How to create a home-made escape room?

Do you know escape rooms? If you want to create your own homemade escape room for your next family or friends evening, follow us! We've got lots of great tips for making your Do It Yourself (DIY) party a success.

Does the task seem too big? Don't worry, it's not that big.

For an evening with friends, a family reunion or your child's birthday, we think big to please our guests. The most beautiful escape room will take place into your living room or even in your whole house🧐

If the weather is fine, why not organise your escape room outside? Discover our tips for designing an outdoor escape home and enjoying the sunshine!🌞

Create a home escape room with our tips!

HOW TO CREATE A HOME-MADE ESCAPE ROOM?

Designing an escape room yourself requires organization to create your own riddles and clues and to stay with the initial scenario.

First of all, you will have to start by coming up with a universe in which the participants will evolve. You must also create the story. The objective of the activity is to guide the players to the final resolution of the mystery.

A challenge full of actions!

To make a home-made escape room, you will need:

• A lot of imagination;
• Creativity;
• Good organisation;
• And good concentration.

You have set yourself a good challenge by wanting to create a Do It Yourself (DIY) escape room. Well done, we applaud your determination and we will help you as much as we can in the realisation of this crazy activity!

You need to keep some time to set up the steps of your escape room.

If you want to go faster because your guests are arriving tomorrow or if you don't have time to create an escape room yourself, download one of our escape rooms and print it out in just a few seconds.

Check out our other game ideas for an evening with friends or family. You'll find great ideas to make sure everyone has a great time!

Making a success of your home-made escape room.

If this is the first time you are creating a home-made escape room, we advise you not to make it too complex. Indeed, classic escape rooms often last an hour.

Since this is your first experience, you should aim for a 30-minute game. If you can keep your players busy for half an hour, you've won everything!

Enough talk, let's get down to the practice now!

CHOOSE THE THEME OF YOUR ESCAPE ROOM.

For your free home escape room, you must choose the theme of your scenario.

Hundreds of themes are possible but we suggest you focus on a type of adventure that people commonly like: Superheroes, detective, thriller or fantasy. 

By designing an escape room on a theme you like, you are more likely to create an interesting game. It is better to choose a theme that you know well.

Here are some examples of topics:

• Trying to stop a nuclear attack;
• Surviving a zombie invasion and apocalypse;
• Breaking out of a video game based on the movie Jumanji;
• Stopping the creation of Frankenstein.

There are hundreds of themes, so it's up to you to find the one you're most excited about.

To help you in your quest for the perfect scenario, take inspiration from your favourite films and series, your current reading (novels, comics, manga etc.), your passions.

The escape room will be even more successful!

TRY OUT YOUR HOME-MADE ESCAPE ROOM.

Once you have chosen a theme, you need to make it more real. Find objects related to your story and find the characters. Each item you choose should refer to your scenario. All the details are important: objects, decoration, costumes...

You can make a list of everything you will need to create your home-made escape room: accessories, decorations, music, lighting, etc. 

For the success of this step, use your imagination and do not restrict yourself.

Once you have your scenario and characters, imagine the trigger for your escape room. What is the event that will start the story? What direction will your story take?

In short: Find the disturbing element that will start the plot of the story and what is its end.

THE STEPS OF A GOOD HOMEMADE ESCAPE ROOM.

You need to find the different steps of your story.

To get a better overview of the situation, take all the space you need. Take sheets of paper or post-it notes and write down your steps. Arrange them in a flow chart to help you visualise the different steps of the story: Where, When, How.

Then use Post-It notes or coloured sheets to separate the riddles and clues. You will probably write and rewrite your riddles until you have the perfect scenario.

Use existing escape rooms or go to websites to find riddles or coded messages. 

To avoid getting lost, differentiate the elements of your mystery by using different colours or shapes. The tree structure of your story should be very clear in your mind.

THE RIDDLES OF THE HOME-MADE ESCAPE ROOM.

For this step, you need to be more inventive. Indeed, thanks to the previous paragraph, you have your story, the main plot, the objective of your game and the disturbing element. To continue to create a homemade escape room, you need riddles.

Organise yourself so that you don't get confused. Take sheets of paper or Post-It and quickly describe your riddles and place them chronologically in your scenario.

Once again, go on the internet to find riddles. The Internet is an inexhaustible source of ideas and inspiration!

Be careful: The chronology of events is essential for your home-made escape room. Everything must be logical, coherent and not too difficult so that the players do not get lost along the way.

TEST YOUR HOME-MADE ESCAPE ROOM.

Your escape room is now complete. You have the story, the plot, the riddles, the clues to help your participants.

But to know if your game is qualitative enough, you have to test it! Ask your friends or family members if they are ready to test your game. 

We advise you to test it with several people or groups of people.

Time the game to find out how long your game will last: the game lasts about 30 minutes, the game lasts only 10 minutes or it is more complex and lasts an hour. Depending on which time slot you are in, you may need to change a few things in your game. 

When you design an escape room yourself, you can create several versions by increasing or decreasing the level of difficulty to adapt it to the audience (adults or children). 

Once your game has been validated by those who have tested it, your work is almost done. You still have to decorate and find the last elements and accessories for your scenario. A successful escape room is an immersive escape room!

Set up the game space, introduce background music, place the accessories and clues...

The game begins!