Locks

What would an escape room be without locks? The puzzles the players solve culminate in the opening of a box or door. Any interesting escape room is going to have 5-10 locking mechanisms, and padlocks are the easiest type to use.

Chances are, you don’t have quite this many padlocks lying around. Fortunately, you’re not using them to really secure anything value. The locks are more symbolic than anything else. So for less money than it would take to go to a commercial escape room, you can buy enough locks to build your own (or use the makeshift solution at the end).

Digit Locks

Often, it is easiest to create puzzles that make numbers, so most of the locks I use are number combination locks. You will want something where you can set your own code (most digit locks let you do this).

Simple luggage padlocks will do the trick. I have had good luck with these luggage digit padlocks. They are cheap, but they are easy to set a code and ar unambiguous when you dial in the code. As an added bonus, the dials have different colors, which you can work into clues (but keep in mind that the colors are not in a consistent order).

Word Locks

To make things more interesting, it is fun to incorporate code words into the puzzles. For this, you need a padlock that uses letters instead of numbers.

There are multiple such locks available. I have a love-hate relationship with the Master Lock word combination padlock. The construction is solid enough for a puzzle (I’ve seen them used in commercial escape rooms many times), but the stupid thing doesn’t come with enough letter dials to actually form words. (It has 5 dials, but only comes with 4 dials with letters.) To make interesting words, you really have to buy two or more to mix and match dials. But if you are willing to buy 2 (use one for words and one for numbers), they work quite well.

Directional Locks

Master Lock sells a directional lock that has a knob on front that you push up/down/left/right to form a pattern. You can set it to your own combination of movement, but be careful because I managed to jam up (and hence destroy) one of these locks trying to set the pattern.

A directional lock lends a nice change to the code representation, but it tends to be a little tricky to represent directions in a puzzle. I’ve never seen more than one used in any escape room.

Unfortunately, at the time of this writing, Masterlock has discontinued its production of directional padlocks, and so far no other company is producing any replacements. If you cannot get a hold of a physical directional lock consider this alternative approach.

Key Locks

You can also use locks that open with a key. Key locks are available in just about any size you need.

You may find that you don’t use key locks as much as you would expect. There is not a lot of point in putting keys in boxes, since you have just solved a puzzle to remove the lock for the box the key is in. So keys are typically used in situations where they are hidden. Another situation might be that the physical constraints of a puzzle require a container too small for items it reveals, so you provide a key to the “real” box.

Paper Locks

Honestly, you don’t need physical locks. You could just put a note on a container or door that says do not open until you give the game master the correct code.

But there is something visceral about using a physical lock. The anticipation as the dials click and the cha-chunk when the lock finally opens. I think that adds enough value to justify using the physical locks.

Containers

Once you have locks, the next thing you will need is stuff to lock up. Any escape room is going to make use of several containers (i.e. “boxes”) that hold items providing clues to the next puzzle.

A commercial escape room builds most of these boxes into the room’s set. How elaborately you wish to match the boxes to your theme is up to you. Most likely you already have many containers like luggage, backpacks, cases, and storage cases. Even cardboard boxes can be leveraged.

String

It is always good to have some string on hand when setting up your escape room. Your escape room will almost certainly require some amount of juryrigging, and some type of string or rope will probably be required.

One of the most common needs for string is attaching locks to something that needs to be locked. Chances are, the doors in your room do not have a convenient, settable combination lock. So, you will probably have to attach a padlock of the appropriate type, which will probably involve attaching a string to the knob or across the door. Likewise, some of your containers may not have convenient attachement points for locks, so string can often be used to force an attachment.

When using string, you may want to tell players as part of the rules that they are not to untie strings. None of the puzzles will involve untying knots.

Printer

Any escape room is bound to have numerous notes, instructions, and labels. Creating these items is usually easier and faster with a computer and printer. If you don’t happen to have a printer handy, you can instead write and draw these things by hand.

Internet

Although not really practical for a commercial escape room, the internet is a handy resource to incorporate into a home escape room. Email and web are so integral in today’s life that putting part of the materials online is a fun and easy way to make puzzles more interesting. Just have the players bring in their smartphones to access puzzles and clues you put on the internet. Here are some free resources to set that up.

QR Codes

A QR code is the name for those square computer codes like that shown here. They are very convenient for taking a smartphone to a specific web site. With the most recent versions of iPhone and Android, you can just point the camera at the QR code, and you can tap right to the QR’s web page. QR codes are a convenient way to take players to an online clue or puzzle.

There exist many free QR code generators. Just search the web for them. The one I used was QR Stuff because it provides a service to shorten the URL to make more robust codes.

Online Documents

To incorporate the web into your puzzles, you will have to create online content. You don’t have to be an expert in web site design to create content. There are very simple ways to post something. A very simple way is to post a document online.

Google Docs is a convenient way to create an online document. Simply write the document in your browser, and then share it to get a URL to view it. Then use the aforementioned QR code generators to get players to that URL. Alternately, there are other file storage sites that allow you to share files such as Dropbox, OneDrive, and many others.

Web Site Builders

Simply posting a document might not look as nice as you would like. A page-based document won’t reformat itself for view on different mobile devices. A simple HTML-based web page might look nicer.

There are lots of ways to build web pages. If you happen to know how to create your own web pages, that’s a great way to make content. But if you are not experience in web page building, don’t worry. There are lots of free easy tools available to create content.

Web page builders range from simple editors without a lot of control to complex. A good place to start is Google Sites, which is easy, but does not give you a lot of control.

Forms

Instead of writing a code into a lock, a puzzle can involve entering the correct response into a web form. Once again, rather than writing your own HTML code to create a form, you can use one of the numerous online form builders. Google Forms has a nice feature that allows you to “validate” responses that players have. Another nice feature is that you can embed a Google Form inside of a Google Site so you can mix form and other HTML elements.

3D Printer

To be clear, you do not need a 3D printer to create an escape room. Although there are many affordable options, 3D printing is a hobby onto itself.

If you happen to have access to a 3D printer, it can be helpful to fabricate items as you need them, which can make life easier. If you have one, you will probably use it. But if you don’t, it will still be possible to find, buy, construct, or jury-rig everything you need for a great at home escape room.

One particularly useful thing I have found to print are latches that can be used with padlocks. It is convenient to scale and print these to the type of padlocks you have and then glue them to makeshift containers like cardboard boxes. Again, you don’t need a 3D printer to create these. You can probably find something similar at your hardware store or just improvise by wrapping string around the box connected with the lock. But if you have the printer, it can simplify things.