If you've ever done an escape room, you're familiar with the interwoven puzzles, fleshed-out theme, and exciting storylines they can entail. As a huge fan of escape rooms myself, I wanted to create an "Escape Room in a Box" kit, so that the magic of an escape room could be enjoyed in any location, by multiple groups of people. For my senior thesis, I came up with the concept of an escape room in which you find yourself trapped and poisoned in a witch's apothecary, with one hour to derive the antidote.
The round box, at about 10 inches in diameter, has a laser-cut design on the top face, as well as handles on the side and lining on the inside to make it resemble a cauldron.
The project consisted of making a lot of seemingly unrelated collateral that all felt like it could be found in a witch's apothecary. Some items were designed with more similarities than others, either to relate two clues or misdirect the player.
The entire box consists of:
• Wooden spoon
• 2 envelopes, 1 to start the game, and 1 to end it
• 2 drawstring pouches, 2 locks
• Old letter, with a key to decode it
• Locked wooden box
• Glass bottle, 3 messages inside
• 3 test tubes, 2 filled, 1 empty
• Potion book
• Ingredient poster
• 13 ingredient cards with an illustrated puzzle on backs
• 3 alphabetical cipher puzzles
• 10 black ingredient chips
Instructor: Paul Kepple