Escape rooms can also really help you mix it up from the usual boardgames we’re all used to playing and they involve both teamwork, activity and competition which is unique compared to many types of conventional boardgames. How about running a leaderboard with your family and friends? Can your guests beat your best time? Ok, you already have the story, but how can you create puzzles when you have zero experience? Well, it is challenging and time-consuming, but for me, it was the most fun part of the process. Believe me, there is a ton, a million ways to invent puzzles, some of them you can conjure up just by using things you already have in your drawers. If you want something truly customized for your group, you can always DIY (Do It Yourself). This takes some time, effort, and practice. However, if you do it well, you can use the activity over and over again with different groups. The following are the steps that we took when we created the My Rich Uncle activity.

Atmosphere makes all the difference! This is true for any DIY escape rooms you build as well as other at home escape rooms. My first escape game was a real blast. It took me almost a month of thinking, searching, creating, buying some stuff, and setting all of it up in my living room, but when it came down to the actual playing, I felt like the Superman of the Game Masters. Actually, it was a surprise party for my escape room crew, and btw, I’ve played many escape games with them. Escape rooms and home puzzle games follow a logical flow and you’ll need to draft everything out and come up with a flow diagram of sorts. The idea is to point players to certain milestones or clues, where they’ll complete a task and then move onto the next clue. Sometimes, clues can be hidden randomly amongst the environment, prompting a mad scramble from players as they rush to find the first clue.By drawing a flow chart you can also see whether your game is mostly linear or non-linear. Linear games are ones where the tasks are like pearls on a string and non-linear games are the ones that contain branches that allow players to work on more than one task in parallel. In the example above there are two branches that join at “Decode the combination” since two clues are needed to do the task and those two clues can be obtained in parallel. Don’t forget that these games are all about the experience, not just the puzzles! When you are all done with setting the clues and the puzzles, sprinkle in more fun! You already feel like the greatest game master ever, because you’ve already figured out all these challenges and you connected them into an amazing escape room! By the way, if you are looking to build a challenge on your own and don’t know where to start, this game can help. It will give you some good ideas, and it is inexpensive. My Rich Uncle Team Escape Room Before starting the game, inform the testers that they are testing a new game and if they fail to complete it without hints or fail to have a good time, it is a fault of the game and not because they are stupid. They are not the ones being tested here. Also, inform them that there will be no time limit for the test because it is more important that all content is tested. However, the Mystery at Stargazer Manor was a little better. Not quite as good as Dr. Gravely, but somewhat entertaining. The reason that I didn’t add it above is that the story for this one isn’t great. Want to Create the Entire Activity from Scratch in True DIY Fashion?

Of course, the easiest way is to let someone else do the work and provide you with exciting high-grade puzzles. That’s why we’re here! It might require some thought but with some pointers and inspiration, you can formulate your own escape room experiences that are highly personalised to you and your environment. The Puzzles E.g. Walking around, your curiosity leads you to a secret room, one in which no one has set foot in over a century.There are 18 puzzles that need to be completed to escape the museum; for a challenge try setting a 90-minute timer to complete the game in, otherwise choose to work through the puzzles at your own pace. Second, you should test on at least one person that never tried the game before. Ideally, this person should be at the same age and experience level as your players. Don’t give the tester any more information than you would give your real players.