Escape Room Game Design [2022]

Observation The Intended Experience for the puzzle, we intended to let the players first find the boxes and puzzles from the mailboxes. Then they will focus on the arrangement of the boxes based on the color and number provided, as well as look through the riddle and figure out the first word in each line composed “key is under the table”.  They will easily figure out the EMPTY boxes by 1) the 6th is the same as the 2nd and it is not bad 2) listening to the silent boxes when they shake them. Then they can know the 3rd and 7th are BAD as “bad can only be right of the EMPTY”. Then, that line also means “BAD can not be at the left of EMPTY” so the GOOD boxes can only be 1st and 5th.  Also, players can use the last line “MAP can not be the rightmost” to figure out the 1st is the TOKEN, and the 5th is the MAP.  The Playtest Experience During the playtest, the three players first seek the boxes and arrange them according to the color indications. Then they follow the clue of th...

 Identify the Player's Goal Act 3 is going to be the final scene so it should function as the summary of the previous scenes and present the climax - the actual conducting of the ritual to give the ghost home.  Act 3 will be present in the Finding Home section of the museum after players finish Act 2 in the Lincoln exhibition when the ghost will guide them by informing them "I want to go home, could you please find me a home". The first stop of the players entering Act 3 will be the post office section Puzzle 1: Time Capsules Prior to the ghost's death, he left himself some time capsules that keep his memories. There are some items he likes and some items he fears. The player's goal is to solve the word riddle and find out the correct boxes that he likes to get the map pieces and ritual tokens for the following acts.   There are 7 boxes and the players would arrange them in order first. Then the riddle should give some clues about some relations between boxes (cur...

 Brainstorming Process After the actual tour of the Museum of the Grand Prairie, we as a class decided to divide the escape room into three acts, which are going to happen in three different places:  the first level The Grand Prairie Story the lower level Lincoln Exhibition the lower level Discovering Home Exhibition  There will be a design of a ghost, Alp, who was one of the historians in the past but was trapped in the museum after his death. At the opening of the scene, the players will accidentally open the box to seal the ghost; however, through the process of the escape room, the players will interact with the ghost (using sound and light effects rather than a real NPC) and figure out who he is, what happened during the time he was being sealed, and how to send him to rest in the home (which corresponds to "Finding Home")  The experiences are designed to be playa...

  This is the design file of a marble puzzle in an Escape Room Concept Sketch Step by Step Experience Analyze Playtest Summary Player Profile Jes is a university student and she had played escape rooms before. She has good math and logic preexposure and understands some mechanics of escape room puzzles.  Prior Information Provided Before Playtest She was told to be in an old library room with a table in the middle of the room; you found several letters on the table with some random papers and a plume pen. Not far away on the side bookshelf, there is a stream of light on a crystal small chest with a lock of 3-digit passcode. What Happened During the Test She first opened each envelope and took out the marbles, placed them next to each envelope. Then she looked at the stamp on each envelope and flipped it over to see if there were something on the back. After that, she focused on the chest with the passcode and saw there were marble illustrations next to each digit of the passco...