’s escape rooms.

While fluid intelligence is definitely going to be more useful as you’re trying to outwit zombies and evil madmen, you’re still going to need both fluid and crystallized intelligence to conquer an escape game.

Crystallized intelligence, in a nutshell, is knowledge. It’s the collection of facts in your brain: all those memorized song lyrics and facts about the lifecycle of a bean plant. Crystallized intelligence is what will set off your brain—ding, ding, ding!—when you need to know, say, a bit of literature to understand a clue.

Some people think that the Internet is making us lose our fluid intelligence, so actively trying to use it to combat the evil World Wide Web is a good thing. See? Krakit Escape Game is good for your health!