Follow Path

In this simple puzzle, players are given a drawn maze with a clear start and finish. Embedded within the maze are numbers or letters.

To solve this puzzle, players must follow the path from start to finish. Standard maze rules apply: no crossing lines, no back tracking. The maze should have a single, well defined path. One path leads from start to finish with all other turns leading to dead ends. This path from start to finish will pass through a sequence of numbers/letters.

The sequence of numbers/letters forms the code. In this example, the code is ENTER.

You can construct the maze yourself, but there exist many free maze generators online that will easily construct one for you.

Maze Directions

This puzzle involves a simple maze. The maze should be relatively small and only have right-angled turns. Here is an example.

The path from start to finish involves moving in straight lines to the left, right, up, or down directions.

The directions used to solve this maze are used in combination with a directional lock. The lock is moved in the same directions as the path used to solve the maze.

So, in this example, the correct path goes right, up, left, up, left, down, right. The directional lock is moved in these directions to open it.

Although the maze could specify the start and finish directly as in the example above, the puzzle can be worked into a room by adding multiple labels of different locations. Here is an example of using the previous maze as an interconnection of rooms.

In this case, there needs to be a hint to direct players from the “office space” to “manufacturing.” The directions they take for that are entered into the directional lock.

Map Trace

This puzzle first involves a map. The map can be mounted on the wall or made available in a box. The map can be of real or imaginary places. It can be global or for a local area. It does not matter but the location and scale should match the theme of the escape room.

For the example below, I am using a digital world map provided by the UN. This map likely has more detail than is easily printed for use by players. For a world map, consider using a commercially printed map. You might already have a large-format world map in your house. Or perhaps you have a globe. Or you might even have a board game with a convenient map printed on its board such as Risk or Pandemic.

The second clue of this puzzle involves a collection of locations on this map. The players might find multiple airline tickets with the following departures and destinations. (They are shown in a table here for brevity, but it will be more interesting to provide each of these transfers on their own card.)

An optional third component of this puzzle is a hint for the proper order of the locations. In this example, the connections of the departures to arrivals trace out a path. Another clue could be to assign a date to each location or order by some property of the locations (such as population). If players are expected to reorder them, it is best to provide each location on a separate card to make sorting easier. For a simpler puzzle, simply provide the list of locations in the proper order.

Given the clue above, the order in which the locations were visited are as follows.

Once the players have determined the proper order of locations, they have to trace out the path on the provided map.

A key feature of this path is that each segment goes primarily in a cardinal direction: north, south, east, or west. In this example, the path goes south, east, north, east, north, west.

This sequence of directions is finally used to open a directional lock with the directions corresponding to the directions on the map. In this case, the lock opens up with the code down, right, up, right, up, left.