Self-confessed escape room fanatic? Or successfully completed all the escape rooms in your local area and wondering how hard it is to make one up for yourself?
If you’re keen to find out how to make an escape room at home, great news! We’re award-winning escape room designers, and we’re thrilled that you love escape rooms (almost) as much as we do. We’re excited to share our expert insights with you, so read on to find out how to make an escape room at home from scratch for friends and family to enjoy.
Without further ado, here’s how to make an escape room at home for beginners.
1. Make a game that’s fun to play
It might seem obvious, but between all the thought and planning that goes into designing an escape room, alongside creating the puzzles themselves, it’s easy to get wrapped up in the technical side of things. Make sure your game is fun for your friends and family to play. If the difficulty level is too high or the narrative is too complicated, your players might struggle to keep up or lose interest.
The simplest answer is to figure out whether the game would be fun for you to play. If you find yourself getting bored or stressed when working through the escape room experience you’ve designed, add a couple more thrills. We recommend choosing a gripping storyline so that your players are invested from the get-go, be it a jungle safari gone wrong, a bank vault robbery, or anything your imagination can come up with! Don’t overcomplicate the plotline to the point your group becomes unsure of what they’re actually trying to achieve. Immersive lighting, audio and budget special effects can really amp up the drama, without making the storyline too difficult to follow along with.
This ties into the success rate. Design a game that works with the players, not against them. Set them up for a good chance of success. If less than 10% of players escape your room, they won’t have the satisfaction of escaping (or almost escaping), and be much less likely to recommend it.
2. Think about your players when designing the puzzles
Of course you can solve your puzzles and escape your own room within 30 minutes – you designed it! For players encountering your challenge or attending an escape room for the first time, it will take longer to wrap their heads around the wording of the tasks and clues, as well as the objectives and game flow. Remember that the added pressure of a time limit can make it harder to think straight and solve what might look like a straightforward puzzle to you.
Therefore, don’t hike up the difficulty level unless you notice players racing through the games without spending much mental effort. Conversely, if groups are always asking for hints or clues during the same part of the game or on one specific puzzle, this is your sign that a tweak needs to be made for this section of the game to be more understandable.
3. Combine general knowledge with room-specific clues
Your game design should be accessible and satisfying to play. That means all the information needed to solve the puzzles should be contained within the room – or it’s reasonable to expect someone in the group would already possess it. For example, knowledge of the first few prime numbers is relatively common, but you can’t expect your players to understand Morse code. Therefore, if one of your puzzles does involve Morse code, you should have a Morse code sheet somewhere in the room.
Follow this principle throughout your room. Players like to be challenged – but they must have the information to solve the puzzles. If it’s not general knowledge, provide it. Fail to do so, and your players will end up frustrated and more likely to break props and objects in the pursuit of solutions.
4. Avoid misleading information & dubious clues
Red herrings are fun in movies when you’re cheering on the detective, but when you’re the one holding the magnifying glass and you’ve only got an allotted time slot to play, they can be frustrating and demotivate players. Wasting a player’s time with misleading narratives will alienate and confuse your teams, so try to make sure each clue and solution follows a logical flow. This can be hard to do and requires a lot of patience and well-considered thought, but it is essential if you want a smooth-running experience.
Let the players create their own misleading game progressions. It’s your job as the game designer to build a satisfying experience that guides the players through the game as best you can and step in to provide the clues if they end up going down completely the wrong track.
5. Include each item to apply to one puzzle only
If you introduce objects, codes or clues to apply to more than one puzzle, you open up the door (only figuratively, of course!) for players to want to try every object to solve every puzzle, which quickly becomes a giant game of trial and error. Of course, this defeats the point of escape rooms, which is to test logic, puzzle-solving skills and teamwork.
Look at everything you’ve put in your escape room with a critical eye, and remove any information or objects that people might fall down a rabbit hole into trying to decipher. For example, barcodes might be interpreted as codes, so make sure everything is there for a purpose.
Make sure that heavy and bulky items are firmly attached to the wall or the ground. Players might be tempted to check behind a bookcase or under a rug. But the focus should be on solving a variety of puzzles, rather than simply ‘finding’ information hidden in concealed places. Of course, this falls into the general advice of making sure your room is safely designed, and not at risk of causing injury to your players!
Our tips on designing an escape room at home
We hope you’ve gathered some insight on how to make an escape room at home. Here are our tips in summary:
- Design a game that is primarily a fun experience for your players, whether or not they are experienced players or manage to escape.
- Match up your difficulty level with your players’ real-life experiences of the game, and make tweaks to hit the sweet spot of challenging but satisfying puzzles.
- Make sure all the information necessary to understand the clues and solve them is contained within the room if it’s not general knowledge.
- Generally, it’s best to restrict each item or prop to be relevant for one puzzle in the room only.
- Secure large furniture and decorations to avoid confusion and create a safe escape room environment.
Follow these game design tips, and you’ll be able to create an escape room full of all sorts of puzzles and challenges that anyone can enjoy, whether this is their first escape room experience or they’ve tried every pro game before.
Want to check out one of our escape rooms first for inspiration on how to blend a seamless storyline into practical puzzle-solving?
Book a slot today, or chat to one of our friendly team members via email to find out more about our escape room experiences.
