I would like to create some sort of puzzle hunt for my local park, but I don't want the player to have to come with anything other than what they already have on them... so probably just a cell phone. I'm thinking that finding and scanning QR codes is likely the least invasive trail that can be left, but I would likely have to host some sort of website or find a free service. This also seems to limit the types of puzzles that I might be able to include because the player won't be able to hold an object or manipulate a puzzle and I don't want them to have to go find pencil and paper to solve things.

Has anyone seen or created one of these types of outdoor puzzle hunts? All of my searches seem to only show scavenger hunts, but I would like the player to solve puzzles to lead to the next location, then find the next QR clue, until some sort of end. We have lots of nature and other signs that I could use for building strings of text from and we have some locations that should be easy to decipher, like playground slides and tennis courts, etc.

Does anyone have an idea on what could be a fun finish? Would it just be a picture of a treasure or maybe I could take a picture of a treasure box at that site and link to it through the final QR code. Maybe even work that into the story or something.

The start would likely be on a half sheet of paper behind the entrance kiosk, so I don't expect a lot of room to explain things other than "MISSING TREASURE, CAN YOU HELP!?" or similar to lure people into scanning and starting.

Thanks for any ideas or for sharing similar puzzle hunts that you've come across!

I love escape rooms and similar immersive games like Five Wits and Level 99. I've written big, immersive games for 150+ people for a summer camp, small escape rooms for my before and after school care kids, and now my partner (in life and in games) are trying our hands at a "Cold Case" style mystery kit. I have some long flights coming up, and I'd love to read a book on craft - escape rooms, interactive narratives, anything adjacent that you find useful.

So: what books have you found useful in your game writing?

Hey. Just got into this hobby and building my daughter a puzzle room for her birthday. She loves the show stranger things and Supernatural so I’m doing a mystery involving chickens and aliens where a young girl is missing and rumor is she’s abducted by aliens. Spoiler ALERT she’s the alien and using chickens to incubate aliens on earth. For the reveal I wanted to include a solar system of planets aligning on a cheap solar system model to reveal a color. A clue earlier in the game in a newspaper reveals a horoscope with a key to how to align the planets but I’m not sure how to DIY what the passcode or clue gained from this effect could be. I thought about putting a letter on each planet that when they are aligned a certain way it spells the password or doing a shadow effect when they are arranged the shadow cast on the wall spells out something. But I can’t figure out a clever way to do this that feels magical since it’s the last puzzle. Any thoughts or ideas? Trying to make none of my hints or mechanisms automated. Want it all to be self led and easy enough for a group of preteens.

Bonus ask: anyway to do a two way mirror effect that reveals an alien stuffed animal behind a mirror box once a button or light switch turns on. The idea of a girl being an alien would be a cool reveal and prize at the end of the game.

Last minute plea for help!

I'm hosting a Dog Man themed kids' birthday party tomorrow. The end of the party includes a scavenger hunt for Dog Man themed items that we created (Petey's Secret Lab, a cloning machine, etc), and each item has a letter attached to it.

When they've collected the letters, the kids unscramble them to spell a code word to defuse a "bomb" to get their party favors.

My plan was to have a simple computer program that lets them enter the code, and an incorrect code turns the screen red while a correct code turns it green.

However, my computer programmer (not me, by any stretch) fell through and I don't have this final piece.

Any new suggestions for an easy/fun/interactive way to have them enter the code?

Please use this thread to have discussions which you don't feel warrant a new post to the sub. While the Rules for posting questions are relaxed a little bit here, the rules against spam/self-promotion/excessive rudeness still apply!

This puzzle is for a custom escape room for a specific group - NOT a public room. I know the practical implications of this puzzle are not suitable for public, that is not an issue for my group. I just need some ideas on how to implement the mechanics here.

I would like a puzzle that requires someone to cuff themselves (using police-style handcuffs, or leather ones, whichever I can figure out a solution for) to trigger a lock to open. I'm trying to work out how to detect both that the cuff is closed, and that there is a wrist in it. The puzzle might work with a prop hand or similar as well as/instead of the player's own wrist, depending on our eventual implementation of the room as a whole, but either way I need to be able to tell that the cuff is closed AROUND something, not just closed.

My team has software and hardware experience, and access to common electronics tools. I can make or commission custom cuffs to install the hardware into if needed. I just can't think of a way to implement this.

The experience is monitored, so I COULD cheat with a button on the monitor's side that they push when the conditions are met, but I really want to do this right if I can...

I love making escape rooms and constructed adventures and try and always include something that gives a big exciting moment of wow! So far things that have had a big reaction have included:

- Using Red lensed glasses so that random text on a wall seems to magically reveal a message.
- Hiding something inside a big block of ice, that the players got to smash to get it out.
- Collecting multiple ingredients for a potion that when mixed together changed colour.

I was wondering what else people had done that got a big reaction?

After completing the Christmas Carol adventure I created, my sister asked if I would help her construct an adventure for my brother in law for his 40th birthday next year. She told me he loves WWII and Churchill in particular. Because I am not an expert in this area (and bc I don’t really want to do a ton of research before I even begin making the adventure) I’m leaning toward a secret agency vetting him to be recruited as a spy in WWII.

I’m gathering ideas for a WWII spy adventure, and wondered if there are any time-period appropriate gambits that I need to include. The only ones I’ve thought of so far are to get a radio channel (fm transmitter), and probably something in Morse code…?

TLDR: hit me with your ol’timey spy ideas (~1940)! ☺️

We're having a party at our house, and I put together an optional puzzle hunt type game. This is meant to be a light puzzle game, as this is primarily a party. I don't want it so easy that it's boring, though.

I'd appreciate feedback! Maybe it'll even be fun for you =)

Here's how it'll work:

• Upon entering, guests will see a wall with a sign that reads, "Who is Pranksy?" and a little note saying start here. Underneath will be multiple copies of a newspaper article taped up with blue paint. Each player can take one and read it to get started.
  • Article
• There is also a sign that reads "Donor Wall" above our 9-picture picture frame. Each picture is a portrait.
  • See Slide 1 of Posters file for arrangement of Donor Wall portraits
  • Close Ups of Portraits
• Around the room will be various artworks taped up each with a little placard like in a museum. The placards are all on a single slide in the Posters file but the text is copied and pasted in the speaker notes of each piece as well.
  • Posters file - read the speaker notes for more information.
  • Bring to Light - This one piece is not in the Posters file.

You don't actually have to print out anything except the article and the Bring to Light artwork.

Thank you so much! I hope you enjoy it! Any and all feedback, especially on whether the clues are too obvious, which puzzles were most/least fun and why, and overall enjoyability =)

Edited to add: Thanks to Pedja Banovic who wrote A Compendium of Meta-Puzzles. I took one of the puzzles directly from that book and borrowed from it and elsewhere for another one.

Hey y'all,

Long time lurker here. I'm looking to start a new career in the summer or fall and would like to start a constructed adventure company in my tourist town. I'm planning for the company to do both in person adventures and have an all-digital adventure side which is self sufficient.

What I'm envisioning is each adventure has a starting spot IRL and adventurers will have to answer questions or input the correct response to be able to get to the next question or clue. They'll have to move IRL to different locations to find answers and things.

Does anyone have any recommendations for how to get started specifically on the digital adventure side? I don't want to develop an app. I think browser based is best. Is this even feasible? I want this to work so badly! Thanks for any support or recommendations you have!

Yesterday I bought a digital drum kit. I had an idea that I should be able to use the midi signals from the drums to control stuff, through an arduino. I've never done anything like it before but it worked almost as I thought it would. I'm planning on building an Escape Room where this drum kit will be in it.

So now I have an arduino that reads each hit and what pad is being hit. But I don't know what to do whit it.

Is there anyone here that have any fun ideas? Since it's an arduino the possibilities are "endless", almost too many. :p Thanks.

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For my partners birthday, I plan on having them go through a "amazing race" style scavenger hunt (but smaller and wayyy more local lol). A challenge I found online includes digging through a pound and a half of cooked spaghetti to find a quarter with his birth year on it, with 20 other coins mixed into it, while blindfolded. The teammate will need to inspect the coin and make sure they find one from his birth year to get the next clue. This seems fun, but I hate the idea of wasting so much spaghetti, especially if many teams participate.

Does anyone have any substitutions that come to mind for the spaghetti? Should I think if a new challenge instead?

I'd really appreciate any help! Happy to share the whole plan if people are interested but I'd have to DM you to make sure my partner doesn't see it since I know they broke reddit occasionally.

Recently I started to create my own ARG to my TTRPG campaign, and need some help with an specific kind of image puzzle.

I saw that kind of puzzle somewhere, but I can't remember exactly where. It goes like this: there a set of images, one of them is a PNG of an specific object, such as a magnifying glass, and the other one(s) a normal image, sometimes blank. The puzzle requires you to open both images in photoshop, and then rover the first over the latter, revealing something hidden in the image.

Sorry if I couldn't describe it correctly, English isn't my first language. Thx I'm advance :)

Escape room ideas for a nursing school

Heya people !

I'm the super proud creator of the game club in my school and I need your help 🫶

1. Any advice on how to actually piece together the room ?🧩 I already have a few ideas of puzzle but I'm having a hard time putting them together in a non linear and fun way !

2. Any ideas of vaguely medical related puzzles ?👩🏼‍⚕️I already have my initial scenario (see below)

I'm a nursing student and whilst the escape room is not meant to be educational, I'd like it to remain medical themed. Just a quick note that I am quite handy and have access to really cool things like laser cutters and 3D printers so I can get things custom made !

The initial scenario is this: [There is a neuroscientist who developed brain chips to restimulate neuropathways to treat degenerative diseases like Alzeihmers... But the company she works for turns her research to make a new generation of more influenceable soldiers. She discovers the treachery and tries to expose it but gets discovered. As they are trying to break in, she calls 911, and a first team is dispatched (aka a couple of players). However, that first team goes unheard from for several hours and a second team goes in (aka the rest of the people). They find their team mates handcuffed to the bed and, as they approach to enter the room, everything goes dark and the door locks. A phone rings in the darkness and a voice menacingly tells them that all traitors will be eradicated in one hour]

I'm super new to this but it's so mentally stimulating to create games ! I hope you can help me out a bit 😁😋

Cheers !

For Christmas 2024, I took a step back from a larger adventure for the whole family, instead opting for two small adventures for each of my parents to find their joint gift. There wasn't much exciting for gifts this year, so I used some of them as the foundation of the adventure. Their first clues were found with their first gifts - setting them on their own paths.

- -- -- - MOM'S PATH - -- -- -

First Gift: Alice in Wonderland jigsaw puzzle

Mom Step #1:

Activity: Wordsearch (identify the female investigators)

https://preview.redd.it/a45eogueufde1.jpg?width=3024&format=pjpg&auto=webp&s=0d56a7fbb8c842a529a0bff829fa2e764eab968c

Solution: Remaining letter spell Nancy Drew
Next Location: with the Nancy Drew books
Gift: Nancy Drew jigsaw puzzle

https://preview.redd.it/n4o5odueufde1.jpg?width=4284&format=pjpg&auto=webp&s=a7a8426122f240fda007afbc4cf7792ada0fd011

https://preview.redd.it/dg4e0eueufde1.jpg?width=4032&format=pjpg&auto=webp&s=811cf244a2aee7600b66a4b2bdef7e2be1f5ebac

Mom Step #2:

Activity: Maze (connect pairs) + crossword with no clues

https://preview.redd.it/n8f1vkpoufde1.jpg?width=3024&format=pjpg&auto=webp&s=f6351cf4d809f4f72117ae23fc354cccbbac43e4

Solution: Joining paths make letters spelling TEACUPS when ordered ascending
Next Location: teacup collection
Gift: Alice in Wonderland tea

https://preview.redd.it/45d3nlpoufde1.jpg?width=4284&format=pjpg&auto=webp&s=32b5ac22b3e80ac582f3ced826efc5d615bc85f5

https://preview.redd.it/8qgirlpoufde1.jpg?width=2972&format=pjpg&auto=webp&s=694cd12b347ed76c57dcb011e855b7f6b93c768d

Mom Step #3:

Activity: Crossword puzzle

https://preview.redd.it/19p12lpoufde1.jpg?width=2975&format=pjpg&auto=webp&s=de241c5c8acca225723dc52ee74746c1ba1b4a59

https://preview.redd.it/vam3slpoufde1.jpg?width=3024&format=pjpg&auto=webp&s=a2b0ba9e00380e1834ffcb4e15097c3581cc864c

Solution: Unscrambled highlighted letters spell CATEGORY and all the answers are types of pies*
Next Location: pie plates 
Gift: Pie jigsaw puzzle
*The answer to one clue was incorrect - I didn’t fact check. But my dad said the wrong answer as confidently as I felt making it, so I felt justified. Can you find the mistake?

https://preview.redd.it/bnlxglpoufde1.jpg?width=4284&format=pjpg&auto=webp&s=99065e86cb18791d630619ecd1f7cab4b352dd9e

https://preview.redd.it/hcyodlpoufde1.jpg?width=4032&format=pjpg&auto=webp&s=67adf8698dbf8271ada952bdb30556f7a2fd7b55

Mom Step #4:

Activity: Combine these letters with another set 
Solution: see Final Step below
Gift: see Final Step below

- -- -- - DAD'S PATH - -- -- -

First Gift: Two jars of nuts 

Dad Step #1:

Activity: Wordsearch (identify the male detectives)

https://preview.redd.it/p28lgat8vfde1.jpg?width=4284&format=pjpg&auto=webp&s=c6fdc0ddd6227e095aedda1f94ababec29110e1a

https://preview.redd.it/vdwhnat8vfde1.jpg?width=1674&format=pjpg&auto=webp&s=5cb5bf9e166331ad246902e26744b0e60b1c01df

Solution: Remaining letters spell Hardy Boys 
Next Location: with the Hardy Boys books
Gift: murder mystery books

https://preview.redd.it/ep7nsbt8vfde1.jpg?width=4284&format=pjpg&auto=webp&s=450dd5e9a22e8b6d6e821d9bf42ed72e249ba7bf

https://preview.redd.it/b8ndkat8vfde1.jpg?width=3024&format=pjpg&auto=webp&s=580356bf8f19c3d8b871262ca2dc21f8cd14394c

Dad Step #2:

Activity: Crossword based on identify types of nuts 

https://preview.redd.it/x6y88ct8vfde1.jpg?width=3024&format=pjpg&auto=webp&s=c8c6a0cdfe4cafeb737fbe54a49ee2ef226cfa2e

Solution: Highlighted letters spells STAIRCASE
Next Location: Nutcracker on staircase
Gift: n/a

https://preview.redd.it/izduwat8vfde1.jpg?width=4284&format=pjpg&auto=webp&s=8453710b7683a374de9323d30523b2ce80599279

Dad Step #3:

Activity: Combine these letters with another set 
Solution: see Final Step below
Gift: see Final Step below

Final Step:

When slid together, the letters spell ‘boxed words’. On the previous puzzles, two words were in boxes (ignoring, of course, the many boxed words in the crossword puzzles). SUIT from Follow Suit and CASE from Nutcrack the Case.

https://preview.redd.it/wtr24dt8vfde1.jpg?width=3005&format=pjpg&auto=webp&s=60f0ad5be8e3523ee8b88538cf5d4cba10cc0789

From here, I produced a hidden new suitcase (a gift) that contained other smaller gifts for them that didn’t match a puzzle/location. 

That’s all!

I am doing an escape room type party for my friend and one of the puzzles I want to do is a math type puzzle where the answers will resemble words. For example 13y looks like the word "by" and 1001c resembles "look" (I think this idea comes across better when written by hand). I'm trying to come up with more words but I'm drawing a blank, if you have any suggestions or know what this is called please let me know! TIA

Please use this thread to have discussions which you don't feel warrant a new post to the sub. While the Rules for posting questions are relaxed a little bit here, the rules against spam/self-promotion/excessive rudeness still apply!

Hi! I have been thinking of an adventure like one of these ever since I was a kid (in my 20s now), and just tonight I found out there was an actual community for this stuff. So I’m basically going in blind. I want to create a kinda darkweb/cryptic themed adventure for a few of my friends, comp sci and mechanical engineers mostly, and I need help with gambits and resources for such an adventure. Digital decodes and ”hacker” themed clues and stuff.

Has anyone here done such an adventure? Do any of you have any tips?

Hey there!

If you frequent this subreddit you will know that on the Constructed Adventures Discord channel we do puzzle hunts! If you have participated before or are brand new and want to give it a try, here's another chance!

The MIT Mystery Hunt kicks off This Friday January 17th and runs through the weekend

So hop in and register a team (if you'd like) or you can join The Constructed Adventures team in the Discord community!

We would love to get as many people to help out for as much or as little as you want! (Feel free to jump in and out! You are under no obligation if things get busy or you aren't interested)

New members are always encouraged to join. We're an inclusive and encouraging bunch.

YOU DON’T HAVE TO BE EXPERIENCED AT SOLVING PUZZLES TO PARTICIPATE. Remember: The first step at being good at something is being bad at it. Besides, you never know what life experiences you've had that might help make a solve!

We hope to see you over on the Discord Channel where we will organize and share a collective Google Sheet for solving!

Hopefully we'll see you there!
Get excited!

For backstory, for Christmas I made my partner an escape room type game styled after his favourite movie and they had such fun doing it (I had 9 puzzle parts with 3 or 4 suitable for kids that my daughter helped with) my daughter has requested one for her birthday, end of March.

I'm in between themes at the moment of either a space adventure (she's a massive fan of the Catstonauts series) or candy land/Charlie and the chocolate factory theme (she's got a big sweet tooth). It will be mostly her doing it with assistance from mum and dad, she is a great reader and fairly academically intelligent for her age (although I know every parent likes to think this, it has been confirmed by teacher that she's reading and doing maths on par for 7/8 year old) but par for her age emotionally and don't want to make anything too hard that could prompt a meltdown.

I feel a code cypher may be within her reach, she enjoyed doing a jigsaw puzzle part with her dad's one, a scavenger hunt with riddles leading to clues around the house and particularly a playdoh piece where there were Scrabble letters hidden inside she had to find. Thinking of a similar clue that's not playdoh as would give it away too quickly but something textured she has to search through to find the clues (slime is banned from our house in case anyone suggests).

I think she would struggle with anagrams more than 3 or 4 letters but can do kids crosswords puzzles. She can do addition and substraction and knows shapes and currency but still learning multiplication and division for any maths based puzzles. She is learning how to use a computer including inputting URLs and how to navigate websites so could do the same as I did for her dad with a password protected Tumblr page revealing a clue.

Open to any and all ideas for either theme, I'm quite crafty and can make most things I set my mind to (I crafted a treasure chest, designed a Victorian puzzle purse and drew a treasure map for last one). I have a key lock box left over as well that requires a 4 digit pin that is easy to reset and she has spare make your own yoto cards I could use for audio messages.

I'm going to throw a puzzle hunt party at my house, for several friends. I've spent the past month or so jotting down sooo many ideas into a list on my phone. I've now decided on the cohesive theme, and I need to go back through to prune and organize my random ideas. Some of them have an obvious "A to B to C" flow, while others could be slotted in in a variety of ways.

The thing I need help with is that organization process. What have you all found helpful? A word document with bullet points? A spreadsheet? Writing things on index cards and putting them onto a board, connected with red strong?

It needs to be a system that allows me to easily shift things around as I try out different chains of steps. I currently have a LOT of flexibility, since this will take place in my house (no restraints based on weather or having to travel), and many of the puzzles involve figuring out a particular word, number, color, etc, so could be adjusted to point to a variety of next clues. There are also going to be multiple possible paths they can start down at any given time. (The paths will end in them finding a specific "currency," as the Architect puts it. I've watched almost every video on his YouTube channel! )

I work for a club that has members, and am hosting a 20 person murder mystery dinner for the first time! I'm really excited because I love creating murder mystery events for my friends. My co-host/coworker bought us a kit that is rather extensive in plot and character objectives. I'm worried that the "plot" part of the evening will be awkward / stiff. Keeping in mind that the participants are my company's members (essentially my bosses), and not my friends, does anyone have advice to keep things flowing/loose/fun?

I wanna make something for someone to find, but not put back. I think geocaches are cool and all, but I want someone to keep my treasure, the only question is, what do I put in it? I could put something easy like money, but I want something meaningful, something that is worth the hunt, what would that be?

To make a short story long, for my 30th birthday I'm planning a "Paperwork Party". The idea is to make everything very bureaucratic and require paperwork and approval from each presiding agency. Ex. Agency of Ice Distribution would be responsible to distributing the amount of ice each person has properly filed a form for.

I want to create a narrative that plays out across the agencies and throughout the party. I suppose it could be a mystery guest or something to that effect. I cant quite piece together how to integrate a story line with paperwork themed puzzles and mysteries that each agency has to figure out as the party unfolds.

Additional Information: I have plenty of time to plan and prepare. The party will be in July of 2029. I'm thinking roughly 20 guests and participants at the moment. Hoping to rent a venue as well. I will plan on having it catered as well.

Any ideas or comments would be helpful. Let me know if there is a better sub to post this in.

Please use this thread to have discussions which you don't feel warrant a new post to the sub. While the Rules for posting questions are relaxed a little bit here, the rules against spam/self-promotion/excessive rudeness still apply!

I've been tasked with running an engaging training session for salespeople on how to win against our top competitors. I have this idea of doing a sort of escape room or puzzle challenge rather than a boring slideshow. I'd like this to be something unexpected, fun, and educational! Maybe the concept is "help a fictional customer 'escape' from their contract with the competition", where they leverage the main reasons people prefer our product to others, and/or strategies to convince them to switch.

The details-

• The whole window is one hour, so with briefing and debriefing, and allowing time for hiccups, the whole thing should take 25-40 minutes.
• It needs to be repeatable--I'll have multiple sessions in a row and 15 minutes between them.
• We'll be in one large room.
• I'll have groups of about 20 at a time--ideally I would split them into 3-4 smaller groups that are completing the same challenges simultaneously. Maybe a prize for the first one done?
• They should be able to solve the puzzles with knowledge they already have, plus learn a few new professional takeaways through the experience.
• I've got a budget, but only about 3 weeks to pull this together.

I've got some ideas brewing, but I'd love to hear your best ideas!

https://preview.redd.it/b4syikhdu8be1.png?width=1913&format=png&auto=webp&s=5f1673dbe6007c7d7977ce7995eb61a24ca3cec4

I created a video to show my process for creating the "rotadraw" that I used in my most recent adventure, and thought I'd share it with the group. Happy to answer additional questions if you have them!

Hi all,

I am designing some escape room props that I hope to publish in the near future as ready built and downloadable STL files.

Being British I am using metric, predominantly M3 threads and some 3mm diameter steel rods. My question is:

Would this give you folk in the US an issue sourcing the components? Is there an imperial alternative you would prefer?

Thanks

Before Christmas, I wrote here, that I planned an escape room, on Christmas Eve, for my family (2 seniors, 4 adults, 2 pre-teens) who had never done an escape room before. I promised I would tell you all about it! So here it is.

I really wanted a Harry Potter theme , as we are going to Wizarding World in February. I kept most of the theme elements to the first movie. I made my sister and BIL watch at least that one (they had NO intention of watching the movie until they HAD to). Strange but true.

Everyone had been sorted into their houses (somewhat reluctantly for my sister and BIL, I might add!) The escape room started as they got to my front door. I had a brick wall they had to pass through to get inside. A giant Hogwarts banner greeted them. The living room was decorated with a Mirror of Erised, Floating Candles, Winged keys and Harry's letters streaming from the fireplace. Hedwig was on her perch on top of the Christmas tree! I even had my dog dressed as "Fluffy", the 3 headed dog! (that was a challenge).

The bathroom had a sign "Room of Requirement". I had a feast waiting that the "house elves" (Chinese take away) prepared and I made butterbeer. Only the boys (9 and 11) ventured a taste of the butterbeer, which is just cream soda and butterscotch flavouring, with whipped cream on top. I made tiny chocolate frogs and I also bought "golden snitch wings" which I attached to chocolates that were wrapped in gold foil. The frogs and the golden snitches must have had a vanishing charm cast on them, as they all vanished by the end of the evening.

The room was set up in my living room area. Everyone was given the rules - everything was in plain sight. No need to move furniture or rummage in drawers etc. There were numerous locked boxes whose locks opened with either keys, or numbers, or letters. They had to match the key to the lock and not force anything. They had one hour to escape the Common Room. The usual rules. I had 16 puzzles and I encouraged each person to solve 2 puzzles. Sounds good in theory but most were content to let the pre-teens do it! But after the 3rd clue, they all got involved. I was there to give hints if they needed them, but otherwise, I had the most fun watching them!

1. They had to read a scroll which gave them the back story, but the scroll was also part of a clue. Sitting on the scroll was a heart box, which when opened held a heart shaped key.
2. The heart shaped key opened the heart shaped lock on the "Nimbus 2000" which was my regular broom (the one from Temu arrived after Christmas, of course!) This revealed a paper with rectangles cut out of it which they had to place over the scroll to read the next clue.
3. The clue from the scroll led them to a 2 part maze. part one had a highlighter next to it so they had to physically solve that. The second part of the maze, could only be solved with a light box, conveniently placed. Using the highlighted path over the letters, they read a message that led them to the next clue.
4. The picture of Hogwarts castle had a message on the back of it in strange symbols, which sent them to the cryptic discs. I did have a pad of paper for them to write out the clues as they were solving them. Good thing because most were fairly long!
5. Next, they had two portraits and they had to find the differences between them, then use the co-ordinates on the portraits to find the letters they corresponded to, on a separate chart. My BIL is ex military and he delighted in solving the "co-ordinate" clue. The co-ordinate clue gave them a 4 letter word which opened a locked box.
6. Inside that box was the Wizards Chess Clue. My nephew kindly 3D printed Wizards Chess pawns for me. The chess clue made them move each pawn only once to a position on the board. The pawns when looked at from above spelled out 121, which was the only number I could work out that would use all 8 white and 8 black pawns. The number was not visible until all the pawns were in place, as I mixed up all the positions. The 3 digit code opened another locked box.
7. That box contained the Forbidden Forest clue, which was a message written in Ancient Runes. When they solved the Ancient runes message, it read "Flower Box". I have a flowerbox of geraniums on my kitchen window sill, but if they went there expecting to find another clue, they found a Red herring (fake clue). The Real Flower Box was a tiny box with a flower on top, which opened to reveal a bunch of red swirly lines.
8. They had to find Luna's Glasses with their red filters to read the number 789 which opened yet another box with a 3 digit code lock.
9. Inside was a Potions puzzle. A poem (of sorts) that gave them 4 hints as to which of the 6 potions bottles held the non-lethal brew. I used some old perfume bottles and put labels on them that matched the theme. They were allowed to lift only ONE bottle, and if they chose wisely, the bottle had a small key hidden underneath it.
10. That key opened a box with a message which should have led them to Hedwig, perched on top of the tree. She held a scroll in her talons.
11. Hedwig's scroll gave the clue to open the brass Cryptex wheel. The wheel was the most expensive thing I bought, and I was glad I did. It is a thing of beauty and with letters that turn easily. It has a secret compartment inside that held yet another clue, which was numbers inside coloured squares.
12. That clue led them to the periodic table, where the clue spelled out "Tangerine". I had hung a small key on one of spikes on the tangerine tree in my kitchen. One of my great nephews said, it should have been named the Whomping Willow, because it was out to hurt them!
13. The little Tangerine key opened a box that simply said "there be dragons"
14. Off they went to find the dragon with her nest of dragon eggs, cleverly sized and disguised as chocolate covered almonds. My nephew had 3D printed these dragon eggs for me, and they unscrewed to reveal 6 small scrabble letters. He found the eggs and the wizards chess pawns on Thingiverse, I believe. Then they had to unscramble the letters to read "Wordle" (my sister's favourite daily game)
15. The Wordle chart was filled in except for the last line. The ONLY word that would fit was WINGS and my sis solved it very quickly. I think the boys were impressed with their grandmother in that moment!
16. The winged keys were suspended from a tension rod in the doorway to the hall. I used one length of stretchy invisible cord (which came with the keys) and attached each end to a key. Another wonderful and inexpensive purchase from Temu. I hung the cords over the tension rod and put them at all different heights. On one key, there was a second key attached to the back of it. Not visible until you looked for it.

That final key opened a jewelled box that had a Congratulations note inside. I was really pleased that it took them 45 minutes to solve all the puzzles and escape, even though they were escape room virgins.

Virtually all the decorations came from Temu, or Amazon, so they arrived quite quickly and were fairly inexpensive. All the puzzles were drawn from inspiration of escape rooms I've been in, or read about online. I did all the graphics and drawings on my computer. I absolutely had hours of fun designing and planning this event.

What I would do differently, would be to make the puzzles more difficult. This puzzle room was definitely for beginners and/or pre-teens. But that was who I was designing for. I also had to make all the puzzles portable. I have planned to offer this escape room as an event for the local library - I think that would be an awesome event for the kids who have read, or are reading the books.

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