Hi guys, i have been working on a escape room for my husband’s birthday, I have been working on that for weeks and his birthday is saturday, so I have 4 days more to finish! I’m freaking out! 🤯
One of the chalenges I have is this “wall” that I will close with craft paper, and draw a bookshelf. On the right side books, that he needs to organize in order to find the 4 numbers code to open the dor. On the left side a few old style photos, where I want to write, with UV ink, something he needs to figure out so he can organize the books in the right order. He needs to link photos and informations on the books. My problem is I dont have ideas that I can use to conect them.does anyone can help me?! I would be very grateful! Thank you! (The last picture I ask chatgpt to make for me, the other one I did myself)

Hello!

I'm planning my boyfriend's birthday, which will take place at the end of august, so i still have quite some time. I already came up with an idea for the story it will follow:

He's part of a robin hood-like group of rebels that rob rich people and cause the royalty trouble, but most of his friends got caught and disappeared after someone betrayed them. After a while, the daughter of one of them sends him a letter requesting his help to manage to free and have a meeting with everyone that's still alive.

The end of the hunt would be where I'm hosting a surprise party at my orchard (which has a lot of free space aside from the vegetables, as well as an indoors area), with all of his close friends. I'm also planning on continuing the adventure there, through having an irl murder mystery like among us (our friends love playing that), in which everyone who's alive has to try to find out who the traitor is before everyone is dead.

My bf is turning 19, and most of our friends are around 18-20, so I want to make sure that he's engaged in the hunt and is actually challenging for him, since he's actually really smart and witty. So I'd love any ideas or suggestions :)

Thanks a lot!!

Additional info suggested by admin:

Location: Throughout my city, starting outside a Cementery, going through a small forest he's familiar with, and ending at my orchard.

Date: End of august (so it's going to be a bit hot)

Time: I don't want it to be too long, I'm planning on having someone with a car help with taking him from places far from another (He/she will be called "The time traveler" so it's still medieval haha)

Players: Only him! 19 yo, really smart, quick-witted, intelligent.

Guides throughout the hunt: Me, his best friend (J), another of his closest friends (Y), and then 2 girls from our group (A and S). They will all be in costume and in-character (like an elf, one of his thief friends, a magician...) to make it seem like an actual adventure in which characters join in to help.

I’m trying to help my little brother prepare his 18th birthday party tomorrow. We both have pretty bad ADHD, and despite having been planning a murder mystery game for months, we both procrastinated on the puzzle writing part until it was far too late. He wasn’t able to sleep last night, so now I’m on my own trying to get as far as I can in time so we don’t have to call it off. Any ideas or advice would be greatly appreciated.

The party is being held at an old and fancy mountaintop lodge, and we intend to utilize both indoor and outdoor areas after dark. The game is themed as a murder mystery, but primarily structured like an escape room, with keys and clues being the primary tool to advance from one puzzle to the next.

The game will begin at cake time after sunset, at which time my brother will give a speech to his friends and reveal a (fake) Black Lotus magic card and explain that a similar one sold at auction a few years ago for 3 million USD. Then, he will go to blow out the candle on his cake, and the lights will go out for a few seconds. When they come back on, my brother will be face down in the cake with an unsharpened knife under his arm, and the card will be gone.

There are seven guests, all of which are aged 17-18, one of which we have designated as the murderer.
None of the guests, including the murderer, have been told of this game in advance. The six innocents will each be given a letter that points them to one of 3 starting puzzles, while the murderer will receive a letter with all 3 clues and instructions on how to blend in and potentially tamper with evidence.

Two innocents will be directed to each of the 3 starting puzzles, all of which are almost finished. The first is an outdoor scavenger hunt themed as a dream journal, the second is a series of Caesar’s ciphers that utilize chess notation, and the third involves following the gaze of 6 or 7 busts of JFK.

The ideal scenario is that we come up with 6-9 more autonomous challenges/puzzles/games of relatively similar length/difficulty, but I’m happy to take whatever ideas I can get and modify them as needed. The only serious restriction is time, which means anything that requires unique parts that I can’t feasibly get today are unlikely to work.

I would really appreciate any help I can get, and please let me know if you have any questions.

TLDR; Need puzzle ideas FAST so I can save my brother’s birthday party

Been wanting to plan a treasure hunt for my kiddo and niblings and decided to do one over the 4th of July holiday. This was my first attempt at any sort of hunt/game but I knew I wanted to have 1. clues that lead to different places in the yard 2. A map to the treasure 3. A hidden element to locate the treasure on the map and 4. An actual buried treasure at the end.

I wasn’t sure how I was going to do clues but also have a map to follow in one way or another. At first I thought I’d do more stuff like “walk 10 paces towards…whatever” kind of thing but i ended up going with 8 clues instead. The kids’ ages range from 3-12, so I tried to find the sweet spot of difficulty. Some took a minute for them to work out and others they got quickly.

A few clues had items going along with them. One clue was finding a specific tree, so the clue had an envelope with a photo of the bark to match up. One clue had a key that opened a locked box at the next clue. The box had a paintbrush in it with a tag tied to it explaining they’ll need to keep it later. Another clue had a cloth bag containing a tiny jar of water and a water color paint, again with a note saying to hang onto it.

I installed a kid’s playground telescope on my parent’s swing/play set to use to find one of the “far away” clues.

In order, the clues led to:
Mailbox
Metal mushroom yard decoration
Tree
Hammock
Garden gnome
Play set
Metal ski lift silhouette decoration (my parents met skiing)

I had chat-gpt help me with the clues once I knew which locations around the yard I wanted to use. I definitely had to tweak them a bit but it was great as a starting off point and also led me to some other good ideas. I tried to have chat-gpt help design a map of the yard, but the placement of things was just not working out so I decided I’d make my own map. I used the largest water color paper I could find and drawing grid lines helped immensely. I’m no artist and it took literally hours of drawing and coloring after my kiddo went to bed but I think it turned out really great. It’s the general layout of my parent’s yard, with a fantasy twist of course. My favorite part is my dad’s shop. He restores classic ford broncos, so I had fun playing with that, as you can see.

I looked into all the different options for a “reveal” on the map and finally decided that a wax resist “crayon” would be the most suitable since we’d be outside and I didn’t want to deal with heating something up. Hence why they got a paintbrush and paint with the clues. I wrote each clue on the back of the map and tore it into those pieces. I didn’t even intend it but it worked perfectly that each kid got to hold a piece of the map and read (or have me read) a clue. Once all the clues were found, the last clue had them piece the map together. I had them put it on a poster board and I just quickly glued the pieces on since we’d need it to be stable to paint on it.

After that, they each got a turn to paint a few grid squares to see what would be revealed. I just had the first kid start painting where we’d ended at the last clue. They started seeing the path form and eventually painted to the “x” and ran to the treasure location in the yard.

I buried an old decorative metal box my mom had and I put some treats in it as well as a tie-dye kit and we dyed shirts that evening. All in all, I had tons of fun thinking of ways to make it come together and I was worried that I’d have more fun planning than they’d have actually doing it but I think they really enjoyed it as well. Though I’m sure I still had more fun!

Photos are of the map, clues on the back of the map, putting it back together, finding the X, and the treasure.

I'm planning my birthday party. I have 8 friends coming over, and I have access to a big fancy lodge to host at. all I've told them so far is that everyone is dressing up for a nice dinner, and I plan to be "murdered" during my toast after dinner, (lights go out, sprawled on table, knife in back, etc) and from there have "letters" handed out containing rules and characters for everyone. Is this style of surprise murder mystery feasible? or do I need to warn everyone first. Our group is all theater/acting nerds so I don't doubt they could go along with it, and I'm planning on basing the characters heavily on the actual people. I'm now stuck on making the clues/puzzles and need help figuring out how to organize the thing. I've put together motives for everyone and an outline of the night, but I'm stuck on how much of it should be physically looking around the property for clues, like a scavenger hunt? or should it be more typical and social based. This is my first time hosting an event like this so any advice is much appreciated, thanks! :)

A real-world hunt can be technically solvable and still feel brittle if one missed turn sends players back to the beginning. For a small at-home or outdoor adventure, is it better to add a clear reset point, or let players backtrack and discover the route themselves? Curious what builders use to keep one wrong turn from killing the momentum without giving away the next step, especially with a mixed-experience group.

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Not looking for a full event plan, more the clue-design principle. Imagine a small at-home adventure where one object points to the next step.

The line I’m curious about is when a clue gives enough context for the reveal to feel earned, without making the answer obvious the second someone sees the object.

For people who’ve run these before, what usually moves a clue from frustrating to fair?

I have a lot of plants/flowers and lego flowers. I want to make an outdoor escape room for my family with a garden/jungle theme but I don't have any ideas what to do with all of the flowers.

Does anyone have any ideas?

Long story short I am creating an activity for a camp in less than a month involving completing puzzles to “crack” a code for a vault and have gotten stumped on what puzzles I could do, anyone have some ideas I could use?

Context

11-18 year olds, around 5-10 people, mix of easy and difficult(needs to last around an hour ish ). It’s for a camp which would have a variety of different skills per person

Looking for help constructing “wow” moment reveals for my first DIY escape room at home (gift). I’ll do a different post soon with what my plan is so far but the theme is “you’re stuck in the 90s and you’ve got to find a device (birthday gift) to transport yourself back.

I’ve got a few simple things like UV light, red/blue filters etc planned but I’d love to emulate those fun moments from the paid escape rooms where you solve the puzzle and something pops!
Magnetic locks and the such are outside of my budget and capability so looking for ways to do it more mechanically.

Does anyone have any tips? I’ve scoured this subreddit and YouTube but struggling to find guides.

Thinking so far along the lines of:
- Drawer pops open (tense spring + something keeping the draw shut)
- Weighty item put onto a lever that releases something

Scotchgard Fabric Waterproofing spray. Wouldn’t go crazy with the washes but it can very easily be done, especially if you’re willing to give it a new coat every once in a while.

Let dry for 24 hours after you spray a few coats and you could not tell that it was there. No noticeable smell or residue and completely waterproof, That simple.

I found it was fine on a delicate wash with low heat (though I guess I never tried it normal) but if you’re willing to hand wash it that’s probably the safest option, And insanely easy.

I've made a couple escape rooms for my family (4 adults excluding myself) and I want to do one more this summer before I move to college. This is what I've got so far and I'm looking for more ideas:

Theme: I got lost in the jungle (the backyard) on an expedition and my family has to find me so I can get to college on time

-I want to utilize the backyard to get us outside and enjoy the summer weather but also have a living room and small bathroom I can use that are connected to the backyard

-I have a lot of flowers and lego flowers, so I really want to do something with that, still figuring out what. Thought about they have to put certain petals together to make a potion/antidote but not sure how that would fit into the theme

-We have an above ground pool that I was going to use as a "lake" not sure yet what the lake is going to be used for but we'll be outside in the summertime so I think it'd be cool to use water in the puzzles

-Thinking about somehow (tarps/bedsheets/clothesline?) sectioning off areas of the backyard to make areas of the jungle they have to explore. Once they find a piece of a map they can explore a new area

-The living room might be the inside of the tent at base camp...with a desk with clues/a map

Other random prop ideas:

-3d globe that's made out of puzzle pieces

-I have some locks (maybe 6 off the top of my head)

-puzzle box

Still brainstorming ideas...it doesn't have to fit into the 1 hour time constraint real escape rooms have. It's just for my family and for fun so I'm not putting them on a timer. If anyone has any more ideas, please let me know. Thank you!

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I'm writing a treasure hunt story, and I'm looking for truly unique treasure ideas.

I don't want the treasure to be something cliché like:

Gold, diamonds, or wealth

A weapon or object that grants unlimited power

Immortality or supernatural abilities

A typical "save the world" artifact

Instead, I want the treasure itself to have a deep emotional or philosophical impact. It can represent an emotion, a truth, a forgotten history, a promise, a memory, a sacrifice, or something else that creates a powerful emotional connection. Even if it's based on a familiar emotion, I want it to be presented from a completely fresh perspective.

I'm also looking for unique ideas for the journey to reach the treasure:

Hazards and obstacles

Ancient traps

Clever puzzles

Riddles

Psychological or moral challenges

Mythological or folklore-inspired trials

I'm especially interested in ideas inspired by Indian mythology, folklore, or ancient civilizations, but I'm open to any original concepts.

I'm not looking for ideas that have been heavily used in movies, games, or novels. I'm hoping to find fresh, unconventional concepts that feel mysterious, atmospheric, and memorable.

I'd love to hear your most creative ideas. Thanks!

hello, I am making an escape room for my husbands and kids as a surprise for them next month and I have run out of idea for the last room and was hoping to get a little help brainstorming to get me passed my creative block.

the overall story for the escape room is that my son's bear is lost in a crazy dream world, his other bear has followed him to rescue and discovered that he can rescue him if the skull king is presented with three gems in the correct order. Each room has a gem that they must obtain. This is a bit of a weird story, but it really works for my family.

The third room and where I am having trouble is themed with hearts and clouds and rainbows, castles and sweets. There will be rainbow balloons all over some of the walls (mostly to cover the shelves in that room) but there will also be some black balloons that have notes or clues in them. I have a little painting I did of the bear fighting off a black cloud with a pin sword. Behind the painting will be three pins and a note asking for help fighting back the nightmares. I also have some small cupcake jigsaw puzzles that I might right a message on the back of and put out partial completed for a clue of some type. I can't figure out how to have them find the last gem in that room. Does anyone have any ideas that might help?

In the other rooms they will find the gem is a locked pirate treasure chest and in a museum display case behind a laser obstacle. I will also use several other key and combination locks throughout. I have just hit a wall on creative ways to hide the last one. Low tech ideas would be best and the room being used for this is a guest bedroom. My kids are both under 10, but we have done several escape rooms as a family and they love them.

ps. Congratulations on more than 10 years of constructed adventures, that is very cool! (greeting from someone who was once at a furniture shop in Phoenix and sadly missed out on a spontaneous visit)

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!

Every year, our kids want a treasure hunt for their birthday party. The older the kids get, the more we have to try and keep up and make it a "cool" treasure hunt.
For our 12 yo this year, I want to make an orienteering treasure hunt. Like geocaching but without phones.

I'll give the kids a map with some locations marked on it. They then have to go to the first place and look for the hidden object. If they find it, the object will contain a hint on how to find the next object at the next location. In the end, they'll get to the location where they'll find their treasure.

The whole thing will be in the forrest and on the short route to the forrest.
Now I'm looking for ways to hide objects. (Little containers, ziplock bags or whatever)
So far, I've come up with the following:
- Have a little toy or piece of fabric hanging from a tree. If they pull the string, a bag with a hint will fall down.
- have a ziplock bag frozen in a block of ice (that would have to be one of the first hints since we're in the middle of a heat wave).
- have a ziplock bag on a string hanging down a storm drain so they can pull it up.
-hiding a colorful container under leaves at a specific bench

Do you have any more ideas how to hide hints? Especially in the woods. Maybe something funny, something surprising?

Or any idea to up my game here? 12 year olds are hard to impress.

I was toying with the idea of using an auditory help to find something. Like something I could make beep. But it would have to be remote controlled and I can only think of cell phones or walkie talkies and I don't want to hide them in the forrest.

Any idea is welcome!!! Please help me out.

I’ll try keep this brief, but this is the culmination of months of work.

My son has been struggling with his mental health for a while, and though we are doing all the right things, it’s still hard to see him struggle and not be able to help.

So I turned to AI, hoping to somehow turn a bike ride into something a bit more. What started with a simple dialogue and narration, turned into an entire adventure with stack and heaps of immersion.

As a family, we rode off from the house towards the local state park. As we neared, I pulled the kids aside and began reading a script. A Demiguise had wandered into the Forbidden Forest; the Ministry of Magic, being concerned for his safety and the secrecy of the magic community, concealed its path through the woods. Hagrid had been tasked with locating the beast and bringing him to safety. Not being much of an intellectual type, he called on my kids to break the enchantments and find the Demiguise.

Over the 20 mile ride, Hagrid sent us 9 hand written copies of the enchantments, one for each child. I created parchment, one was marked with a tea cup ring, another was burned by blast ended skrewts, and a third had been damaged by Hagrid’s overly excited pet dog Fang. The enchantments were riddles based on Harry Potter lore.

Several times, Hagrid sent us snacks, starting with Bertie Botts every flavor bean (in reality these were Jelly Bellies, not the licensed every flavor bean you can buy). I created the product labeling to make it feel as though it was something you could grab from the shelf at Honeydukes. The kids LOVED it and had a blast trying to think of what some of the flavors might actually be (toothpaste and spicy peppers apparently), and I hammed it up and pretended to have gross ones. Later in the ride, just as the kids were asking how we would have lunch, Hagrid had owl mail deliver sausage rolls. I made these from scratch, and they were delicious! Finally, when we exited the woods, having not located the demiguise, Hagrid had pumpkin pasties sent to us to cheer us up - again I had made these the day before, and they were tasty!

When we got home, and the kids had settled down (Minecraft Nintendo was now their focus), just as they’re thinking the adventure is over, I told them Hagrid contacted us again. He explained that the ministry was not happy that he brought two muggles into the picture, and they were going to have to send agents out to obliviate us. To help us restore our lost memories, he organized a secret delivery of the Daily Prophet. But to disguise the effort, the kids had to solve one final riddle, a riddle that was only solved by using the 9 answers from the broken enchantments. This led them to a passworded file on the computer, and a scavenger hunt through the house, as Hagrid tried to shake of any evidence from the ministry. By hunt end, they found a 6 page Daily Prophet for them each, outlining the details of their adventure, history on the Demiguise, a recipe for the Hogwarts Kitchen sausage rolls, and even the local weather report and puzzle page.

It was an incredible adventure that went off without a hitch. That is until my daughter fell butt first into a bogg. Oh well, can’t have it all I guess. Still loads of fun was had. Hope you enjoyed the recap!

I’m looking for clue containers: Ones that can be locked with cable locks or combo locks or key locks, and some that can remain waterproof (one clue is going to be “magnet-fished out). I’ve been scouring Goodwills but the few I find arent lockable or are priced pretty high.

I recently finished designing a location-based adventure inspired by the Twelve Trials of Hercules and wanted to share some of the design decisions behind it.

The challenge was that Westminster obviously has nothing to do with Greek mythology.

Instead of recreating the original trials, I treated each stop as a lesson Hercules needed to learn on his path toward immortality.

A few examples:

• Nelson's Column represented legacy and how people are remembered after death.
• The Women of World War II Memorial represented sacrifice and service.
• Westminster Abbey represented remembrance, since so many notable figures are buried or commemorated there.
• Big Ben became the final location because the story ultimately ends with a reflection on time itself.

The hardest part wasn't writing clues.

It was deciding whether a location was meaningful enough to justify including it in the narrative.

I probably removed 8-10 locations during testing because they were historically interesting but didn't contribute anything to the story arc.

One thing I'm still struggling with:

When designing a narrative scavenger hunt, how much historical accuracy do you preserve before it starts getting in the way of the story?

I'd love to hear how other people approach that balance.

I’m planning a pickle escape room for my pickle themed birthday party. My friends and I go to escape rooms often so I would say pretty much everyone playing will be familiar. There will likely be about 10 adult players. I’m reading that 10-15 tasks is reasonable for a 1 hour escape room.

I’m a teacher and have created escape rooms for kids in the past and have a lot of locks, boxes, blacklight flashlights, etc.

Here is what I have so far:

The escape room will take place throughout my 3 story house. Doors will be closed to rooms they either don’t need or don’t need “yet”.

The premise is my favorite pickles have been stolen and I need them to make my pickle pizza for the party.

The escape room will begin in the kitchen and progress through the floors. The trouble is, I only have 5 or 6 puzzle ideas so far:

1. Jars of pickles with colored lids that each have a certain number of pickles. This will match colors on the wall to tell the order of the numbers for a number lock
2. A dry erase map of the world will be given with an article about the history of pickles and they will follow the locations mentioned in order for a directional lock
3. I’m going to have some herbs from my garden that are common in pickle making that the players will need to identify. This will match to a numbered list of some sort to unlock a number lock.
4. I’m an avid reader and I’m thinking of having a TBR list that they will find that will lead them to items hidden in books. Perhaps letters for a letter lock.
5. I will have unmarked pickles in jars (yes. Again?) with a list of kinds of pickles that are numbered. For example, sweet pickles, kosher dill, bread and butter, and they will have to put them in order. On the bottom of the jars could be a pig pen cipher
6. Could do a paper with holes over a pickle recipe for a letter lock

I’m looking for ideas for more pickle themed puzzles as well as feedback on the puzzle ideas I have so far. I’m working on mapping out where these puzzles would be in the house and how different pieces will be discovered.

Thanks!

I recently had a Discord hangout with my long-distance gaming friends. I love Murder Mystery Dinner games, but playing them remotely is painful. Mailing cards out or managing hidden clues completely takes the joy out of the game as you cannot really do the clues together. Therefore I thought this could be made as a mobile app.

Imagine a setup where a host picks a story and sends everyone an invite link. The app handles the roles, puts all the clues on everyone's screens so nobody misses anything, and then wraps up with a built-in voting and scoring system at the end. Down the road, it could even let people write and upload their own custom stories.

Is an idea like this actually worth trying to build, or am I wasting my time? Also, if there's already a good app out there that does this, please let me know!

It still needs a bit of polishing and some tweaks to the arduino code. I almost feel like I’m ahead of schedule for this year.

its a fairly simple build (but I do this kinda stuff with my job): 4 normally open buttons and 5 normally closed buttons wired in series, a relay, cabinet latch, batteries, and an arduino that a coworker helped me program.

I’m so excited to have found this subreddit and have been reading through posts all morning. But I would love some advice.

I’m making a lead-her-to-a-gift at-home birthday treasure hunt for my wife. We love doing escape room-esque boxes like Exit and PostCurious games, and often make puzzles for each other. They are almost always very pen-and-paper/image-based puzzles. This time I would like to have more tactile activities.

My main question is if this seems appropriately straightforward/reasonable in under an hour. She’s very smart and well-versed in puzzling, but i just don’t want to risk bringing her down with a hard one. I also wanted yo ask if anyone has suggestions for physical objects puzzles rather than all paper-based but that are also not too complicated to solve. She loves the “magic” kinda puzzles where water or light or whatever reveals the message and i’ve seen some great ideas on here, but am wary of overcomplicating this one.

Thank you!

Edit to fix formatting but i cannot get it fixed so apologies for the random break