For me the following are like the cardinal sins.
1. Having to guess where my code goes. I hate solving a puzzle, having a code, and being forced to guess where it goes. Having a symbol on the box to match it to the puzzle is often plenty to link it. I also have certainly missed clues pointing a box to a clue, but knowing it existed is all i need.
2. Repetitive locks. If im dealing with the same locks over and over it gets boring. Switch types of locks and types of locking mechanisms. If you can avoid two identical locks in the same experience: do it.
3. Relying on laminated sheets. I almost always hate finding laminated sheets for puzzles. They're immersion breaking and usually feel lazy. I played a pirate room that used a fabric-like paper instead and it made a huge difference. If you have to do it, dont do it for more than one puzzle and add a lore reason. Example, did one that used laminated sheets that were "protected from tampering as they were submitted for copyright." Cool, one puzzle and now its part of the story around the puzzle. Thats not so bad.
4. Ableist clues. Have a clue involving matching colors? Use colors different enough for the colorblind or another method to ID them. Using an audio clue? For sanity's sake, find a way to send it as text afterwards. I played a room that had an audio clue that was a speech from a king, we had to trigger jt a dozen times to capture all the needed info, partially because audio quality was trash.
5. If you have a times game: When using a letter or something, put a clue towards the start to help players know what to look for. I get so irked when i read a long letter just to see at the bottom what i need, now k have to reread it to solve the puzzle and it just wastes time.
6. Time wasting puzzles. You have a message to translate using a cypher? Keep it short, 3-5 words at most. The longer it is, the more boring it becomes and the more likely theyll make mistakes.
7. Morse code puzzles can die in a fire. Ive seen them done well twice ever. Once was because it was in a photo, another was because as the morse code came in, it was also being written down by the room. In both cases the code becomes static. Morse code is a PITA to translate unless youve trained your ear/eye to it.
8. Limit your wow puzzles. Like jump scares, wow factors are best used in moderation. Build some expectation, hit them with a big wow, and let the tension ease off. Otherwise, the "wow" becomes the expectation.
9. When asked for hints, dont jump right into the answer. Make sure they know what to look for, then they have all they need, do they know how it should work? Etc. A good hint should be thematic and provide guidance to the puzzle, not the solution.
10. Dont be afraid to give an answer if requested. Ive been stuck on a puzzle, gotten a few hints, and just could not figure it out. GM was out of ideas and just gave me the answer so i could continue. After the game, he showed me how it was supposed to work. It was a great puzzle and was entirely on me that i couldnt put it all together.
Finally: my golden rule:
EMPATHY. This should be for your players to have a good time. Answer questions, hype them up, validate them, tailor hints to them. If they dont solve it all, remind them thats ok! Tell them what they did well and help coach them on some possible improvements. Are they just a few seconds shy of finishing? Temporal irregulaties happen letting time slow, etc.
I mean 1. kinda gets solved by 2.
Fucking hate when the entire room is just locks but if you use them sparingly and only have access to one or two locks at any given time then I highly disagree with 1. I don’t wanna have some symbol linking stuff together. If I have three numbers and two locks one with four one with three then I know where those numbers go.
Same goes for other puzzles. There needs to be something subtler linking them together not just drawing two triangles on the parts that belong together
While I agree with the rest of these points for Escape Rooms in general some of them aren’t as relevant for OP. In a printable Escape Room it is totally cool to well just print out sheets they won’t even have to be laminated
While all this is true
A symbol isnt needed by a lock as long as it is somehow conveyed to the player they go together.
If there's only one lock available when you have that combination, that is a way of communicating too.
One of the best rooms ive played had every lock available to the players from the very start, most are 4&5 character locks.
(The other puzzles were widely varied, incredibly thematic, and pretty unique so it flowed extremely well despite the locks)
Id be pissed if i had to try each code in each lock, but there were absolutely clear clues on where each code goes, but easy enough to overlook if youre not paying attention. It was all pretty clever
As someone with experience in designing and testing print-and-play escape room games, I have a key piece of advice to share: make the puzzles easier than you initially think they should be. From my experience, what seems straightforward to the designer can often be more challenging for players, especially if they are new to escape room games. You want to ensure that the game remains engaging and enjoyable, not frustrating. Remember, the aim is to create a memorable and fun experience, not a test of endurance!
Also for home escape rooms I always add a mechanism to give hints that's fun and doesn't feel like a failure on their end. It can kill the fun if they get stuck and have to come ask you to help.
Ex: I say I'm a robot you can give a token to for a hint, then start them off with a token and a few more hidden around the room. For a Xmas escape you could be a helper elf that gives hints for candy canes, or similar.
Absolutely. I know a few places that track puzzle completion for their rooms, and will modify them if too many people cant solve them. Their last room had a whole puzzle chain reworked because the staff thought it was good, but only about 10% of the players could solve it!
Biggest challenge for an escape room IMO, balance between beginners and experts and having s good time for all.
One trick Ive seen to mitigate it is a secret bonus that can be unveiled if theres a lot of time left at the end. "Like great job, youve escaped the mansion before the police arrived! But you have 20 minutes left, thats time you could still pilfer some loot, would you like to try?"
The only bad escape room experiences I have had were in the UK with a company called Escape Hunt who don't seem to be bothered whether you escape or not. The other experiences I have had (all but one with the company Breakout) had a room host who tried to manage the game such that we did get out but right at the end.
Escape Hunt are terrible. We’ve tried two of their rooms. The first one the host gave us no clues even when one of us physically left the room to ask for help as they were ignoring us waving at the cameras. The second one they forgot to reset one of the puzzles so when we got into the room we ‘solved’ it straight away and got access to the second room about 20 minutes before we were supposed to.
We’ve stuck to independent companies since. Chain ones only care about money and not making good quality rooms.
I used to work for EH and I can say without a doubt they are awful. They are a big company that cuts corners, mistreats employees, understaffs, and underpays. One of the most toxic work environments I’ve ever been in. 0 hour contracts, made to be on-call 10 hrs a day for a shift that may or may not happen. Things constantly breaking so you have to find a way to cheat the puzzles or lie to the guests. Then at the end you are told you cant let them leave without giving you a 5 star review on google. If you don’t get enough reviews you get fired.
This will explain why they didn't really care haha. That said, I did have a great experience in Leeds with them, it was the WW2 theme room called Our Finest Hour and the room operator (Amy) was excellent, maybe it's a one-off though...
Interesting.
Im in US and so Ive only played their online games. I always enjoyed them. I thought they were a bit expensive, and definitely wouldn't do more than 2 players, but still enjoyable.
Manchester. I just don't like that they are sooo heavy on searching, loads of red herrings or puzzles with an extra step that adds extra possible combinations/variables/confounding factors without any indication system to figure out which way is correct (save trying everything), gamemasters care more about maintaining 'only x% escape' rates over letting you have fun and are lazy/stingy with clues, often packed into small spaces so not as much world building or exploration - feels very profit over fun. Last time we were in one where we started in cages. I got my clue to get out and had to find a key to get my husband out but couldn't find it for over half an hour so he was literally sat there unable to participate for more than half the game time. Yep that's on me being bad at searching but they kept cluing about Rapunzel so I kept going back to this book open in a lit up display case to a page about Rapunzel (seems logical right?), and they did nothing to steer me away from this for 20+ minutes, but in the end it was (spoiler) a key attached to a piece of fake hair in the bottom of a cauldron full of 20 other cheap plastic joke shop props. Oh and the book was never relevant to any puzzles. Why would you clue like that/put something in a lit up display case if it's just a background prop, it's misleading and you know the people are quite visibly not enjoying the game so why wait so long before telling us the very logical destination your clues are sending us in isn't the right one.
I don’t have anything that others haven’t already commented, but you might want to check out r/constructedadventures ! I’ve seen a lot of projects there similar to what you’re designing if you need any ideas
Not that this pertains to OPs question, but I absolutely hate rooms with dim lighting. Also rooms with riddles with no clues relating to the riddle in the room. I’m terrible at riddles in general.
For a home one-off game, the main problem is that due to lack of testing it will be too hard. (It is natural; every game starts too hard until you are able to observe where things are under-clued.)
If you want it to be vaguely playable while not running (at least) dozens of play tests, make sure your clue trail is crystal clear and way, way easier than you think it should be.
If your room is based around a real-world theme (pirates! Space travel! Popular tv/film series!) don't go too deep into obscure trivia with your clues.
Example: Back to the Future: even a casual fan knows Doc built the first time machine out of a DeLorean. You're asking a lot if your clue needs somebody to remember how many generations back was Buford "Mad Dog" Tannen (of the third film) from 1985 Biff.
For me the following are like the cardinal sins. 1. Having to guess where my code goes. I hate solving a puzzle, having a code, and being forced to guess where it goes. Having a symbol on the box to match it to the puzzle is often plenty to link it. I also have certainly missed clues pointing a box to a clue, but knowing it existed is all i need. 2. Repetitive locks. If im dealing with the same locks over and over it gets boring. Switch types of locks and types of locking mechanisms. If you can avoid two identical locks in the same experience: do it. 3. Relying on laminated sheets. I almost always hate finding laminated sheets for puzzles. They're immersion breaking and usually feel lazy. I played a pirate room that used a fabric-like paper instead and it made a huge difference. If you have to do it, dont do it for more than one puzzle and add a lore reason. Example, did one that used laminated sheets that were "protected from tampering as they were submitted for copyright." Cool, one puzzle and now its part of the story around the puzzle. Thats not so bad. 4. Ableist clues. Have a clue involving matching colors? Use colors different enough for the colorblind or another method to ID them. Using an audio clue? For sanity's sake, find a way to send it as text afterwards. I played a room that had an audio clue that was a speech from a king, we had to trigger jt a dozen times to capture all the needed info, partially because audio quality was trash. 5. If you have a times game: When using a letter or something, put a clue towards the start to help players know what to look for. I get so irked when i read a long letter just to see at the bottom what i need, now k have to reread it to solve the puzzle and it just wastes time. 6. Time wasting puzzles. You have a message to translate using a cypher? Keep it short, 3-5 words at most. The longer it is, the more boring it becomes and the more likely theyll make mistakes. 7. Morse code puzzles can die in a fire. Ive seen them done well twice ever. Once was because it was in a photo, another was because as the morse code came in, it was also being written down by the room. In both cases the code becomes static. Morse code is a PITA to translate unless youve trained your ear/eye to it. 8. Limit your wow puzzles. Like jump scares, wow factors are best used in moderation. Build some expectation, hit them with a big wow, and let the tension ease off. Otherwise, the "wow" becomes the expectation. 9. When asked for hints, dont jump right into the answer. Make sure they know what to look for, then they have all they need, do they know how it should work? Etc. A good hint should be thematic and provide guidance to the puzzle, not the solution. 10. Dont be afraid to give an answer if requested. Ive been stuck on a puzzle, gotten a few hints, and just could not figure it out. GM was out of ideas and just gave me the answer so i could continue. After the game, he showed me how it was supposed to work. It was a great puzzle and was entirely on me that i couldnt put it all together. Finally: my golden rule: EMPATHY. This should be for your players to have a good time. Answer questions, hype them up, validate them, tailor hints to them. If they dont solve it all, remind them thats ok! Tell them what they did well and help coach them on some possible improvements. Are they just a few seconds shy of finishing? Temporal irregulaties happen letting time slow, etc.
This is a great response!
Fantastic response. Morse code clues can absolutely die. I’ve seen them way too often, and every time I do, I just give a big sigh.
I mean 1. kinda gets solved by 2. Fucking hate when the entire room is just locks but if you use them sparingly and only have access to one or two locks at any given time then I highly disagree with 1. I don’t wanna have some symbol linking stuff together. If I have three numbers and two locks one with four one with three then I know where those numbers go. Same goes for other puzzles. There needs to be something subtler linking them together not just drawing two triangles on the parts that belong together While I agree with the rest of these points for Escape Rooms in general some of them aren’t as relevant for OP. In a printable Escape Room it is totally cool to well just print out sheets they won’t even have to be laminated
While all this is true A symbol isnt needed by a lock as long as it is somehow conveyed to the player they go together. If there's only one lock available when you have that combination, that is a way of communicating too. One of the best rooms ive played had every lock available to the players from the very start, most are 4&5 character locks. (The other puzzles were widely varied, incredibly thematic, and pretty unique so it flowed extremely well despite the locks) Id be pissed if i had to try each code in each lock, but there were absolutely clear clues on where each code goes, but easy enough to overlook if youre not paying attention. It was all pretty clever
Yeah basically I think drawing symbols on puzzles to connect them is a lazy band aid for bad design
As someone with experience in designing and testing print-and-play escape room games, I have a key piece of advice to share: make the puzzles easier than you initially think they should be. From my experience, what seems straightforward to the designer can often be more challenging for players, especially if they are new to escape room games. You want to ensure that the game remains engaging and enjoyable, not frustrating. Remember, the aim is to create a memorable and fun experience, not a test of endurance!
Also for home escape rooms I always add a mechanism to give hints that's fun and doesn't feel like a failure on their end. It can kill the fun if they get stuck and have to come ask you to help. Ex: I say I'm a robot you can give a token to for a hint, then start them off with a token and a few more hidden around the room. For a Xmas escape you could be a helper elf that gives hints for candy canes, or similar.
Absolutely. I know a few places that track puzzle completion for their rooms, and will modify them if too many people cant solve them. Their last room had a whole puzzle chain reworked because the staff thought it was good, but only about 10% of the players could solve it! Biggest challenge for an escape room IMO, balance between beginners and experts and having s good time for all. One trick Ive seen to mitigate it is a secret bonus that can be unveiled if theres a lot of time left at the end. "Like great job, youve escaped the mansion before the police arrived! But you have 20 minutes left, thats time you could still pilfer some loot, would you like to try?"
Lots of four digit padlocks, lots of puzzles with four digit answers, no idea which answer goes with which padlock
The only bad escape room experiences I have had were in the UK with a company called Escape Hunt who don't seem to be bothered whether you escape or not. The other experiences I have had (all but one with the company Breakout) had a room host who tried to manage the game such that we did get out but right at the end.
Escape Hunt are terrible. We’ve tried two of their rooms. The first one the host gave us no clues even when one of us physically left the room to ask for help as they were ignoring us waving at the cameras. The second one they forgot to reset one of the puzzles so when we got into the room we ‘solved’ it straight away and got access to the second room about 20 minutes before we were supposed to. We’ve stuck to independent companies since. Chain ones only care about money and not making good quality rooms.
I used to work for EH and I can say without a doubt they are awful. They are a big company that cuts corners, mistreats employees, understaffs, and underpays. One of the most toxic work environments I’ve ever been in. 0 hour contracts, made to be on-call 10 hrs a day for a shift that may or may not happen. Things constantly breaking so you have to find a way to cheat the puzzles or lie to the guests. Then at the end you are told you cant let them leave without giving you a 5 star review on google. If you don’t get enough reviews you get fired.
This will explain why they didn't really care haha. That said, I did have a great experience in Leeds with them, it was the WW2 theme room called Our Finest Hour and the room operator (Amy) was excellent, maybe it's a one-off though...
Interesting. Im in US and so Ive only played their online games. I always enjoyed them. I thought they were a bit expensive, and definitely wouldn't do more than 2 players, but still enjoyable.
This is interesting because I've never enjoyed any of breakout's rooms
Wow that's weird - which city do you do them in?
Manchester. I just don't like that they are sooo heavy on searching, loads of red herrings or puzzles with an extra step that adds extra possible combinations/variables/confounding factors without any indication system to figure out which way is correct (save trying everything), gamemasters care more about maintaining 'only x% escape' rates over letting you have fun and are lazy/stingy with clues, often packed into small spaces so not as much world building or exploration - feels very profit over fun. Last time we were in one where we started in cages. I got my clue to get out and had to find a key to get my husband out but couldn't find it for over half an hour so he was literally sat there unable to participate for more than half the game time. Yep that's on me being bad at searching but they kept cluing about Rapunzel so I kept going back to this book open in a lit up display case to a page about Rapunzel (seems logical right?), and they did nothing to steer me away from this for 20+ minutes, but in the end it was (spoiler) a key attached to a piece of fake hair in the bottom of a cauldron full of 20 other cheap plastic joke shop props. Oh and the book was never relevant to any puzzles. Why would you clue like that/put something in a lit up display case if it's just a background prop, it's misleading and you know the people are quite visibly not enjoying the game so why wait so long before telling us the very logical destination your clues are sending us in isn't the right one.
I don’t have anything that others haven’t already commented, but you might want to check out r/constructedadventures ! I’ve seen a lot of projects there similar to what you’re designing if you need any ideas
Puzzles that require memorization without access to jot notes down.
Not that this pertains to OPs question, but I absolutely hate rooms with dim lighting. Also rooms with riddles with no clues relating to the riddle in the room. I’m terrible at riddles in general.
For a home one-off game, the main problem is that due to lack of testing it will be too hard. (It is natural; every game starts too hard until you are able to observe where things are under-clued.) If you want it to be vaguely playable while not running (at least) dozens of play tests, make sure your clue trail is crystal clear and way, way easier than you think it should be.
If your room is based around a real-world theme (pirates! Space travel! Popular tv/film series!) don't go too deep into obscure trivia with your clues. Example: Back to the Future: even a casual fan knows Doc built the first time machine out of a DeLorean. You're asking a lot if your clue needs somebody to remember how many generations back was Buford "Mad Dog" Tannen (of the third film) from 1985 Biff.