The House at the End of the Street
Design process for an escape room
scroll... if you dare
Oil painting of Jack Nicholson as Jack Torrence in Stanley Kubrick's film "The Shining."
One of the props I custom-made for the escape room.
A Thrilling Escape
I have always loved puzzles, so I jumped at the opportunity to design an immersive puzzle game with a strong storytelling element.
Enter the Bunker already had two Cold War themed escape rooms, but management wanted to expand the company's offerings. We knew that, for the new room, we wanted something that would both complement the Cold War theme of the space, and provide an experience that would appeal to a different audience. With the current popularity of true crime among young women, the staff decided on a serial killer theme.
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In spring of 2019, I began to plan a thrilling puzzle-solving experience...
The design for the room was created using Google Sketchup.
Me, Shanlon Gilbert
Design, concept, puzzling, furnishing, props, project management, scripts.
Ronald Currie
Head of construction, handyman extraordinaire.
Justin Gale
Electronics, gadgets, and gizmos.
The core team
I composed a flow chart to get a better understanding of how the puzzles fit together
Design in tandem
Part of the challenge of designing an escape room is the interaction between the space itself, and the flow of the puzzles. There are many factors which need to be considered: from the experience of the players, to the ability of props to withstand handling (and mishandling), to the perspective of the cameras through which our game masters would observe the play.
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In order to ensure I was considering all of these factors, I designed the space and the puzzles in tandem. This meant that could change the layout of the space to suit the puzzles, as well create puzzles to suit the space.
I created a flowchart, which helped me keep track of how all of the different puzzles fit together. I kept a copy on my desk while I designed the room, annotating the flow-chart as I went with possible adjustments to the puzzle order.
A closer look at the puzzles
As "The House at the End of the Street" is an active escape room, I can't share too many details about its contents. So I've had to settle for a brief description of two puzzles:
The Wall of Fame
I painted nine small oil portraits of famous slasher flick villains. These are part of a puzzle which gives the combination to a directional lock. The portraits are hung on the wall of the Puzzle Killer's secret lair. When arranged by date and flipped over, they reveal the directional code to proceed to the next puzzle.
Oil painting of Mildred Klinton as Mrs. Tredoni in the film "Alice, Sweet Alice." This and eight other, similar portraits of famous fictional killers form part of a directional puzzle in "The House at the End of the Street."
The TV code
There is a code displayed on a vintage TV set in the living room, written in a simple pigpen cipher. In order to decode the cipher, players must solve three separate puzzles around the room: the cuckoo clock, the postcards, and the false mirror sequence.
This design technique -- that is, creating one large puzzle composed of several smaller puzzles -- allows players to fan out across the room and busy themselves with multiple tasks at the same time. It avoids boredom, and allows players to change tasks if they get stuck.
It can be tricky to fit all the puzzles together, but once players figure it out they feel an even greater sense of satisfaction and pride.
The image depicts a simple pigpen cipher which, when decoded, spells the word "DECODE."
Setting Up House
It is especially important to create the right atmosphere for a game like "The House at the End of the Street." Puzzles are fun, but players become truly immersed in play when the "set" is convincing. To that end I spent several months combing junk shops, and picking up secondhand treasures to furnish out killer's lair.
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The room has vintage light fixtures, a brown-and-beige toile couch, an old CRT TV, some groovy linoleum tile for the "kitchen," and an antique fridge painted harvest orange. With avocado-green, chocolate-brown, and butter-yellow walls, the result is a convincing 70s era apartment.
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We even added a couple of fake windows -- blinds drawn -- to give the impression of being aboveground. The windows slowly change colour over the course of the game: from the bright white of daylight, to the blood red of dusk. If your group can't solve the puzzles and escape with the evidence in time, you'll hear the jangle of keys in the lock, as the killer returns home...
The 3D designs for the room (pictured above) provided the blueprints for the construction team and helped shape the flow and nature of the puzzles involved in the process.
An end-to-end experience
Once the escape room itself neared completion, it was time to determine the visitor flow. We wanted visitors to be immersed in the plot of the room from the moment they stepped into their briefing, to the moment they left the bunker.
The plot of "The House at the End of the Street" has the visitors playing the role of special investigators. As they enter, they are met by a game master and given a brief, complete with corkboard and ID badges. Then they are walked to the "end of the street" (the end of the hallway) and sent in to uncover the evidence. If recovered, that evidence will help convict the Puzzle Killer.
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Players can win two ways: by getting out alive, or by getting out alive with evidence in hand. Teams are invited to take a photo holding one of the room's props, as well as the cork board, as a memento of their time. To complete the 1970s theme, players are given the option of purchasing a Polaroid photo of themselves to hold onto, a tangible proof of their experience.
A group of successful escapees pose with the cork board and "Kimberly," one of the room's more memorable props.