So You're Locked in a Room...

I'm really fortunate to have a job that I love, in this case working as a library assistant in the Adult Fiction department. It's given me a few surprise creative outlets that I'm rather proud of, with another batch around the corner at our third annual Sci-fi/Fantasy festival this July.

One of the things we tried last year was a pair of room escape games (which were really popular). I'm sure you're familiar with the concept. But just in case, the rundown is like this. You go with a group of around eight people (strangers, if you don't think to bring anyone with you) to a preexisting location designed to look like whatever fictional setting the room is themed for. Then you get locked in, and are given a time limit to scrounge the room for clues to unlock cabinets and so forth. If you escape, you get to feel superior to everyone around you. If you fail, you get the satisfaction of knowing that you took seven other schmucks down with you.

I've never been through one of these games myself, but I've certainly played every room escape game I've found online. I don't know what it is, there's just something satisfying about pretending you're in a precarious situation with your brain as your best/only tool. And so what I wanted to share for this blog is the approach I've taken to write up the premises of our past and future room escapes.

The easiest setup is the one that started the Saw franchise, where multiple people wake up in a room of deathtraps with no memory of how they got there. It's a simple formula and it's accessible to everyone. Of course being a public library, there is a degree of horror we don't need to delve into. So the compromise point is to create a template of characters for the participants to 'play' and thus laugh sadistically about the deaths thereof.

Here is the first example.

Alien Invasion

This is it. Officer Elliot Hayes spent his final weeks researching the aliens from within this bunker. You will be safe here, but you need to understand that the invasion cannot be stopped. Once this door closes, it’s very likely that the people in this room will be all that remains of humanity.

Officer Hayes was working on something. We don’t know what it was, but we believe he left it in the lock box here in this bunker. But none of our staff have been able to get it open. You’re more than welcome to try; in fact I truly hope you succeed, and that there’s something in there that might prevent this catastrophe. But do it fast!

If you don’t have something that can counter the invasion before it starts, I strongly recommend you not open the door again. At best you have forty-five minutes. If I don’t see you again, welcome to your new home.

This was actually a store bought room escape kit with a built in premise. It was given to me to rewrite, and I pretty much left the concept as is; just tightened it up a bit. It illustrates all of the elements that have to be conveyed to a group in a short amount of time.

1. Who they are -in this case some combination of scientists and military personnel, which helps make the premise work naturally. There's no reason random civilians would be entrusted with humanity's last hope.

2. Why they are there -if you're using the 'serial killer has locked you in a dungeon' that's all the information you need. The game benefits from having a relatively believable crisis or setting to pull it all together (you're on an island with a volcano about to erupt, your room is losing oxygen, you're a thief racing against the alarm, etc.)

3. What they need to find -the macguffin specific to the room that identifies the group has won the game. Maybe it's the key to the door or a jewel. If I remember correctly, the Alien Invasion premise had some kind of biological weapon in the trunk. I personally felt that the scene worked better if the participants didn't actually know what was in the trunk, they were just operating on hope that it wasn't something stupid.

4. What happens if they don't -a majority of room escapes use the 'solve it or die' motivator, which instantly felt like a cliché to me. I'm pretty sure Alien Invasion originally ended this way. I liked it better where the group would live but entombed in a bunker indefinitely. It had a bit more of an emotional punch to it.

And that brings me to our second game from last year. Dr. Johnson was also store bought. Unlike Alien Invasion, Dr. Johnson's premise was a freaking mess! It was something like, he was teaching a class but then walked out to go teach another class at which point the people inside found out he had infected them with a zombie virus; it was needlessly complicated.

So this one took a little more work on my part, but I felt like I cracked it pretty well. Notice the couple of sentences only set the mood without providing any information to the participants? I wanted to create a sense of threat.

Dr. Johnson 

I am very sorry for the tragedy that has befallen you. Rest assured that Dr. Johnson WILL be found and dealt with accordingly, if that’s any consolation.

The bad news is, he has infected all of you with a virus that at best will kill you in 45 minutes, and at worst may turn you into a zombie. I’m afraid I’m only authorized to lock your entire group in this quarantined space, which I’m sure you recognize as Dr. Johnson’s office.

Rumor has it, Dr. Johnson was working on an antidote. I assume it would be here somewhere. If you can find it, by all means use it on yourselves. Just know that in 45 minutes an armed unit will be here to handle the situation. If you’re not cured by then…well, just, best of luck to you.

It really made me feel good when I got positive feedback from the staff members who had to read out the premise for each group. I feel like one of my strengths as a writer is in dialogue, probably from my acting background. And I really like that Alien Invasion and Dr. Johnson had two different voices to them.

So for this coming festival I was assigned to come up with the premises from scratch. I wanted to do something that I hadn't seen done over and over, and I also wanted to capture the spirit of our festival as well as I could, i.e. doing something both science fiction-y and fantasy like. My coworker Madalyn and I kicked around a couple of ideas about time traveling, which granted us the opportunity to incorporate the future and the past in one swoop.

Time Agency

Attention Time Agents: Thank you for your assistance in apprehending the infamous Chrono-burglar Gil Terrence, a commendation has been noted on each of your records.

Unfortunately Mr. Terrence has managed to stash something of importance to the timeline in 1842 Victorian England, and as per emergency protocol you all are being rerouted there now. We’ve isolated the temporal flux to a single room in London but our scanners are already picking up too many anomalies to pinpoint the location.

Your mission: Find the item and get out. Do not open the door. Do not speak to anyone through the door. Pretend the door doesn’t exist. Just get whatever the item is within forty-five minutes, or time will rewrite itself and you’ll be stranded in Victorian England. Good luck agents. May time be on our side.

We decided instead of having a staff member read that out every time we're going to play a video recording, and dress it up to look Tomorrowland-ish. I wrote that one with kind of a Disney attraction pre-show vibe in my head.

I haven't mentioned brevity yet, but yeah. You want to hit the bullet points quickly and clearly when doing these things. This last one you'll notice is a tad longer, but I thought I could get away with it since I had a particular character in mind. If you've played Portal 2 then you're familiar with Cave Johnson's mannerisms (courtesy of the incomparable J. K. Simmons). What we've decided to do for this one is record it as an audio track. Guess who's going to be doing a really terrible J. K. Simmons impression.

The Relic

Greetings archeological adjuncts and unpaid subordinates, welcome to your first real field test! This is Julian Glenn up on the surface, I’m the one who signs off on your course credits. Sorry about that last tremor, we hope nobody was banged up too badly. But rest assured, we’ve got the software updated now and we’ll be able to monitor seismic shifts with more accuracy than we were before.

Here’s the bad news. That plate rupture triggered a geothermal flare; or in layman’s terms, it sparked a fuse. You know that sealed cavern we sent you down there to excavate? It’s going to be blowing up pretty soon. The good news is, our expert translators finally agree that the ancient tribe who lived in these caves hid a pretty valuable relic down there. Which means we’ve got one shot at preserving history. And you’re it.

Now I know what you’re grumbling. You’re thinking…caves, explosions, could be dangerous, right? Well guess what, this is archaeology! No guts, no glory! You’ve got a solid forty-five minutes. It’s a risk I’m willing to take; now you go on in there and make me proud! Give us a buzz when you’ve got something to report and we’ll pull you on out of there.


So by all means, if you're planning any kind of program involving a room escape, feel free to take anything from this blog (just bear in mind the first two are based on existing games while the latter two are completely original). It's been a fun writing exercise. If any of you have your own ideas for room escapes, I'd love to hear them. And I'll probably revisit this blog after the festival to tell you how the attendees responded.