Na het succes op Plan & Play bouwen Ine (jeugddienst Herk-de-Stad) en Marijke (jeugddienst Lanaken) opnieuw een echte escape room. Kom ‘m testen! Daarna krijg je van hen een heleboel tips & tricks om zelf aan de slag te gaan om je eigen Escape Room jeugddienststijl te ontwikkelen.

1. Aan de Engelse hof 10/4, 3620 Lanaken, T 089 732 628
jeugd@lanaken.be, www.lanaken.be
Dienst
Jeugd
Tips & tricks voor zelf een Escape Room te bouwen.
10 geboden
1. Doe onderzoek! Start met een test en vergelijk met andere escaperooms.
2. Maak een plan op. Kijk hoe je het gaat aanpakken. Zelf bouwen/knutselen, laten
bouwen. En bepaal het budget, locatie en doelgroep.
3. Bepaal het thema en design, legende of verhaal.
4. Creëer je escaperoom verhaal met puzzels. Vertrek altijd vanuit het einde. Wat wil je
bereiken of uitkomen. Zo bewaar je het overzicht.
5. Zorg dat je genoeg lijnen uitzet in je kamer. Zo zorg je ervoor dat elke deelnemer
bezig kan zijn. ( max deelnemers – 1)
6. Een variatie van raadsels en zoekopdrachten maakt een kamer interessant voor
iedereen.
7. Belangrijk is dat je het niveau van de kamer aanpast aan de doelgroep.
8. Race tegen de tijd. Er moet altijd een tijdslimiet aan verbonden zijn.
9. Je kamer moet aangekleed zijn, dat helpt bij de totaalbeleving.
10. Plan ook het onderhoud, verzekering, marketing en bemanning van de kamer.
DIENST JEUGD

2. Budget
Het budget hoeft niet altijd groot te zijn.
Door zelf te knutselen kan je hele leuke dingen maken.

3. Heb je wat meer budget dan kan je echt uit de bol gaan. Van alle mechanisme bouwen,
verborgen deuren maken, …
Een leuk idee is een MaKey Makey in programmatie met het programma Scratch. Bekijk de
filmpjes hieronder om een idee te krijgen.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rfQqh7iCcOU
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=m8cdBU74crI

4. Basistips!
Idea #1. Extract Numbers from Pictures
Gummy bear count: 6 red, 2 orange, 4 yellow, 5 green, and 4 white. Combine that with a hint
elsewhere of “Red Orange Yellow Green” gummy bears leads to a code of 6245.
This one is incredibly flexible since it serves both as decor and a way to hide numbers that
are used in some sort of combination lock. This one is also easier to implement since you just
need some sort of design or image, and then to secure it to the wall firmly so that overzealous
room escapers won’t be able to pry it off.
Tips: An extremely common method is just counting, like the example in the image caption
above. You can have an image of 9 pineapples – and somewhere else in the room you have
a hint that a pineapple is supposed to correspond to a number. The number of pineapples, in
addition to the numbers of 3 other fruits, can give you the code for a 4-digit combination lock.
Idea #2. Decrypt Messages
With the right key, players might be able to decipher this.
Custom codes and ciphers are the most common in escape rooms since they’re a great way
to incorporate the theme. Other than custom symbols, Morse code seems to be the second
most popular because of its flexibility (works in audio and flashing light forms too) and general
recognizability. Other popular codes and ciphers include ASCII / Binary, Pigpen
Cipher, Caesar Cipher, or a Book Cipher(commonly the Arnold Cipher).
Tips: This code sheet (from Puzzled Pint) lists the most common codes / ciphers used in
puzzle hunts, which is also some of the most common codes / ciphers used in escape rooms.
Make sure you provide some sort of reference sheet for your players if you plan on using a
cipher / code – this is not necessarily common knowledge.
Idea #3. Find Information in Plain Text
This Valentine’s day poem is an acrostic. Read the first letter in each line to find out who it’s
addressed to.

5. You can hide information in passages of text that otherwise help fit the story or theme of the
game. This one is incredibly flexible. There are a huge number of ways you can do this,
including:
1. Highlighting or coloring certain words or letters in a text passage
2. Giving your players access to some sort of sheet with holes. These holes lined up with
the text in the right way will show specific words that players should read.
3. Particular words in the text will refer to particular objects around the room, which will
give players a particular selection or ordering.
4. Hide a message thats revealed if players read the words in a particular way, for example
every 5th word, or reading down a particular line.
5. Certain words in the passage could glow if held up to a light, when the lights are turned
off, or over a blacklight.
6. Have players look up information in a particular file
Idea #4. Reveal Invisible Messages by Blacklight
A blacklight can reveal messages written on the wall.
This is one of the more common mechanisms that we see in early escape rooms.
A blacklight is hidden somewhere in a locked box or cabinet somewhere in the escape room,
which lets players comb the walls and objects around the room for hidden puzzles written
in blacklight marker.
Tips: Make sure that the things you want to show in the blacklight are visible when the
blacklight is shone on it. If it isn’t visible, either you’ll need a stronger blacklight, a new coat of
blacklight paint, or you need to move the clue to somewhere with much worse lighting. Please
also keep the batteries fresh!
Advanced Tips: You can also have a whole wall full of blacklight paint, and then have some
sort of player action trigger a whole room to light up in blacklight with a blacklight fixture.
Idea #5. Search for Items in Odd Places
This book can certainly hold some hidden objects. Not an immediately obvious location, but
experienced room escapers will certainly ruffle through every book in the room.
This is almost certainly the most common escape room puzzle – it’s so common that every
one of the escape rooms we’ve had have had searching as a component in some way or
another. This simply involves hiding important things in not-so-obvious places.
Tips: Common places include within coat pockets, inside a book safe, inside drawers, inside
containers, on top of a ledge, on top of surfaces that are just beyond eyes reach, or stuck to a

6. support pillar of the room. More evil places include behind parts of the wall, underneath the
floorboards, or wedged behind things.
Word of caution: Escape rooms that have more searching will also have more players trying
to take apart the room. We’d warn against hiding things in the ceilings, above arms reach, or
inside electrical outlets as that can cause issues.
Idea #6. Retrieve Items Out of Reach
The photographer dropped his car keys down the drain and used a stick to fish them back out
again.
This is especially common in prison-themed escape rooms. The keys to a cell are usually just
out of reach beyond the bars, and the players must use a long stick, a magnet on a string,
or grabby tool.
Tips: Keys are not magnetic, but steel rings are. A magnet attached to a string can grab keys
on a steel ring. This concept also applies in general to any object that’s out of reach via
normal means, and the player must find some sort of method to extract the object out. Usually
the object is a key.
More Tips: You can also do this with lines of sight. Potentially something written somewhere
is not visible unless the player holds up a mirror.
Idea #7. Solve Puzzles in Everyday Objects
There are lots of puzzles you can make that just involve a set of playing cards… Maybe
certain cards are missing, or your players have to count how many are in any particular suit.
This idea is a catch-all for all of the different kinds of objects that you can turn into a puzzle.
Playing cards are extremely common and probably somewhat overused here. Here are some
more ideas:
1. For objects that clearly belong together, you can write on them so that it spells out some
sort of code or message (when reassembled into the right order).
2. For objects that are very numerous, you can write various symbols on them and have
some sort of mechanism to get your players to choose the right ones (in order). You can
also have your players count them to get the combination for a lock.
3. For objects that already have numbers on them, you can have some sort of mechanism
to have your players choose the right ones in order in order to get the combo to a lock.
4. An object has to be placed in exactly the right place in order to trigger a magnetic lock
(see the “Magnetic Reed Switch” idea)
Tip: Another way to expand on this is to have your players put these items in order to form
some sort of code. The ordering can be by size, length, in the order that they were mentioned
in a passage of text, or so on.

7. Idea #8. Take Out an Object from a Maze
Players can solve some sort of maze (like the classic Labyrinth game) in order to get a key or
object.
The key (or other important object) is hidden in plain sight, but the player has to solve some
sort of maze in order to access the object. The player has to maneuver the key or other object
outside of the maze using a set of restricted movements.
Tips: There’s tremendous variety here. The maze can be horizontal and rely on tilting
motions, vertical and mounted on a wall, or even 3-dimensional and requiring the
coordinated actions of two players.
Idea #9. Piece Together Parts
In an escape room, expect to solve jigsaw puzzles with up to 12 pieces, not 512 pieces
(whew).
This common puzzle involves players slowly finding various pieces of a large clue they need
to solve the game. This is incredibly common as it allows players to achieve satisfactory
progress, let them try to solve the incomplete puzzle, and then realize that they need more
pieces in order to proceed. This comes in a variety of flavors:
1. You get the pieces of a multi-piece puzzle sequentially, not all at once.
2. A critical piece of paper you need comes in parts, and you need to find all or most of
them in order to understand its contents
3. A jigsaw puzzle or tangram puzzle or something similar
Idea #10. Open a Combination Lock
This love lock bridge definitely has too many key locks.
Combination that are common in escape rooms include 4-digit combination locks,5-letter
word locks, and directional locks. These locks are fairly common in escape rooms and do well
to establish more variety in the locks in an escape room (and help prevent the scenario where
players aren’t sure which lock their code should go in).
Tips: For 5-letter word locks, some players will attempt to guess the right word according to
the theme of the room (like MAGIC for an magic-themed rooms). To avoid that, it’s better to

8. go with a world that’s much less obvious. Similarly, for 4-digit combination locks, players will
likely try to guess the last digit after they have 3 out of the 4 digits.
Idea #11. Trigger a Magnetic Lock
An object placed in the correct location can trigger the opening of a door. This is more
advanced than the other ideas on this list but also can be a simple electronics project.
Tips: The object will usually have a magnet or an RFID tag buried on the bottom. The surface
that the object is placed on will have a Reed Switch or some sort of RFID reader. There’s
enormous flexibility here to hide the technology inside props that are appropriate for your
theme.
Getting Started: For beginners to electronics, we recommend getting an Official Arduino
Starter Kit. After getting familiar with the platform, you can get a pack of reed switches to test
out some basic ideas. Arduinos are small computers / micro-controllers that can route
switches to the correct action (e.g. if 3 items are placed in the right place then a maglock will
open a hidden door).
Non-Recommended Puzzle Ideas
While these are still valid puzzle ideas for escape rooms, we personally don’t recommend
them (although they can be fun for certain players).
Not recommended due trivialness
 Trivia – Escape rooms are best when they don’t depend on pre-existing knowledge,
else your customers can easily get stuck. This includes answers to crossword puzzles
that rely on trivia rather than guessing of a proper word.
 Riddles – These mostly rely on people having heard the riddle before, and are usually
difficult to fit into the theme of the game.
 Arithmetic – A math problem shouldn’t be used as a puzzle by itself.
Not recommended due to frustration
 Puzzles without one definite solution – Following the puzzle solving process properly
should lead players to one definite solution, not two, three, or multiple.
 Technology that is likely to be finicky – If a player does exactly the right sequence of
steps, they should be able to solve the puzzle.
Not recommended due to safety
 Hiding things in fake electrical outlets – This is a safety issue.
 Hiding things in ceilings – This is also a safety issue
Bron:
www.escaperoomtips.com
https://lockpaperscissors.co/escape-room-puzzles
http://blog.nowescape.com/101-best-puzzle-ideas-for-escape-rooms/