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- In any escape room there are puzzles to solve, locks to open, and challenges to overcome. Players must complete each puzzle in order to win the game and escape from the room! Though escape rooms come in many different forms and themes, similar types of puzzles and locks exist in most of them.
theescapegame.com/blog/the-key-to-escape-room-locks-and-puzzles/
Key Takeaways on Escape Rooms Locks and Puzzles. Understanding the different types of locks and puzzles in escape rooms would also mean putting your team in a strategic position. This, in turn, increases your chances of winning and getting your name on the Wall of Champions.
- Section 1: Extracting Digits, Letters, Directions, and Orders
- Section 2: Extracting Phrases
- Section 3: Extracting Pictures and Instructions
- Section 4: Extracting Items
- Section 5: Common Locking Mechanisms
- Section 6: Simple Circuits
This section contains very common puzzle themes that are repeated in many escape rooms. Many of these themes can be easy to implement and are not high-tech, but can lead to fantastic results in high-quality rooms.
Idea #5. Decrypt Messages
These red symbols sure look enticing. If only we could decipher this… (This is the Codex Runicus) Custom codes and ciphers are the most common in escape rooms since they’re a great way to incorporate the theme. Other than custom symbols, Morse code seems to be the second most popular because of its flexibility (works in audio and flashing light forms too) and general recognizability. Other popular codes and ciphers include Pigpen Cipher, Caesar Cipher, or a Book Cipher (commonly the Arnold Ci...
Idea #6. Find Information in Plain Text
You can hide information in passages of text that otherwise help fit the story or theme of the game. This one is incredibly flexible. There are a huge number of ways you can do this, including: 1. Highlighting or coloring certain words or letters in a text passage 2. Giving your players access to some sort of sheet with holes. These holes lined up with the text in the right way will show specific words that players should read. 3. Particular words in the text will refer to particular objects...
Idea #7. Reveal Invisible Messages by Blacklight
This is one of the more common mechanisms that we see in early escape rooms. A blacklight is hidden somewhere in a locked box or cabinet somewhere in the escape room, which lets players comb the walls and objects around the room for hidden puzzles written in blacklight marker. Tips: Make sure that the things you want to show in the blacklight are visible when the blacklight is shone on it. If it isn’t visible, either you’ll need a stronger blacklight, a new coat of blacklight paint, or you ne...
Idea #8. Piece Together Parts
This common puzzle involves players slowly finding various pieces of a large clue they need to solve the game. This is incredibly common as it allows players to achieve satisfactory progress, let them try to solve the incomplete puzzle, and then realize that they need more pieces in order to proceed. This comes in a variety of flavors: 1. You get the pieces of a multi-piece puzzle sequentially, not all at once. 2. A critical piece of paper you need comes in parts, and you need to find all or...
Idea #9. Search for Items in Odd Places
This is almost certainly the most common escape room puzzle – it’s so common that every one of the escape rooms we’ve had have had searching as a component in some way or another. This simply involves hiding important things in not-so-obvious places. Tips: Common places include within coat pockets, inside a book safe, inside drawers, inside containers, on top of a ledge, on top of surfaces that are just beyond eyes reach, or stuck to a support pillar of the room. More evil places include behi...
Idea #10. Retrieve Items Out of Reach
This is especially common in prison-themed escape rooms. The keys to a cell are usually just out of reach beyond the bars, and the players must use a long stick, a magnet on a string, or grabby tool. Tips: Keys are not magnetic, but steel rings are. A magnet attached to a string can grab keys on a steel ring. This concept also applies in general to any object that’s out of reach via normal means, and the player must find some sort of method to extract the object out. Usually the object is a k...
Idea #11. Solve Puzzles in Everyday Objects
This idea is a catch-all for all of the different kinds of objects that you can turn into a puzzle. Playing cards are extremely common and probably somewhat overused here. Here are some more ideas: 1. For objects that clearly belong together, you can write on them so that it spells out some sort of code or message (when reassembled into the right order). 2. For objects that are very numerous, you can write various symbols on them and have some sort of mechanism to get your players to choose t...
While the key lock is ubiquitous, it can easily be overused. Here are some of our suggestions to go beyond the normal key lock and look into other mechanisms. Some of these mechanisms can only be executed with some basic electronics knowledge.
Idea #15. Place an Item to Trigger a Sensor
An object placed in the correct location can trigger the opening of a door or cabinet. This is more advanced than the other ideas on this list but also can be a simple electronics project. Tips: The object will usually have a magnet or an RFID tag buried on the bottom. The surface that the object is placed on will have a Reed Switch or some sort of RFID reader. There’s enormous flexibility here to hide the technology inside props that are appropriate for your theme. Make sure that once the do...
Non-Recommended Puzzle Ideas
While these are still valid puzzle ideas for escape rooms, we personally don’t recommend them (although they can be fun for certain players). Not recommended due trivialness 1. Trivia– Escape rooms are best when they don’t depend on pre-existing knowledge, else your customers can easily get stuck. This includes answers to crossword puzzles that rely on trivia rather than guessing of a proper word. 2. Riddles– These mostly rely on people having heard the riddle before, and are usually difficul...
Conclusion
Our general (and very common) advice for entrepreneurs interested in starting an escape room business are to travel and try out as many great escape rooms as possible before you begin, to get a sense of what makes a good experience for your customers. These ideas that we listed can be incredibly easy and inexpensive to implement, but please don’t make them seem like they were easy or inexpensive to implement. These ideas are very common, which means that the most basic versions of these puzzl...
- Combination Locks. Combination Locks are the most commonly used lock found in escape rooms next to the standard key lock. Commonly referred to as “Combo” locks.
- Directional Lock. Directional locks are probably the most confusing lock found in escape rooms. How to use: Directional locks have a button in the front that acts like a joystick on a gaming controller or an arcade machine.
- Dial Lock. Dial Locks, aka school locker locks, are locks that require a 3-number combination using a rotary dial. How to use: The dial lock opens by rotating the dial 3 full rotations to the right to reset.
- Number Pad Lock. Number pad locks can be found in many places in escape rooms, perhaps on a door, a cabinet, or a safe. Number pads are very similar to combination locks in that you must find numbers in a certain sequence.
- Padlock. A padlock is one of the most common type lock in escape room. They’re designed to withstand the test of time, making them an essential part of an escape room kit.
- Numerical Locks. Numerical locks are the next most common puzzle found in an escape room. Much like traditional padlocks, numerical locks are readily available, durable, and cheap, making them the ideal prop.
- Word Locks. Like numerical locks, players must solve puzzles to uncover the code for unlocking word locks. Traditional word locks use a 4-6 letter word, and there are several ways in which escape rooms can hide the code.
- Directional Locks. Directional locks aren’t as frequently used as the other three locks mentioned above. These are tricky to operate, expensive, and not as readily available as traditional locks.
Apr 19, 2023 · Some of the puzzle types you can expect to encounter on your next escape room adventure are: Lock-based puzzles: Combination locks, padlocks, safes and so on. Object-based puzzles: Jigsaw puzzles, maze puzzles, dissection puzzles (where you slide small pieces to create a larger shape) and so on.
May 10, 2021 · In any escape room there are puzzles to solve, locks to open, and challenges to overcome. Players must complete each puzzle in order to win the game and escape from the room! Though escape rooms come in many different forms and themes, similar types of puzzles and locks exist in most of them.
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May 24, 2023 · You must solve a series of lock puzzles to escape an escape room successfully. Each lock requires a unique approach and set of clues to unlock. Understanding the different types of escape room locks you may encounter can enhance your experience and increase your chances of success.
