Getting Started

Ready create your own escape room? This page goes over the basics to get you started.

Anatomy of an Escape Room

Before we jump into discussing designing the particular elements of an escape room, let us first consider the overall structure of the design. If you have participated in an escape room, at any time you were probably thinking in terms of the things you found and the locks you had to open. But when designing an escape room, it is helpful to think of the structure in terms of rooms¹ and boxes.

A room is, well, a room. It is a space in which players can roam. It also contains clues, items, and boxes as well as potential passages to other rooms and the exit. Boxes are containers that likewise contain clues and items.

Both rooms and boxes are opened by solving a puzzle that allows them to be opened (except, of course the room the players start in). From a design standpoint, rooms and boxes are very similar.

Once the rooms and boxes have been decided on (we will get to how to do that shortly), the elements can be arranged in a flow diagram that specifies the order in which players must solve them. Here is an example of how an escape room might be structured.

graph TB;
  R1[Room 1: Office Space] --> B1(Box 1: Formula) & B2(Box 2: 'Oregano' Stash)
  style R1 fill:#fee,stroke:#b66
  B1 & B2 --> R2[Room 2: Laboratory]
  R2 --> B3(Box 3: Lab Notes)
  style R2 fill:#fee,stroke:#b66
  B3 --> B4(Box 4: Secure Email) & B5(Box 5: Weapons)
  B4 & B5 --> E[Exit]
  style E fill:#fee,stroke:#b66

What makes organizing your escape room this way so important is that it allows you to ensure that the arrangement of items in your escape room is correct. In particular, the arrangement of items in your escape room must follow the following 2 rules.

1. The puzzle for any box or room must need only items that are accessible without the items in that box or room.
2. It should not be possible to open a box or room before its time.

Of these 2 rules, the first is the most important. If it is broken, the escape room cannot be solved. In the example above, Box 1 better not require an item that is located in Room 2. If that is the case, then the players will never be able to progress because they need Room 2 to open Box 1 but need Box 1 to open Room 2. Avoiding this situation is easy with the flowchart. Simply ensure that all the items required for the puzzle of any given box or room are located in an earlier node.

The second rule is a bit less important because violating it at least doesn’t get the players stuck. Still, you don’t really want the players to be able to open the exit without solving all of the previous puzzles. Also, the story comprising your escape room might make less sense if things are opened in the wrong order. And there may be cases where 2 locks need to be opened in a certain order. You should make sure the second cannot be opened before the first. This can be verified by making sure that the puzzle for every box and room requires at least one item from every node pointing directly to it.

Although the full flowchart is useful, in truth I rarely ever draw out the whole thing. It is simply too inconvenient during the design process when the structure is constantly shifting. Instead, I usually just write things out in a linear outline. The outline is a simple ordered list of rooms and boxes, like this.

An outline like this is easy to edit in a text editor or word processor. Also, it is easy to verify rule 1, any box/room needs items only from accessible boxes/rooms. To verify this, simply search each item in a puzzle and verify that it occurs earlier in the document. Rule 2, verifying that you cannot open a box/room too early, is a bit harder without the explicit flowchart. But you can once again check where the items that each puzzle requires are revealed and make sure that at least one of the items appears in a room or box that should be open first.

The Plot

Right now you might be thinking, Plot? I want to make escape rooms, not write stories. We’re already 3 pages into this stupid web site and we’re still talking about things like plot.

I admit that on the first time I set out to make an escape room, I didn’t give much credence to the story. But what I found is that the story is important for a couple of reasons. First, the story provides purpose for the players. It is what elevates the game above a simple puzzle collection.

Second, constructing the story early helps with the overall design of the escape room. The plot points of the story form the aforementioned rooms and boxes that structure the room. I’m constantly surprised how, once I come up with the basic plot structure, how quickly the rest of the escape room comes together. Simply having an idea of what each room and box will mean helps come up with creative ideas.

That’s not to say that the design of the escape room should be a linear process. After outlining the basics of the plot, I find it most useful to bounce back and forth from puzzle design to plot refinement and back. The plot points can provide inspiration for clever puzzle designs. And the design of puzzles can provide interesting refinements for the plot.

The Puzzles

Yes. Finally. The puzzles. The best part of any escape room.

The puzzles can be pretty much anything. And, of course, you’ll find lots of suggestions on the puzzles pages here. But, remember as you design puzzles that you are not creating the same variety of puzzles that you might find in, say, a book of crossword or Sudoku puzzles. So, here are some features of the best escape room puzzles.

• Lateral Thinking The best escape room puzzles are solved with a bit of lateral thinking. The puzzles comprise a collection of items and clues that on face value have no particular significance. But when looked at differently or put together in the right way, a secret meaning is revealed.
• Shortness The mechanics of the puzzle should not take a long time to complete. Players might take a long time to figure out to solve a hard puzzle, but once they achieve that “ah-ha” moment, the answer to the puzzle should be quick and self evident.
• Uniqueness Each puzzle in the escape room should be unique. In fact, none of the players should have ever seen any of the puzzles or anything like them.

When starting the puzzle design for your escape room, it is good to start by browsing puzzle suggestions from this site and others while keeping these features in mind. You can also get inspiration from any commercial escape rooms that you have done. As you think about potential puzzles, it is a good idea to keep a list of potential ideas, even if you do not yet have an idea where you will use it. You never know when inspiration will hit, and it is good to jot down ideas as they come before they are forgotten.

The Space

As you are designing your escape room, consider the space in which you are going to construct it. Presumably, you are going to repurpose one or more rooms of your house or other living space to do it.

You have probably noticed that in the general descriptions I have given so far, I often refer to multiple rooms. There is something pleasant about opening new spaces midway through the game. It keeps the game fresh and gives a nice indication of progress. That said, you are in no obligation to use more than one room if you so choose.

If you do decide to use multiple rooms, consider the options in your dwelling and decide how the players will move from one room to the next. Perhaps you are fortunate enough to have two adjacent rooms with a connecting door, which simplifies things. If you don’t have such a spot, you may need to improvise.

If you don’t have 2 adjoining rooms, don’t fret. DIY escape rooms are all about improvising. Perhaps you can find 2 rooms that are separated by a short walk down a hallway or by a jack-and-jill bathroom. You could potentially work the separating space into the escape room, or simply instruct the players to ignore things in between the rooms. Another option, if you have a large enough room, is to divide it into parts. One simple way to create a partition is to hang sheets from the ceiling or a clothesline.

Chances are, the rooms you are using are not empty. They will have furniture — tables, sofas, shelves, and the like. Some of these elements can be incorporated into the game if they fit. Otherwise, they can be moved off to the side. You can cover them with a sheet or simply instruct players they have no relevance to the escape room.

Playing the Escape Room

Once you’ve designed your escape room, built all your puzzles and props, set up everything in your rooms, and tested to make sure everything works, you are ready to play the game. The game operates with a proctor (that’s you, the designer of the game) and some number of players. 1-4 players at a time usually works best.

The proctor starts the game by going over the instructions of the game. These establish the ground rules. This will include some basic escape room stuff, like what type of locks are being used and how they are operated. But you will probably have extra instructions due to your improvisations. For example, I often lock boxes and doors using padlocks attached to string, so I always instruct the players to not untie any of the string; rather all puzzles should be solved by opening the padlock. This is also a good time to let players know of anything not part of the game (e.g. ignore anything in the cabinets).

With the rules out of the way, the proctor then describes the scenario. My preference is to keep this description short by telling the players only who they are, where they are, and what they are immediately doing. Something like, “The group of you have been summoned to your recently departed uncle’s old mansion at the top of the hill. You all stand to inherit a small fortune, but no one has yet found the will. Your lawyers have urged you to come here in hopes that you find the will and avoid a lengthy legal battle.” Remember that an escape room is also an interactive story, so the plot should progress and the stakes should be raised as the players progress (e.g. the will you find stipulates you must spend the night to inherit the fortune; you find that the mansion is actually filled with deadly traps; you discover that your uncle was deep into the occult and plans to sacrifice your souls to return to an immortal life).

From here on out, the players run the game. The proctor sits back and quietly monitors the players. One of the functions the proctor should perform is to ensure that the players do not accidentally (or intentionally) circumnavigate or break the puzzles. To win an escape room, players need to explore aggressively and use items in unconventional ways. That could lead players to do things you had not anticipated. For example, I once had a puzzle involving a key trapped in a mechanism that required a secondary object to fetch the key out. Instead, one of the players picked up the mechanism and shook out the key. Oops, that was missing the point. So, I said that, no, the mechanism is supposed to be affixed to the table, and you cannot lift it up. Then I reset the puzzle so the players could try again.

The other major function of the proctor is to provide hints when the players get stuck. Hints should be given sparingly; the big fun of playing an escape room is solving the puzzles. I personally find that after going through the setup for the game, I have a hard time keeping quiet about the puzzles, so I have to concentrate on sitting back and watching.

That said, the escape room gets frustrating if the players cannot figure out a puzzle. Once all the players agree that they need a hint, give one. Try to give a hint that nudges the players in the right direction without giving the solution outright. For example, if the players are struggling to decode a message, a hint might be to look for clues displayed around the room to help direct them to the item posted to the wall that provides the decoder.

Although the proctor does not get to play the game (you already know all the answers), administering an escape room is a fun and rewarding experience in its own right.