How to Create Your Own Escape Room at Home

Visiting an escape room can be a fun adventure, but it’s not necessary to leave your house to experience the pleasure of visiting one of these rooms.

Escape rooms have become all the rage and many people visit them to solve puzzles with clues to break out of the room. These rooms have you locked in with tips and ideas regarding the escaping of the areas. Instead of loading up everyone and driving to one of these rooms, create one at home and enjoy the fun without heading out.

Here are some tips to help you create your own escape room at home.

Start with a theme

Many companies hosting these rooms have themes to them. You can use an old-world setup with nautical items, create a futuristic adventure, or set up a theme with some of your family’s favorite things. Once you figure out the theme you’ll use, you need to use the theme to provide context to the challenges and the room. This immersive group activity can be a lot of fun, especially when you use an incredible theme to create a fantastic story.

You could create a room with a theme around the holiday. Halloween is a great holiday for your friends and neighbors to come over and try and escape a spooky room in your home. This could also be a lot of fun during other holidays, with each one using a theme of that celebration.

How will your players find clues?

Will you use riddles to help your players figure out what the clues are and how to solve the puzzles that keep you in the room? You’ve got to get them started with at least one clue, but make it possible for them to discover other clues based on the first one. Make sure the clues and puzzles are age-appropriate, especially if you have children playing. There can be rewards for finding correct clues, with the final reward being the end of the escape room when your family gets out.

Some of the items you’ve placed around the room can be the clues you need. Use marking cues for easy identification, which helps your family understand that these items are actual clues. Place hidden objects in books or under items for your participants to find while solving the puzzles.

Use a flowchart for the puzzles

When preparing the fun, you’ll need to create a flowchart with puzzles and items that lead to the escape from the fun. How will the players move from one puzzle to the next? Can you keep them from skipping ahead with some limitations or hidden objects that can’t be found without the previous item? It’s important to create a flow to the puzzles, otherwise your players might solve the room too fast.

What kind of clues will you use? Could there be patterns to your puzzles, audio clues, or math problems that can help your kids with school that are part of the game? Let your players have fun during the game, but make sure they have to find each clue in order.

Set the mood and environment

Your theme could guide you toward the mood you want to create. If you’ve got a theme from a particular decade, play some music from that time to set up the mood and feeling associated with the escape room. The right background music can set the entire tone. If you’ve made a children’s puzzle room, choose the music they will like and enjoy while trying to find ways to get out of your room by solving puzzles. The right props and lighting can also help set the tone and make the room feel right with your theme.

Can you create some special effects or use technology to set your environment? Tablets, smartphones, and projectors can be useful tools to make your theme work great and give you the escape room that your family and friends will love.

Get ready for some fun

You’ve created the room and know how it works, but the fun will be in watching your family try and solve your puzzles and get out of the door first. These experiences allow your family to become a team and work together to solve puzzles and find the solution to the room with the ultimate prize of escaping the area. This can be a lot of fun for your whole family or neighborhood of friends.

Are you ready to put together your first escape room? You might like doing this so much that you put a room together for every event.