Asad of 52Kards is nothing if not a man of his word. After posting a brief video of The Perpetual Puzzle last week, enough people clamored for more that he shared a full review of the product. It’s a collection of puzzle pieces all gathered inside a seemingly simple frame. But once you take the pieces out to start re-assembling, there’s always a leftover piece after you fill the frame.
This apparent destruction of the basic laws of geometry has been given many different treatments over the years. Some 52Kards viewers noted that the concept is a reversal of the Infinite Chocolate Problem. It’s also an idea akin to the Half-H puzzle, where the pieces never seem to align properly to create the goal shape.
If you want to pit your wits against this brain-teaser, you can pick up The Perpetual Puzzle directly from 52Kards. Or grab a Hershey bar for the more edible version.
The Trials of Houdini. Filigree in Shadow. The Werewolf Experiment. Queen Anne’s Revenge. The Confederate Spy Mistress. The Hunt for the Forgotten Tomb.
You may be wondering what the titles above have in common. Are they rejected PBS shows? Forgotten theme park rides? Doctor Who/Days of Our Lives crossover fan fiction?
While these are all good guesses (well, not that good, to be honest), none of them are correct; these are titles to at-home escape room games.
What’s an at-home escape room game, you may ask? Let’s start by explaining what a traditional escape room is. In warehouses in low-rent neighborhoods across the world, friends, colleagues, and couples on awkward second dates are paying $30 to $40 per person to get locked in a room with each other. Their goal is to get out of that room (and hopefully still like one another) in under an hour. And the only way they can do that is by solving a series of puzzles.
These brick-and-mortar escape rooms have become extremely popular, a special event on par with going to a concert or a play. But like a concert or a play, traditional escape rooms are expensive and not easily accessible to people who don’t live near a large city. As a result, game creators saw an opportunity to make a more accessible and affordable escape room experience that people can play in their homes.
At-home games vary in format—some are tabletop games put out by major manufacturers like Mattel; some are subscription-based services that mail you a new ‘escape room in a box’ every couple of months; some mail you clues and puzzles over a series of weeks. But regardless of the format, these games aim to create the same sense of surprise and excitement that escape room players feel once they solve that final puzzle and unlock that final door. The challenges these games must overcome to do that, however, is a story in itself.
It’s All About The Story
The theme or story of the game is crucial for both at-home and brick-and-mortar escape room experiences. To this end, designers must keep the story top of mind when going through the puzzle-making process. “You have to get people involved in the story,” Chris Barnes, creator of Escape The Crate explains. “If that story element is not there, the puzzle is not quite as enjoyable. The story comes first, and the puzzles must build themselves off of that story.”
Tying the puzzles into the story isn’t the only challenge at-home escape room creators have; designers of these games also deal with several other challenges, most of which brick-and-mortar experiences don’t face.
Challenge 1: The Story (And the Puzzles) Must Work in A Million Different Rooms
At-home creators face an additional challenge when trying to create their story; their puzzles must not only tie in with the game’s theme or narrative, but also be flexible and adaptable to any environment. “It’s incredibly hard, but the designer of the experience can’t make any assumptions about a player’s venue or location,” explains Simon Coronel, a professional magician who has beta-tested at-home escape rooms. “If people aren’t playing the game correctly, it’s the designer’s fault.”
The designer doesn’t know, for example, if the people will be playing on the floor or at a table, if they’ll be wearing shoes (hey, it could matter) or if they’ll even have a smartphone on them. This challenge is exacerbated by the fact that at-home games don’t have a person on hand who can provide hints or assistance as needed—every explanation or clue at-home players receive must be in the box the game came in.
Challenge 2: The Puzzles Must Be Difficult (But Not Too Difficult)
The designer has more responsibility than simply creating an easy-to-understand game, of course; players buy these games expecting puzzles that are difficult, but not too difficult to solve. “You have to make sure it’s challenging but fair,” Juliana Patel, co-creator of the tabletop escape room game The Werewolf Experiment, explains. “It should be well clued and without a logical leap. We want our hardest puzzles to be the kind of puzzles that when you solve them, you’re like, ‘Oh yeah, I see it. It was all there.”’ Again, it all comes back to the story–the puzzles should make sense, and also tie into the theme in a clear way.
Challenge 3: Not All Traditional Escape Room Puzzles Work In People’s Living Rooms
So, we know escape room puzzles must be simple to understand yet difficult to solve. But what type of puzzles work best in someone’s living room? Unsurprisingly, at-home games have more limitations than brick-and-mortar rooms on how to present puzzles and clues. In traditional escape rooms, for example, creators often hide clues taped under a chair or underneath a rug, ,something that can’t be created for an at-home game unless breaking and entering is involved. To add insult to injury, these clues or props are usually too heavy or too fragile for shipping.
Despite this limitation on props, most at-home creators agree that their games shouldn’t be entirely paper-based. “It can’t all be paper,” Barnes says. “You have to have some physical props in it…little props and goodies that are tactile.” Barnes uses items like coins and puzzles that require a blacklight (one small and durable enough to be shipped, of course) to create that tactile experience.
What Can Help With These Challenges and Enrich the At-Home Experience? Technology!
Several at-home games are also leveraging technology to enhance players’ experiences. The Werewolf Experiment, for example, has a tie-in with Amazon’s Alexa. While players play the game, Alexa establishes a spooky, werewolf-like mood with themed music and also helps players track their time and ask for hints. Barnes’s Escape the Crate games integrate technology even more by using a password-protected website where players must submit their answers to puzzles in order to receive the next clue. Just like the puzzles, however, designers agree that any technology should be themed—a part of the experience rather than an add-on.
Testing, Testing
So how do creators figure out what works and what doesn’t before they sell their games? Patel and her co-creator Ariel Rubin tackled this challenge through hundreds of hours of testing. “It all comes down to play testing,” Rubin says. “Our first game took three hours, and it was grueling.” As they continued to test the game, however, they realized what worked and what didn’t and tweaked the game accordingly. Without this process, the game would never have made it to manufacture. As Rubin explains, “Our puzzles were formed the way they are, even the colors we used, because of play testing and seeing how people responded to them.”
One thing Patel and Rubin learned from testing is that logic puzzles didn’t work well for an at-home escape room experience because most people weren’t familiar with how they worked. “People would just pick up [the logic puzzle] and put it back down,” Rubin says. “That’s always a sign your puzzle is not going to work.” Barnes had a similar experience with logic puzzles and also learned through testing what props were durable enough to be in the final product (tiny treasure boxes for his pirate-themed game, sadly, did not make the cut).
Pulling the Pieces Together
Figuring out what props and puzzles don’t work is only half of what creators get out of play testing. The process also helps them map how well the puzzles fit into the overall story of the game. For The Werewolf Experiment, for example, most puzzle answers are used to help solve one of the meta-puzzles of the game. Rubin and Patel mapped out the connections between the puzzles and tested to make sure there was minimal bottlenecking and they had a diverse array of puzzles to solve. “We wanted to do a real mix of puzzles not just in terms of easy versus hard, but also puzzles that different types of people would get,” Rubin explains.
And people are excited about the idea of an escape room you can do at home. As more and more of these games come onto the market, more and more people experience the surprise and excitement these games bring. Try one at your next family get together (after all, if you can’t escape from your boorish Uncle Ted, you can at least escape from a mad scientist or a serial killer or whatever story your game sets up) or even on a Friday night with people you like. Either way, the game’s creators have spent hundreds of hours ensuring you’ll have a memorable experience, even if you start the game not knowing what Filigree in Shadow means.
Welcome to GeniiOnline’s Weekly Puzzle, powered by Art of Play! We’ll bring you a new puzzle every Monday, then publish the solution on Tuesday.
Here’s the puzzle again if you missed it yesterday:
What is the next letter in this sequence: SENTTTTTTTTTTTTTTTTTTTT__?
ANSWER:
The correct answer is F, as in “Forty”. Forty is the next number to come in the sequence when you realize each letter abbreviates the first letter of the number it represents. For example, we began with S for Seventeen, then E for Eighteen, followed by Nineteen, Twenty, and so on until F for Forty was next.
The Weekly Puzzle is taking a break for a bit, but we’ll be back soon with even more brain busters for you to solve. If you missed last week’s puzzle, be sure to check it out here.
Welcome to GeniiOnline’s Weekly Puzzle, powered by Art of Play! We’ll bring you a new puzzle every Monday, then publish the solution on Tuesday.
You’ll have to flex your lateral thinking skills to solve this one.
What is the next letter in this sequence: SENTTTTTTTTTTTTTTTTTTTT__?
Welcome to GeniiOnline’s Weekly Puzzle, powered by Art of Play! We’ll bring you a new puzzle every Monday, then publish the solution on Tuesday.
Here’s the puzzle again if you missed it yesterday:
Which symbol is unlike all the others?
ANSWER:
The answer is A. It’s unlike all the others because it’s the only one that is not unique in any way, i.e., B is the only one without a border, C is the only white one, D is the only small one, and E is the only club.
Come back next Monday for a new puzzle! And if you missed last week’s brainteaser, check it out here.
Welcome to GeniiOnline’s Weekly Puzzle, powered by Art of Play! We’ll bring you a new puzzle every Monday, then publish the solution on Tuesday.
Which symbol is unlike all the others?
One of the really great things about puzzles is that different kinds appeal to different minds. What’s unsolvable to you is child’s play to your sister, and vice versa. Art of Play’s most popular puzzles of 2017 run the gamut of the seemingly simple to the covertly complex, and offer the kind of variety that ensures you’ll be able to solve at least one of them – but can you solve all of them? Let’s go through the list.
5. Red Goose
“Help the goose escape the noose!” Who the heck is stringing up a goose, is what I’d like to know. The object here is simple: slip the cord off the poor bird’s neck without untying the knot.
4. Half H
Arrange seven pieces of wood to form a capital H. Simple. A child could do it. Oh, I seem to have this extra piece here. Let me just….oh. Hmm.
3. Dice Puzzle Box
According to its creator, Akio Kamei, this walnut masterpiece can’t be opened “if you don’t enjoy humor.” Perhaps that means a rubber chicken awaits you when you finally open it. If you consider that challenge accepted, you may want to snag this box straightaway, as it’s available in limited quantities.
2. Ring and Spring
I am giving this one some serious side-eye. It looks way too simple: just get the ring off the spring and back on again. Art of Play describes it as “a great demonstration puzzle with a satisfying solution.” Assuming you can find the solution, that is.
1. NEWS
This small and elegant puzzle tops Art of Play’s list of most popular puzzles of last year, and it’s easy to see why. An intriguing design, very reasonable price point, and description that’s one big taunt: “Be forewarned, this is one of the most challenging mechanical puzzles in our collection and this compass does not come with directions. Solving it will take patience and creativity.”
There you have it. For a little over $200, you can treat your brain to an intense workout. Are you up to it?
Welcome to GeniiOnline’s Weekly Puzzle, powered by Art of Play! We’ll bring you a new puzzle every Monday, then publish the solution on Tuesday.
Here’s the puzzle again if you missed it yesterday:
The faucet below is leaking. Which basin will fill up with water first?
ANSWER:
Come back next Monday for a new puzzle! And if you missed last week’s brainteaser, check it out here.
Welcome to GeniiOnline’s Weekly Puzzle, powered by Art of Play! We’ll bring you a new puzzle every Monday, then publish the solution on Tuesday.
The faucet below is leaking. Which basin will fill up with water first?
Welcome to GeniiOnline’s Weekly Puzzle, powered by Art of Play! We’ll bring you a new puzzle every Monday, then publish the solution on Tuesday.
Here’s the puzzle again if you missed it yesterday:
Each set of tracks below was made by a different bicycle. Which direction was each bicycle traveling—to the right or to the left?
ANSWER:
Both went left. We are able to determine that because the fore wheel of a bicycle oscillates more than the rear one. To determine the direction, choose some points in the rear wheel’s trajectory and draw the tangents in those points. The distance between the forward and the back wheel is constant, so you just have to find out which of the segments determined by the tangent and the intersection with the other curve have the same length.
Come back next Monday for a new puzzle! And if you missed last week’s brainteaser, check it out here.