Digital Escape Kit

It has all the same advantages as a Printable Escape Kit, with two important differences.

• The computer reduces the setup and costs even further. You don’t even need to cut out anything or read how the escape experience works. The computer does everything for you.
• The computer also prevents mistakes or (accidentally) seeing answers. Everyone can play, even the one who bought and “prepared” the experience. And everyone can be certain they solved the puzzle correctly if the computer says they did. The computer knows all the secrets; you can only find them by puzzling!

It has all the same disadvantages as a Printable Escape Kit, with three important differences.

• It adds a screen to an otherwise offline, physical, social experience. It’s completely understandable if people don’t want to involve screens here.
• It requires a computer with a reasonable large screen that everyone can see. (That is, however, why we designed the system to work on smartphones too. If you want, everyone can open up a shared escape room on their own phone at the same time.)
• It supports less variety and out-of-the-box puzzling than a printable escape room. That’s just a consequence of being locked into the digital environment and system.

You always get a ZIP file. When extracted, it contains,

• An index.html file. Open it in your browser and it loads the escape room.
• A pdfs folder with physical versions of the escape room (to play offline if you want) and documentation (on how to use the digital system).
• A puzzles folder that contains the puzzles as simple text files, to open and edit as you please.

Some digital escape kits contain physical material too, creating a sort of hybrid experience. This will be a single PDF at the root of this folder.

The biggest challenge with printable escape kits is that all the information is in the open. You must have some answer sheet or hint sheet somewhere. The one preparing the material is highly likely to see lots of answers already.

That’s the main reason why we designed our own system for digital escape kits. The computer can know all the secrets and run the experience—you can focus on the puzzles without worry.

In general, though, we personally still prefer designing printable kits because of how much more creative and out-of-the-box you can get!

It happens. Devices are all different, technology evolves. That’s why we designed our system to be as resistant to this as possible.

You always get access to all the data behind the escape room (in the puzzles) folder. So you can always access and change the content, even if the digital system lets you down.

You can also update the system easily. Visit the source code of the framework. Download the latest pq-escape.min.js file and replace the old one in your folder. Now you have the latest version and the problem might be solved!

If that doesn’t work, contact us! Try to give screenshots/descriptions of the problem, and we’ll usually know immediately what’s going on. That’s the advantage of using a system you built for the full 100%.