In response to evolving societal expectations, higher education institutions are increasingly integrating experiential and game-based learning methods to cultivate essential competencies such as communication, collaboration, and problem-solving. This study explores the use of educational escape rooms as an innovative pedagogical tool to foster and measure collaborative problem-solving skills among engineering students. Conducted at the Budapest University of Technology and Economics, our research involved the design and implementation of an educational escape room, followed by the analysis of students’ interactions and performance. Utilizing a mixed-methods approach, we collected and analyzed video recordings of the escape room sessions, alongside data from focus group interviews and several standardized questionnaires. Our findings demonstrate that educational escape rooms effectively engage students and enhance both social and cognitive competencies. The study highlights key factors that distinguish high-performing groups and underscores the potential of escape rooms to provide immersive, challenge-based learning experiences that significantly contribute to the development of collaborative problem-solving skills in higher education.