Escape Rooms

An escape room at home is simpler than it looks from the outside. It is a short chain of puzzles, each one handing over the number or the word that opens the next thing, and a door or a box at the end that stays shut until the chain is finished.

What makes one good is not how hard the puzzles are. It is whether a solved puzzle announces itself. A player who has the answer should know they have it, without asking an adult whether they are right. That is why a padlock beats a sheet of paper with the answer written under a flap: the lock says yes or no and nobody has to referee it.

Three locks and forty five minutes is the shape that works for most groups. Fewer than three and it is over before anybody settles in. More than five and the youngest player stops contributing and starts watching. Everything here is built to print on a home printer, with answers on a separate page so the person running it can check without being handed a spoiler.