Playing through a physical escape room is a ton of fun! Objects and clues are hidden throughout the space, and physical locks guard whatever comes next. New rooms and areas open as your group progresses through the puzzles. Plus, a game master lays out the basic rules (like “please don’t break the furniture”) and is available to give hints. The systems and game design that make escape rooms work have been developed, tested, and refined.
But what happens when you take the physical space out of the “escape room experience”? What limitations does that create—and what opportunities?
Escape-room-style games take many forms, from board games, card games, and jigsaw puzzles to video games and at-home kits that turn any room into an escape experience. When developing the Puzzling Escapes books, I played several of these games for inspiration and considered how to translate an escape room into book form. I put a lot of thought into the mechanics that make each Puzzling Escapes adventure fun and solvable.
Storytelling
What makes an escape room more than a collection of logic puzzles? The story, of course!
Every escape room tells a story: how you got into the current situation, what’s keeping you from leaving, and what will happen if you fail. Every escape room I’ve played begins with either a video explaining the scenario or an employee reading the story hook from a notecard. As players progress, they uncover more of the story through the room’s features, notes, letters, audio recordings, and other elements.
As a writer, the idea of telling a story through puzzles appealed to me. It was also the first design hurdle I tackled when developing an escape room in a book. Some escape rooms cast you as a specific character or a member of a particular faction, but generally, you play as yourself. Like popular choose-your-own-adventure books, “you” are the main character in each Puzzling Escapes adventure.
However, I didn’t want “you” to be the only character. Each book gives you a friend who’s stuck with you. To keep the entire puzzling experience immersive and within the story’s narrative, that friend provides any help you might need throughout the adventure.
Progression
No escape-room game—whether a physical room, video game, or board game—starts as a free-for-all with every puzzle available. The story unfolds gradually as players solve a mystery, discover how the room came to be, or decipher the solution that will grant them freedom.
In a physical escape room, players may not think much about how the story unfolds. There’s a natural sense of progress as locks open, new puzzle pieces are uncovered, and new rooms become accessible.
Some escape games I’ve played reveal one puzzle at a time, creating a structured narrative that players must follow linearly. This can be frustrating when only one puzzle is available and you can’t figure it out. Others, like Escape the Room: The Cursed Dollhouse, have physical rooms that contain several puzzles, letting players choose which one to work on next.
I decided to mimic the three-part structure I’d seen in many physical escape rooms. After the book’s introduction, readers enter the first section. Each puzzle begins with a bit of narration that moves the story forward, and solving it reveals a conclusion that carries the reader into the next part of the adventure.
Puzzle Management
Escape games that aren’t played in a physical room need a few extra mechanics, and one of the first challenges I tackled while developing Puzzling Escapes was puzzle management.
In at-home escape games, each puzzle might have a unique symbol, illustration, or name that players use when checking answers or looking up hints. These identifiers might be referenced in a booklet or deck of cards. As players progress, they may be instructed to turn a page in a book, open a box of game components, or draw cards from a deck.
I wanted the Puzzling Escapes books to be completely self-contained, without relying on outside materials or a website. Although a website can be a powerful tool for managing hints and checking answers, I’ve found the games that let me set aside my phone for a few hours the most satisfying.
I decided to use a keyword system in which each puzzle has a unique identifying word. Symbols work well for tracking puzzles in a board game, but I knew the book format would require readers to flip through several pages to look up information. Instead of organizing everything in puzzle order, I arranged each section alphabetically by keyword, making the next entry easier to find. Because readers move between sections frequently, tabbed dividers help them navigate quickly.
One of the joys of a physical escape room is finding cool objects that become important to future puzzles, so I added a dedicated Objects section to the books. Each item is part of a puzzle somewhere in the book; sometimes readers need an object from one puzzle to solve the next one.
Hints
Most puzzle enthusiasts know that the joy of solving a puzzle comes from piecing together the solution. When you get stuck, you don’t want the entire answer revealed.
Every good escape room needs some kind of hint system. In a physical escape room, a game master watches your group’s progress, so you can ask for help if you get stuck. With other escape games, however, no one is monitoring your progress.
Different games provide hints in different ways. Some include hints in the game materials, whether as a deck of cards, a pamphlet, or a book.
Another option is to host hints on a website. Websites can display only the hint a player needs and can support multimedia such as images and video, but they also require an internet connection and a smart device. Many players choose board games for a screen-free experience, so pulling out a phone midgame can give them the ick.
There’s also the option of including no hints at all—which I personally think ruins the game. Some games provide a forum where players can share hints and solutions, but new or obscure titles may not have an active community.
Because I’d already decided not to rely on a website for Puzzling Escapes, the keyword system also comes in handy for providing hints. Readers flip to the Hints section only when they need help, and because puzzles are identified solely by keyword, accidentally glancing at another hint won’t immediately reveal which puzzle it belongs to.
If readers still can’t solve a puzzle, they can read its full solution and keep moving forward.
Objects
One of the most satisfying parts of solving an escape room puzzle is the AHA! moment when a lock opens and reveals a cool object hidden inside a box.
In other escape games I’ve played, solving a puzzle may tell players to turn a page in a booklet. Other games use a deck of cards, a jigsaw puzzle, or a pile of objects that become available only at certain points.
The natural way to progress through a book is to turn the page, but I wanted something cooler than that for Puzzling Escapes. I wanted readers to discover hidden objects that were actually hidden. But how do you hide things in a book?
I knew the objects would have to be printed on pages, but placing them on the backs of pages keeps them out of sight. Storing all the objects at the end of the book also prevents readers from encountering them until they actively need them.
One frustration I wanted to avoid was making players cut out fiddly pieces with scissors. It never made much sense to me, especially in games with custom components. I wanted every object readers discover to be die-cut, ready to pop out and use. My publisher also recommended adding a pocket inside the front cover to store the objects so they don’t get lost.
Checking Answers
Verifying that readers have found the correct answer was one of the biggest challenges in making the Puzzling Escapes books work.
In a physical escape room, entering a combination and watching a lock open lets players know they’ve found the right answer. Or they might arrange objects in a certain way, triggering a circuit or magnets that open the next door. Whatever the mechanism, the feedback is immediate.
I had already decided not to rely on a website, so checking answers on a webpage was out of the question. But I didn’t want to simply print answers upside down, as children’s puzzle books often do, because readers might see the solution before they’ve finished trying to solve it.
The Exit the Game series has a clever answer-checking system that uses both a decoder disk and a deck of cards. Although neither a decoder disk nor a deck of cards fits naturally inside a book, its two-step checking process inspired me.
Requiring every solution to be a three-digit number imposes a few limitations on logic puzzles, but a consistent answer format also makes the answer-checking system simpler. Instead of a decoder disk, I list every possible solution, from 000 through 999. Rather than mapping each code to a specific card as Exit does, the codes point to entries in a keyword table.
At a glance, it’s hard to tell which entries in the keyword table are actual puzzle keywords and which are random words. The codes also don’t visibly correspond to particular entries without careful study. This keeps the correct answers from being unintentionally revealed when a reader checks a possible code.
I did eventually create an optional web tool for readers who prefer it to the answer-checking section in the books. And, of course, readers who are stuck can always read the full solution, which explains the answer in plain text.
First Puzzle Solved
Designing the mechanics that turned Puzzling Escapes into a playable escape-room-style book was a puzzle in itself. I found the process incredibly satisfying, and now, after writing several of the books, I have the system down.
Without locks, props, a game master, a required website or app, sound, or animation, I’m proud of what I’ve been able to pack into each book. And the core experience is still exactly what I wanted: an escape room in a book.
A standard system now handles how readers play the games, navigate the stories, check answers, and collect objects. With that framework in place, each new book lets me focus my creativity on telling a cool new story and crafting unique, mind-bending puzzles.
Of course, even better than the story behind Puzzling Escapes are the stories inside the books! Have you ever wondered what would happen if you were marooned on a tropical island and found an old shipwreck? Find out in Puzzling Escapes: The Secret of Shipwreck Island!
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