Nicholson, S. (2015). Peeking behind the locked door: A survey of escape room facilities. White Paper available at http://scottnicholson.com/pubs/erfacwhite.pdf
Live-action team-based games where players discover clues, solve puzzles, and accomplish tasks in one or more rooms in order to accomplish a specific goal (usually escaping the room) in a limited amount of time.
Rapid growth and evolution of escape rooms
No apaparent guide to understanding what they are there for.
Escape rooms require teamwork
communication
delegation
critical thinking
attention to detail
lateral thinking
Accessible to a wide range of
Ages
genders
experiences
skills
background knowledge
physical abilities
Take place in the physical world
Create opportunities for players to engage directly with each other in the same way that they would in a table top game
Players eager to look at something other than a glowing screen are flocking to games in the physical world for face-to-face engagement opportunities.
History of Escape Rooms
SCRAP: Real Escape Game in Japan in July 2007
Now also become known for running a Real Escape Game Event - for hundreds or thousands of players in a large space.
Rooms grew rapidly in Asia, then across Europe (with Hungary being a significant hub), and then over to Australia, Canada and the USA.
Numerous interactive media precursors to the Escape Room concept
Live-Action Role-Playing
Point-and-Click Adventure Games and Escape-the-Room Digital Games
Puzzle Hunts and Treasure Hunts
Interactive Theatre and Haunted Houses
Adventure Game Shows and Movies
Themed Entertainment Industry
The Mystery, The Tension
The mystery of what is behind the entry food in an escape room created incredible tension and giddiness in players.
Tension in the air is high
People are nervous and quiet
Don't know what to expect
Burst of excitement as teams enter the rooms and begin
The discussion of the shared experience afterwards continues long after leaving the facilitity; in the live-action role-playing community, this shared discussion of an activity is known as froth, and is what a good escape room creator seeks to generate (Howitt, 2012).
Game Themes and Narratives
A collection of puzzles and tasks without a theme or narrative
Have a theme, where the decorations, audio track, and props in the room match up with the theme, but there is no overarching story. The puzzles could stand independently outside of the room and do not rely upon the theme.
Have a narrative and the players are placed into a role into the narrative through some type of a pre-game video or story presented by the game master. The goal may tie into this narrative, but the puzzles done throughout the room do not necessarily move the narrative can and can stand apart from the narrative.
Can have a narrative, and craft the puzzles such that the puzzles are part of the story telling and move the narrative along. The puzzles cannot be seperated from the narrative, as they are part of the story
None of these are the "right" design path. Some players are simply wanting to work on puzzles with friends in the physical world, so the narrative can get in the way. For others, having a theme can add to the ambiance and fun, but they are not really wanting to listen to a detailed backstory; they want to focus on the puzzles and tasks. On the other hand, some players are seeking a strong narrative experience and want to have immersion; these players get frustrated whent he puzzles or the game master takes them out of the narrative space.
Different game styles are better for different players. Designers need to consider their goal, work to meet that goal, and then ensure that the games are marketed and described in a way to help players choose the best room.
Puzzle Organisation
Open
Sequential
Path based
Hybrid Model
Several puzzles at the same time. Each path is a sequence and leads to a final result needed for a meta-puzzle.
Different members of a team can work on different paths at the same time, but by presenting a subset of puzzles, the designer can start with simpler puzzles and then move into more difficult puzzles as the players grow in confidence and familiarity.
Players are presented with one puzzle, the answer of which will unlock the next puzzle in the sequence, and the final puzzle allows players to win the game.
Players have the opportunity to take a large number of puzzles in the room at the same time. As they solve puzzles, they get pieces of the final solution.
More difficult to use when creating a scaffholded, flow-based experience where the game gets more challenging as time goes on.
Works better in smaller rooms or when puzzles require the entire team to work together in a series of linear tasks.
Was more popular in the games from Asia than the path-based organisation above.
The team may start with a few puzzles presented in sequence, then as this opens up move into a path-based model as the team gets into the flow of the room.
It could also go the other way, where it starts with an open or path-based model, and then the puzzles become fewer but more challenging at the end of the room.
Pyramid structure: starts with multiple path-based puzzles, each of which feeds into a meta-puzzle that starts a sequence, which creates another path-based structure leading to a meta-meta-puzzle
"Start to grate" how long a player must play a game before finding a breakable object (Old Man Murray, 2000).
"Time to blacklight"
Learning Outcomes
Recreational game with educational opportunities or as an educational escape room.
Teamwork
Communication
History
Geography
Culturally relevant subjects
Local interest areas
Activities of political leaders
Science
Astronomy
Chemistry
Literature
Folk tales
Sherlock Holmes
Shakespeare
Communication Method
Semaphore
Morse code
Braille
Cipher systems used over time
Implications of Research
Allowing players choices about the polices and rules governing their gameplay can make it more likely that a player will have an engaging experience
Video game design has matured, however the addition of variables allowed the player to set some of the constraints around a game experience.
Setting of a difficulty level
Extrinsic rewards (such as leadersboards) can put too much emphasis and encourage teams to cheat. Some will find it frustrating and demotivating.
Allow players to decide if it is competitive or non-competitive.
How many hints
How to communicate with game staff
Qualification for ranking the leaderboard
Some of the puzzles
Casual/Standard/Hardcore etc
Need to design games that can be replayable. Commonly voices frustration from escape room proprietors.
Better match to the themed entertainment industry.
Constant state of renovation: designed to be something that can be repeated and enjoyed by return customers.
Look to change the player experience so that it is more about having the adventure and less about doing the static puzzle.
Matt FuPlessie (5Wits) TED Talk: Being part of a spectacle, feeling heroic, and engaging with something challenging
Immerses players in a narrative where they are part of the adventure.
Create multiple puzzles instead of one
Computer generated puzzles
Physical puzzles can have different instructions and solutions
Creation of several sets of puzzles so returning users can request a different set of clues.
Create a room with multiple different possible puzzles
Each team gets a randomly generated path that uses a subset of puzzles.
Might repeat 1 or 2 puzzles, most of the experience would be new.
Design experiences that not only require a solution, but require the group to work together to carry out the solution.
Boda Borg: Teams work together to take on quests, which area series of rooms that have short challenges without instructions. Players must work together to figure out what to do and then accomplish the tasks in a short period of time. Upon completion, the team can move on to the next room. If they fail, they leave the quest, but can start again with their new knowledge. Based around a video game structure where players try, learn, fail, and try again.
Different endings that players could strive towards, based upon performance.
Different endings without the competitive aspect, corresponding to how many puzzles they solved.
Has to be made a priority in design.
Need to consider and reflect local culture
Nature and expectations of players
Types of spaces
Environmental factors
The name "Escape Room" may limit the industry
Can evoke a horror theme that may not make everyone comfortable.
Not family friendly
Not all of the games are about escaping a room.
Could become more problematic as the variety of goals that players are given to accomplish grow beyond escaping a room
LARP (Live Action Role Play) could drive potential players away who shy away from role playing.
Point-and-click adventure games is in an immersive physical space rather than a virtual space.
Future Reaserch areas
Focus on the best practices in developing escape room puzzles and working on the challenges that were identified as the most difficult - creating puzzles, balancing the difficulty levels, creating robust props, and how to integrate puzzles and narrative.
Ideas on how to create rooms that can be changed between plays in a fair manner, to both reduce cheating and allow people to replay the same game.
Survey players in the same way that this study explores facilities and see where expectations match and where there are opportunities for improvement.
Psychological and sociological experiments on how different types of players interact with different types of puzzles and tasks, at both an individual and group level.
How to use escape room concepts for educational purposes and in places of informal learning such as the museum or libraries.