Hanging Boss

An engaging story for an escape room will have the players working together to overcome an imperative adversity. This might involve defeating a particular person or beast. This hanging boss provides a method to reveal and then defeat the “boss.”

Game Play

The hanging boss starts mounted on the ceiling. It should be unrecognizable and out of reach. If players try to interact with it directly, remind them not to pull things off the ceiling.

The hanging boss actually serves the function of two boxes, each with its own puzzle and each revealed with a lock on a hook pulley. The first lock drops the tail end of the boss. The boss will become unfurled and hang from a second string from the ceiling. The boss can be a figurine (such as a Halloween decoration), a cardboard cutout, or some other physical representation.

When the boss is revealed, a clue is also presented. It could be an item dropped when the tail of the boss is lowered, or it could be written on the boss so that it is only visible once the boss is revealed.

The second and final lock on a second hook pulley drops the entire boss to the floor, signifying its defeat. Now that the boss is on the floor, the players can access a clue mounted to the top.

Setup

The setup of the hanging boss is done in the reverse order that it is solved. Its head is first hung in place, and then the bottom is pulled up to the ceiling.

The first step is to mount the contents of the second “box” on the boss’s head. An easy way to do this is to punch a hole in an envelope and place the clue(s) inside of the envelope. Feed a string through the hole in the envelope and tie it to the boss’s head.

From here, loop the string around a hook pulley in the ceiling and suspend the boss by connecting the other end of the string to a fixed object in the room through a padlock. (See the hook pulley puzzle for more details on setting up the figure so that it can be dropped once the padlock is opened.)

Once the boss is hanging in place, tie a second string to the bottom of it. If the boss is made of fabric, it can help to attach a safety pin to the fabric and tie the string to the pin. Then, feed the string through a hook pulley, pull the entire boss up to the ceiling. Mount it to a fixed object through a second padlock. Make sure the strings for the head and tail do not get tangled with each other. Once the boss is in place, place any items for the first “box” on top or rolled inside. They should stay in place until the tail is dropped, at which time the items should fall to the floor.