Design your puzzles and challenges

With your learning outcomes, theme, and storyline in hand, you are ready to create your puzzles. Start by thinking of key information you want your learners to gain (i.e., the answers).

Here is process I go through but feel free to use the process you use to create your regular quiz or exam questions. You could even take the questions straight from your quiz or exams! Since I am an instructional designer by trade, I use a backwards design starting with the answers and then moving towards the design of the overall escape room.

1. Answers: Using the learning outcomes as the guide, I identify all the key answers and concepts that will demonstrate learners achieved the learning outcomes.
2. Think about hints: I note where the answers are located such as on a website, textbook, or if learners have to come up with the answer themselves like on an application type question. This step will help me write down “hints” for learners later on.
3. Design questions: I create the questions and consider the format I want the responses to be in, for instance multiple choice, fill in the blank, true or false, categories, etc.
4. Technology tools: I look through the technology I have available to see whether the format I envision is available but I also consider other formats the tool may offer that would make the questions more interactive, for instance a drag and drop activity, or an advent calendar to find a date.
5. Create questions and answers in technology tool: I create the question and response in the chosen tool.
6. Flow of questions: I take an overview of all the questions and activities and think about the flow and order learners should answer these questions. Maybe you want to start with content from Chapter 1 and then move in chronological order to build off of the previous responses. Or perhaps the order does not matter and you want to focus on doing easier activities first and then increase the difficulty or even vice versa. I’ve put in some more difficult questions upfront to set the tone of the challenge, and then make the questions increasingly easier as the pressure of running out of time will be setting in.
7. Add storyline to questions: Once I have the order figured out, I go through and edit the questions to fit with the overall storyline and theme. Sometimes I’ll ask generative AI for whimsical ways to make the questions more fun like the mysterious questions you find in real escape rooms.
8. Check order of responses: At this point, I return to the questions and change the “feedback” or after response text to lead learners to the next clue in the right order. This could also be a clue to finding a hidden key or a number for a lock combination.
9. Generate QR codes: I convert all of the questions into QR codes using H5P KewAR Code

Decoys: Want to make things even more challenging? Add in some decoy clues. This could be QR codes or hidden paper messages that give hints or to keep looking for the next clue!