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Build Your Own Escape Room for Fun

by clueQuest

published on

Stay at home gomes are all the rage at the moment, check out our Print @ home game, Print+Cut+Escape! or keep reading for tips and tricks how to create your very own. Escape rooms are challenging and can be a great deal of fun for children and adults alike. While there are escape room businesses popping up in every populated area, you can always make your own too. Here are some tips and tricks to take into consideration to build your own escape room for fun.

Have a Theme

Choosing a theme for your self-created theme room is a great first step. Themes could be something like:

- You are a criminal and trying to make a jail break

- You’re locked in the bank safe at work

- You are a detective/spy investigating a suspect's home

- You are in a haunted house.

Any theme can become an escape room. Use your imagination and see where it takes you.

Collect Locks and Locking Boxes

The basic premise behind an escape room is to find the clues to unlock boxes, which contain other clues to eventually escape. Put together a collection of:

- Money lock boxes

- Bags with a lock on the zipper

- Filing Cabinets

- Bike Locks and Chains

- Padlocks

- Old cell phone with a pin code

The more variaty you have the less repetitive the game will be.

Design Puzzles for Your Escape Room

Puzzles are an essential component for an escape room. If you can solve the puzzle you can find the key or code that unlocks something that holds yet another puzzle.

Puzzles can be very simple to solve or very complex. They can be riddles or math problems that give you the combination to a lockbox code or the number for which key on the wall, with 19 other keys, will unlock the door.

Other puzzles that are great are ciphers. Substitute a number or a symbol for a letter. You can also use certain letters on certain pages of a book that eventually make a word. The key here is not to make these so complex that they are impossible to solve.

Hidden messages can be fun, as well. You can even give verbal puzzles via a computer. The options are limitless with making escape room puzzles.

If you are creating a complex escape room, you will want to have clues available so that your players don’t get frustrated and give up.

Clues can be distributed any number of ways:

- You can have someone in the room that hands a player a clue if they ask

- You can have a set timer that allows players to get a clue if time runs out

- Have them text a team leader

- Calling someone on Facetime

- Have a computer or tablet with a Skype account

Theme Music

Some escape rooms include theme music. While some people find the music distracting, others feel that it helps set the mood and intensity of the room. For those who want to get really creative, you can add music that gives players a required clue.

Good Hiding Places

The best part about escape rooms is find the next puzzle or clue. Some good hiding places for puzzles and clues include:

- The top of a fan blade

- A specific page in a book

- Behind a picture frame

- Bottom of your shower

- Outside a window

- In a candy jar

After you have all these plans in place, it’s time to put it into action. The idea is to have fun with your friends or family. If everyone is stressed out and arguing, you have failed your mission. Keep it semi-simple, but a little challenging. Also, don’t overthink it. The more gadgets and tech you can have in your room the better. Once you get through your first escape room, chances are you will be hooked and ready to design the next one.

Check out our print @ home escape mission Stolen IQ.

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