Escape rooms are a great rainy-day activity; a way to shut the world outside and lose yourself in a landscape of imagination where fantasy and logic collide. But what happens when the weather is so miserable that you can’t even face leaving the house? Or when you’re travelling, without an escape room in sight?
Top 10 Escape Rooms At Home Games
Ingenious game developers have found new ways to bring the escape room concept to your very own living room. From travel-friendly card games and board-ified escape rooms, to interactive tech hybrids with mysteries to solve your puzzle scratching itch, here’s a list of our top 10 ideas for escape room games you can play at home:
- Unlock
- Escape Room: The Game
- Unsolved
- ThinkFun Escape The Room
- DIY Escape Room
- Codenames
- Exit: The Game
- A Most Mysterious Convention
- Cluedo DVD Game
- Real Escape Room
1. Unlock
For those dipping their toes into the murky, addictive waters of breaking out of an escape room at home, ‘Unlock’ should be your first stop. It’s a thrilling, immersive game that blends good old fashioned playing cards with the modern tech of a (free) app to keep the game moving. Once you’ve downloaded it you won’t need Wifi to play, so it’s great for keeping families entertained on the go. Solve digital puzzles and visual clues in three separate scenarios, and watch the mystery come to life in front of you.
2. Escape Room: The Game
For some, a game isn’t a proper game unless there’s a central board for everyone to congregate around, with tiny little pieces that are always getting lost under sofas. If that sounds like you, ‘Escape Room: The Game’ is as literal as it gets. With boards presenting a birds-eye view of whichever room you’re trapped in, and a physical decoding machine that will have you feeling like Alan Turing, this is the closest home version to a real escape room you’ll find, with similar code-based puzzles to solve and get you ‘out’.
3. Unsolved
For the younger generation, the opposite may be true: a game isn’t a game unless there’s animation and a gaming device. Luckily for you, ‘Unsolved’ has solved at least one thing: the ability to bring escape room games to life in the digital sphere. This free video game app will have you putting on your detective hat to solve puzzles and undertake dangerous investigations in beautifully constructed landscapes.
4. ThinkFun Escape The Room
Clear some space on the floor and get ready for a truly escapist adventure in your living room, with this story-focused card game that combines addictive puzzle solving with immersive fantasy. On their website you’ll find themed playlists to accompany your experience, handy hints, and even costume suggestions, making it an inclusive escape room at home game for the whole family to get involved in.
5. DIY Escape Game
Done every single escape room there is to do? Or know someone who has? Then you can have a go at designing your own escape room. Look for hints from the experts, who’ll tell how you to transform your home into a temporary prison, bank or abandoned circus. The key, so to speak, is to have a compelling storyline, multiple, interlocking puzzles, and lots and lots of planning. That makes it a great escape room for couples as a thoughtful date night in, or a surprise, intimate birthday party.
6. Codenames
Getting out of an escape room is all about teamwork. If you’re cracking multiple puzzles at once, you have a better chance of getting yourselves out of there. So, put your abilities to the test with this escape-room adjacent card game that helps work out who’s on the same page, and who’s thinking in different circles. You’ll need two teams, with each picking a codebreaker(s), and a clue giver. See how many of the words in front of you coded ‘yours’ you can guess with a single word from your teammate, and try to get them all before the other team.
7. Exit: The Game
Trying to exit a game as soon as you’ve started it may be hard to get your head around, but these game masters have developed a series of escape room inspired board games that will have you hooked from the get go. You’ll discover some truly intriguing riddles in a game you could easily spend an evening deciphering, and brush up on your logic-solving skills so you can tackle even the world’s hardest escape rooms. Choose from one of the game maker’s many themes for your mastermind activities, from a Lord of the Rings theme to a tropical, forgotten island.
8. Cluedo DVD Game
If the 3D drama is what makes an escape room game fun for you, then this DVD version of Cluedo offers some seriously interactive, impressively graphic mystery – well, as much as early noughties animation will allow. It might be old enough to be called vintage now, but as long as you’ve still got a DVD player, you’ll find it just as fun as when it first came out 20 years ago. The game operates with a physical board and additional insights on screen, with a snarky butler helping you discover the who, what, when, and where of a theft in the mansion. You’ll travel through secret passageways and be summoned by the digital characters in a fourth-wall breaking detective game.
9. A Most Mysterious Convention
What says quiet, chilled out Sunday afternoon like a pounding sense of panic as you watch the clock ticking in fear you may not make it out in time? You can order most things to your home, and now, escape rooms are no exception. Purchase your game online with Arcadium Adventures, and the Brisbane-based company will send a wax-sealed letter across the country to your address, with a secret message to decode and start your game. Solve it with your household or alone, and let the mystery unravel…
10. Real Escape Room
Let’s be honest, there’s no alternative that even comes close to beating the real thing. The sounds, the smells, the knowledge that you truly are in an unfamiliar place, and the tiniest sense of danger that you might really be trapped in the room is what sparks the adrenalin that makes physical escape rooms so unforgettable. So don’t fight it, book a slot in Australia’s oldest escape room, and see how well you’ve practised at home.
Final Thoughts On Escape Rooms At Home
For the rainiest of rainy days, or games to keep your brain’s hunger for logic satisfied between visits, these top 10 escape rooms to play at home should have provided some inspiration, with something for all ages and ability levels. But ultimately, who are we to deny that there’s anything more fun than being ‘locked’ in a room with no windows, and forcing your way out with those you love most?
Check out our fan-favourite escape rooms as well as our family-friendly escape experiences. And, if you’re after something really different, or for the escape room nerd who’s done them all, discover our brand new ‘Fractured’ escape room, our hardest yet.
If you’re not sure what level you may be at, or just want to learn a little more about the escape rooms we offer and how they operate, contact us today and we’ll be happy to answer your questions.
