You are a fan of Escape Rooms and you would like to realize one in your home ? It’s much easier than what you think.
No matter if it’s for your children’s birthday party, a night out with friends or a weekend with your family, there are many opportunities to transform your home into a real playground and turn your house or flat into a real Escape Room.
And why not at school or even at work ? Let your imagination run wild and stimulate team spirit !
Are you ready to create your own Escape Room ? The one you will share with your family, friends, classmates and colleagues ? Let’s start !
The hardest part can begin !
It takes concentration, a lot of creativity and, above all, a lot of organisation to create the universe of the game and the puzzles that will allow the participants to reach the final goal.
Let’s be honest : creating a DIY (Do It Yourself) Escape Room takes time, concentration and a bit of expertise. Don’t expect to make it right the first time. But it’ s fun to do. So be brave and follow the instructions in the guide !
Setting up your own Escape Room is an exciting project, especially if you’ve never done it before. But it’s a mission you can succeed in if you follow a few rules.
Let’s start by not being too ambitious and limit our first game to 30 minutes instead of an hour.
Using this method, you can explore the whole process of creating an Escape Room without spending months on it. And if you can keep your players busy for 30 minutes, you’ve already done the biggest part of the work.
So let’s start !
PS : If your friends are coming tomorrow, or if your children’s birthday party is in a week, don’t lose time and download and print one of our many Escape Rooms !
This is the easiest and funniest part. Enjoy it !
Think about the type of adventure you like and that you want your participants to experience. Don’t hesitate to imagine the craziest themes !
Look to your favourite films, books and TV shows for inspiration. Or even from physical Escape Rooms you’ve done in the past. Everything is possible !
Choose a universe that you like and know, it will guarantee a realistic game. And don’t forget : the ultimate goal is to create a challenge.
Once you have defined your theme, go on Pinterest or Google Images and search for a dozen ideas of objects and characters related to your theme. This initial list will represent the basic elements and actors involved in your scenario.
A pocket watch covered in blood and fingerprints for a detective scenario, a mad doctor for a Zombie scenario, Polaroids for your hungover morning in Las Vegas, animal tracks for an ecological adventure… It’s up to you, let your imagination speak. And little by little, your universe will be shaped.
Now that you have a theme and characters, you will need to imagine a triggering event and an ending to your Escape Room.
This may seem obvious, but it’s often forgotten!
Be creative and avoid the cliché of “prisoners trying to escape from the best kept prison in the country” (seen too often).
For example :
Rob a safe in the house of a rich businessman.
Become a hacker and try to steal the FBI database.
Save the life of someone bitten by a Zombie by giving him or her an antidote.
If this is your first game and you are designing a printable Escape Room, reduce the scenario to one room. This will help you to keep the game under control.
This is the moment when your overall scenario starts.
Write down all the different stages of your scenario on Post-It notes and lay them out like a flowchart to represent what is going to happen, where and when. As most Escape Rooms have many actions taking place in parallel, this method will help you to be organised in this important stage of your game’s creation.
Each of these Post-It notes will then become a challenge or a puzzle to progress the game. Now, let’s be honest, you’ll change your challenges and puzzles several times before you get the right scenario, but you have to start somewhere !
This is probably the most complex part of creating your Escape Room. Turning a simple story into a series of puzzles or challenges is not a simple task.
Choose different coloured Post-It notes to mark the objects to be discovered or used to advance the story (finding the key to a chest for example, or deciphering a message). This will help you a lot.
Congratulations ! You’ve arrived here !
Your world has become familiar and you know what your story is going to look like, the objective of the game and its triggering event.
Now you’ll have to think of the puzzles to solve and the challenges to face at each step. You’ll see, this is a really fun part of creating your home Escape Room.
Start by writing a quick description of the puzzle or challenge on each Post-It note in your scenario.
Tip : Pinterest is full of examples of riddles and puzzles.
Make sure that everything is logically connected to avoid an incoherent game with no logic.
Now it’s time to create the most simplified version of your game (symbolise the accessories, don’t get into the background elements, etc.) which you will test with your friends.
Test the whole game and all the puzzles and challenges with 3 or 4 groups of friends to make sure that everything is logical, understandable and realistic.
Use the opportunity to time the solution of the puzzles and the duration of the entire Escape Room. Also make sure you are close to the 30 minutes (to start with).
Once the game and its puzzles are “validated”, you can focus on the details and the addition of accessories that will improve your Escape Room.
There you have it, you have successfully completed all the steps involved in creating a home-made Escape Room, well done ! Now all you have to do is start the first game !
As you can see, creating your own Escape Room at home takes time, imagination and organisation. If you want to simplify your task and enjoy the expertise of our specialised creative teams, don’t hesitate to have a look at our Escape Kits downloadable and printable.
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