DIY Escape Room: Transform Your Home into an Adventure

TL, DR

Escape rooms are playful interactive activities intended to give clues as a pointer to start and uncover a mystery to escape from a room. Instead of going for escape room activities, you can design your own as a DIY project as it is less costly, highly customizable, initiates teamwork, and is immensely fun to create. The first step in DIYing an escape room is to consider the desired theme according to the plot.

This creates the theme for the whole experience and may be what sets apart an average escape room from a great one. Deciding your theme completely depends on the available space and the number of people you need to appeal to.

After coming up with a theme, it is now time to determine the location of your escape room. Most escape rooms are created in one or two rooms of a house, for example, the living room or the basement. However, it is your choice to cover several areas of the home if you desire to make it a more complex journey.

Games are the core of escape rooms, and creating them requires two vital elements: imagination and reason. Every puzzle should connect to the story and the given theme.

You can go for games like puzzles, maze games, lock and key games etc.

Consider it the plot of the game that allows the players to expose themselves to the journey. For example, if your theme is the spy mission and your narrative is: The spy mission is to retrieve the stolen secrets from the complete enemy agent. This narrative says that as the players solve puzzles, they un-reveal pieces of a story. When everything is ready and set, with all the tests done, you can introduce your escape room to the participants, i.e., your friends and family.

Whether it is the single-room escape games where the participants solve a mystery or the multi-room games with various sophisticated puzzles to solve, the primary question is to make the concepts fun and interactive.

DIY Escape Room: Transform Your Home into an Adventure

People try to find new things for entertainment with family, but these options are often heavy on the pocket. There are other ways, like DIYing escape rooms in your home and gathering all your friends and family to enjoy without spending a lot of money.

Escape room is a famous entertainment that, apart from fun, also focuses on problem-solving, teamwork, and creation. Creating an escape game for your friends and families is one of the most fun avenues to undertake, preferably on a birthday party, next public holiday, or any other dull Saturday afternoon.

This article will guide you through turning your home into an adventure and is an advice on creating puzzles, choosing themes, and practical considerations for an escape room.

An escape room is a real-life recreation of a game in which players are locked in a room and expected to get out by solving puzzles, trivia, and riddles within a given time. It involves locking the players in a room and working their way out by solving the challenges that come with the game. The activity includes flavors of mystery, adventure, and the application of various skills necessary to solve puzzles typical for escape rooms.

DIY home escape rooms are the same as the carnival ones; however the constraints, such as space and difficulty level, are not as rigid, and thus, they can be a great activity for anyone.

Why Go for DIY Escape Rooms?

• Customizable Experience: You can choose puzzle types, topics, and difficulty levels in this game so that everybody can be happy at the end of the day.

• Cost-Effective: As it is a DIY project, you don’t need to spend much money on this game. You can gather many things from within your house.

• Team Building: It requires teamwork and coordination, which is why it is perfect for group activities involving friends and family.

• Creativity and fun:  The maker plans the game according to their wishes. Devising puzzles, plots, and challenges feels liberating; it is as much fun as participating in the fun room.

How to Build a DIY Escape Room?

Step 1: Choosing the Theme

The first step in making an escape room is to consider the desired theme according to the plot. This creates the theme for the whole experience and may be what separates an average escape room from a great one. You can choose from any of these many different themes.

• Mystery/Detective: Cutting through mystery, solving a crime, or exposing out-of-reach secrets.

• Science Fiction: Get out of a spaceship or an alien planet barren of human life.

• Horror: Get out of a house that turns out to be haunted or a lab with scary products.

• Adventure: Get a treasure or survive through a jungle.

• Fantasy: One can solve riddles in a magical kingdom or a wizard’s lair.

Deciding your theme completely depends on the available space and the number of people you need to appeal to. If you decorate a room for children, you can create something like a treasure hunt or a fairy tale.

If your guests are adults or teenagers, you may focus on more detailed storylines or some thrillers such as murders or spies’ stories.

Step 2: Setting up the Space

After coming up with a theme, it is now time to determine the location of your escape room. Even more impressive is that most escape rooms are created in one or two rooms of a house, for example, the living room or the basement.

However, it is your choice to cover several areas of the home if you desire to make it a more complex journey. Here, you must consider some elements to make things smooth and comfortable.

Those considerations involve enough lighting, an excellent airy atmosphere to avoid suffocation, better allocation of furniture and props, and some mystery elements like unique puzzles or even improvised places where things can hide, including the box, curtains, and closets.

Step 3: Designing Puzzles

Games are the core of escape rooms, and creating them requires two vital elements: imagination and reason. Every puzzle should connect to the story and the given theme.

You can go for some of these common types of puzzles for your escape room:

1. Locks and Keys

Combination Locks: In this game, you can hide a lock with any combination of things and prepare riddles that help you open it.

Padlocks: You can hide the keys to physical locks around the room. The players will search for them and solve certain puzzles to unlock them.

2. Word Puzzles and Ciphers

Anagrams: To make this game more interesting, hide the tiles of anagrams in different places and ask the players to find all the tiles to form a word and win the puzzle. Dropping hints is optional here.

Crossword Puzzles: You can also Develop a crossword puzzle with letters filled in that form a secret code when the puzzle is completed.

3. Physical Puzzles

Jigsaw Puzzles: Leave out parts of a whole jigsaw, in which the puzzle’s solution holds a key or a map when found.

Maze Puzzles: Design a maze in the physical environment where the correct path will give the participants a combination or a code.

4. Clue-Hunting

Hidden Objects: You can use objects such as keys, cards, or puzzle pieces to create tasks in which participants are asked to search for the objects to continue.

Invisible Ink: Retrace clues and leave them in piles. You can use invisible ink pens that make messages visible under UV lamps.

Step 4: Make A Story

Puzzles are not the only part of the escape room. It needs to be intriguing as well. Consider it the plot of the game that allows the players to expose themselves to the journey. For example, if your theme is the spy mission and your narrative is: The spy mission is to retrieve the stolen secrets from the complete enemy agent. This narrative says that as the players solve puzzles, they un-reveal pieces of a story, and this propels the excitement, and this excitement of knowing the story will keep them hooked. You need to ensure that each puzzle relates to some plot point.

For example, the players need to find a hidden diary to solve a riddle. Also, set a time limit to make it more challenging and fun. Usually, an escape room lasts for 60 minutes. You can make changes as per your plot.

Step 5: Test the Game Yourself

You need to test your DIY escape room, and for that, you must solve it yourself before inviting your guests. Try to run it through yourself, or if you’re lucky enough to have a friend, you can have them try it. Such a procedure will allow you to detect possible problems encountered during the practical activity.

There are too many complex puzzles, unclear indications of the actions to be performed, or some props’ failure. If any problems are indicated beforehand, issues can be resolved immediately.

Step 6: Hosting and Organising the Escape Room

When everything is ready and set, with all the tests done, you can introduce your escape room to the participants, i.e., your friends and family. Introduce them to the concept, the rules regarding the room, the time taken, and the room’s goal. You must remain around if the players need a hint or clarification of a word used in the puzzle.

Tips for Hosting a DIY Escape Room

• Offer Hints: To avoid a situation where the participants cannot solve a clue for an extended period, design a hint system whereby the participant can request a hint after a particular time, say 10 minutes.

• Keep Track of Time: We suggest you apply a timer to help players remember when the game is over.

• Celebrate Success: Remember to give some small incentive as a reward or for fun after those players are done with the room.