DIY escape room at home: an adventure to make together

Has the rain ruined your family trip, and yet another film isn’t getting anyone excited? You can set up a DIY escape room at home in two ways: download a ready-made printable kit, or put together your own short mission with envelopes. Either way, nobody needs to be locked in a room. All you need is a story, a few tasks and a goal that the answers lead to.

It’s a good idea to start by deciding who will play and who will prepare the surprises. If a child helps cut out all the materials and reads the answers, discovering the puzzles later on will look quite different. Making the game together and solving it on your own are two different, equally good ways to have fun.

A ready-made kit or your own idea?

Ready-made materials save you from writing the whole story. You just need to read them, print them and set them up following the instructions.

Gamescape offers a free at-home game, Zombie Escape Room (in Polish). It’s a printable scenario in PDF format. A few things are worth knowing before you download it:

• How to get it: there’s no direct link to the file on the page. You enter your name and email address and sign up for the newsletter, and the game arrives in your inbox.
• What it’s about: the plot is tongue-in-cheek. The zombies have gone vegetarian, they eat pizza instead of brains, and there’s only one pizza left in the world, which you have to save by solving puzzles. Humour aside, it’s still a zombie story, so decide whether it suits your child.
• What you’ll need: a printer, scissors and time to cut out the pieces. The operator says the game is for younger and older players, but doesn’t give the age, the number of players or the playing time. You’ll only find those in the instructions.

A free download doesn’t mean no preparation. Printing, cutting and laying out the pieces all take time, so do it before you invite the players. Also check whether colour matters for the solution and whether every page is legible once printed.

If you’re writing your own scenario, start with a short mission, for example finding a lost message. You don’t have to fill the whole flat with codes right away.

What can you make puzzles from at home?

You don’t need special props. Lots of tasks can be built from things you already have:

• A combination lock (from a bike, for example) that closes a box or a pouch. Hide the code in another puzzle.
• A picture code: each symbol stands for a letter. The key is kept somewhere other than the coded message.
• A text with a hidden password: put a dot under every few words in a book or newspaper.
• A message in a balloon or in a bottle that has to be opened carefully.
• A jigsaw from a cut-up sheet of paper: once put together, it shows where the next clue is.

Match the tasks to the players’ skills. A child who is just learning to read will cope better with symbols and colours than with a long letter code. An older child can combine two pieces of information from different places.

An example of a small adventure with envelopes

Prepare three envelopes marked with a sun, a cloud and a star. In the first one, put a picture clue that leads to an agreed spot, for example a cushion. Hide a card there with the symbol of the next envelope. The last one can hold a final message thanking the players for their help.

This is a simple example of our own, and a parent should adapt it to the flat and the child’s age. Choose hiding places that don’t require climbing on furniture, touching appliances or opening private drawers. The doors stay open, and the limits of the game are clear from the start.

For a child who is just starting to read, you can combine a short text with a drawing. Give an older child more information to piece together. The point isn’t to hide a clue so well that nobody finds it.

Test the route from start to finish

Before you invite the players, go through all the tasks in order. Does the first one really lead to the second? Is the symbol they need visible? Can the answer be worked out without knowledge the child doesn’t have?

Prepare two or three gentle hints. First you can draw attention to the right item, then clarify the way of thinking. Save the full answer for the moment when the fun starts turning into frustration.

Not every moment needs a stopwatch

A game at home can be short and calm. If the children lose interest, take a break or finish the story early. If someone isn’t feeling well, a rest may be a better choice than the activity you prepared.

Cutting out, reading and searching for details are all chances to do something together. There’s no need to promise that it will develop every skill, or to treat boredom as a disaster. Sometimes a few envelopes and one sentence are enough: “Someone has left us a message. Shall we check it out?”

What next, if they love the puzzles?

If the mission at home got the children hooked, in Krakow you can play a similar adventure outside the house. Your choice depends on the weather:

• If it’s still raining: an indoor escape room. On the Dead Man’s Chest page, Gamescape describes this pirate room as child-friendly and good for a family game: 2 to 6 people, 65 minutes, difficulty 6/10 on the operator’s scale. According to the operator, children play under adult supervision, and the room doors stay open.
• If it clears up: the family city game Treasure Hunters. It takes 90 minutes for 1 to 6 players, has a difficulty of 4/10 and a route of about 2 km along the Rudawa river. The team gets an iPad with a map and a hint system.
• If you’d like to go at your own pace: the Krakow Legends app is a game on your phone. There’s no time limit or start time, you can take breaks and come back to the game later. One phone is enough for the whole family.

Before you head out, check the current dates and the rules for children on the page of the game you’ve chosen.