Unfair Hiding Places

Discovering a clue in a fun, unexpected place can be very rewarding. However, it is extremely frustrating to get stuck because you are missing an important clue and cannot move forward. Before thinking about where to place items, it is best to first consider where they should not be hidden. Here we will consider the best practices when placing items in the room.

These, of course, are only suggestions that I try to follow when placing items. If you and your players like difficult Easter egg hunts and want to make that part of the games, you can hide things in more difficult places. But it is important that eventually players will be able to find all the items and identify what is and is not part of the game.

Establish bounds

When making a DIY escape room in your home, not every object and space that you use for day-to-day life will be part of the game. When setting up the escape room, make it clear from the beginning what is part of the game and what is not.

Likely, you will not be using every room in your home for your escape room. Make sure it is clear to the players which rooms they will be using. This can be done by making simple barriers such as closing doors or hanging sheets. Alternately, you can simply tell the players which rooms will be in bounds.

You probably don’t have empty rooms in your house just waiting to build an escape room. (I don’t.) There might be shelves or cabinets that hold books, knickknacks, crockery, etc. It is best to keep these separate from the game, especially if they don’t match the theme of the game. Once again, you can cover up these items with a sheet or just let players know to ignore those items.

Don’t encourage players to tear apart the room

One of the reasons to make clear where objects might be is to discourage players from ransacking the room. You don’t need the hassle of players pulling cushions off of a couch, removing sheets off of a bed, upturning chairs, or otherwise moving furniture around. In addition to being a pain to clean up afterwards, such actions could interfere with the game itself.

Thus, avoid hiding objects in places that are not in open spaces or obvious containers (like drawers, cabinets, or boxes). Don’t shove objects under a couch or in its cushions. Don’t hide things in sheets or under a mattress. If a clue could be hidden in any nook or cranny, players will need to pull the place apart to find them.

Players should be able to easily reach objects

You don’t want players climbing over furniture to reach things. That will just encourage players to move furniture around, which you don’t want, or hurt themselves climbing over furniture, which you also don’t want. Thus, don’t place anything on top of furniture or shelves that are out of reach of players. That way you can inform players at the start that they won’t need to climb to reach anything and remind them if they attempt it.

Likewise, it’s not great to have players crawling underneath tables, chairs, or beds (unless that is specifically part of the puzzle). I usually avoid hiding things underneath furniture.

Make it clear which objects are part of the game

As players inspect objects in the game, it should be clear which ones are part of the game and will be used to solve puzzles. Granted, not every object will be part of a puzzle. There will likely be props or other items that serve no specific purpose. But there should be a limited amount of items players need to deal with. It’s not fair to make players go through a hundred books or other objects on shelves with no clues about which ones are important.

Breaking the rules as part of a puzzle

As stated at the beginning, the suggestions here are not unbreakable rules. It is up to you to choose how difficult finding objects needs to be. That said, these suggestions can also be broken if there is another clue, such as a message or map, to lead players to find the object. In that case, the challenge is not finding the object but solving the puzzle that leads to the object. You can place an object out of reach if there is a tool to reach it. I have also suggested avoiding having players crawl over or under objects. But, of course, this does not apply if you want to add physical tasks, perhaps as part of the theme, that players need to complete.