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Project Type:
Timeline:
Mystery NH is a locally-owned escape room company operating in New Hampshire's Mount Washington Valley since 2015. Since its inception, Mystery NH has provided a rotating suite of custom-made adventures, built from the ground up by the company's owner and staff. The limited time nature of its rooms helps keep the experience fresh for return visitors and new players alike. As escape rooms began to open back up to the public following the initial lockdown stages of the COVID-19 pandemic, the company was eager to begin refreshing their rooms. An escape room fanatic myself, I engaged in an apprenticeship with Mystery NH to get my hands dirty and learn the process of escape room design. Our first project was a cryptozoology-themed room, "Call of the Cryptid."
"Can you uncover the mysteries of the forest and find a way to escape back to civilization in 60 minutes?"
In preparation for designing this room, Mystery NH's owner consulted with a local cryptozoology expert and related published works. The goal was to create an experience that felt accessible to players of all ages without needing prior knowledge of the subject, without simply turning this into a Bigfoot / Loch Ness Monster room. Together, we brainstormed how we could incorporate other, lesser-known creatures from our research into the room's puzzles and scenery, ultimately landing on the pukwudgie for our main "monster." We also took note of elements and concepts that could be made into puzzles in line with the room's theme. This list included fossils, petrified amber, cartography, campfire s'mores, prayer flags, cave paintings, and shadow puppets.
Our first real challenge was the space. Cryptid would be housed in the biggest of Mystery NH's three available spaces - and the most unique - offering a second story / lofted area as part of the game. We elected to separate the space into three distinct areas: the wilderness, the cabin, and the pukwudgie lair. Players would begin in the wilderness, progress to the lair (housed in the loft), return back through the wilderness and finish the game in the cabin. Mystery NH's contractor worked on setting up the shell for the physical space, and we engaged with a local artist to create the scenery.
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Prior to working with Mystery NH, the closest thing I had to experience working with circuits or electrical wiring was replacing the batteries in a smoke alarm. However, electronic puzzles are always my favorite part of escape rooms - they often provide the WOW factor - and I was eager to learn.
We'd brainstormed multiple puzzles requiring players to collect and organize artifacts - in line with the room's exploration theme. For the first such puzzle, our team created molds of cryptid "scat" that players would have to identify and place in its corresponding location. Each mold contained an RFID chip. All five, when placed, would release a magnetic lock, opening a nearby door.
Wiring this puzzle took a deal of research and trial-and-error. I first built a small circuit model on our work bench, to make sure that the puzzle worked in isolation as we intended. Once this was done, I diagrammed the circuit and replicated it at full scale, running wires throughout the room and connecting them back to our master console (the "Escape Keeper"). Some further adjustments needed to be made to ensure the RFID puzzle was set at the appropriate sensitivity.
Keeping with the "collection" theme, each of the five main puzzles in the first segment (wilderness) would reward players with a disk of petrified amber concealing a plant (and, hidden underneath, a magnet). We wanted teams to match these magnets up with something in the environment to unlock the entrance to the game's second phase, the lair. Building this mechanism into something unique, like a waterfall, would be ideal - if we could pull it off.
Mingling electricity and water is not usually something one should try at home. Similarly to the "scat" puzzle, I first constructed the wiring for the waterfall (5 magnets triggering a magnetic lock) on a small scale. Installing the sensors for the magnets into our water fixture required a high level of precision, a reliable drill, and plenty of glue. I learned to solder the wires to solidify the connections and was careful to install safeguards keeping the water level separate from the wiring.
The presence of the waterfall served two purposes, providing players something to build toward in the first phase of the game, while enhancing the room's scenery and atmosphere.
Of course, we knew we couldn't have a cryptid-themed room without any cryptids. The central puzzle in the second phase of the room was the pukwudgie himself. Calling back lessons from elementary school art class, we created our creature using papier-mâché over a PVC base.
More than just a prop, the pukwudgie was a puzzle in and of itself. After completing a series of tasks, a red-orange spotlight would activate out of the creature's eyes and the palm of its hand (keeping with its lore, as a fire-conjuring beast). Players could then use this light to illuminate a series of wooden panels, creating shadow puppets which correspond to an alphabetical code.
Wiring the pukwudgie was a delicate process akin to the waterfall puzzle. We had initially built the creature around its circuitry, but when the spotlight ceased working properly, we had to re-wire it through its constructed body as if performing surgery. We also had to ensure the lair was sufficiently dark for the shadow puppets puzzle to work properly, and we commissioned a cage for the creature to remain in, to prevent players from harming it.
The Call of the Cryptid opened at Mystery NH in November 2020 and operated through June 2022. Prior to its opening, we ran a series of beta tests with Mystery NH staff members and volunteers among the public to ensure the room's difficulty matched our vision and to identify any potential bottlenecks or other issues to address. From these tests, we elected to simplify a logic puzzle by providing player with additional rules to follow. We also were prepared to tweak some of the more finnicky electronic puzzles (especially the RFID scat puzzle) and had constructed backups and replacements for the petrified amber and other props that were more at risk of breaking.
This project was my first exposure to escape room design. At the outset, I knew nothing about circuitry or electrical wiring. Learning this skill helped my confidence immensely as a designer, while also challenging me to think in new and innovative ways. Perhaps my biggest learning from this project lay in understanding that things often don't go as planned. We built props that broke. Came up with ideas that were too difficult to execute. Wired circuits that malfunctioned. Being open to making adjustments (often on the fly!) challenged me to think more creatively and truly upleveled my problem-solving skills. This was especially true when we entered the alpha and beta testing phase. Learning to listen to player feedback - not only what they say, but what they mean, and the root of the problems they identify - is an art and not a science. Taking and implementing feedback from those not so close to the game and the design process really helped take this room to the next level.