Escape Room Generator

Abstract

Escape rooms are real-life games where groups of players usually find themselves trapped in a room and must escape before time runs out. To achieve this, puzzles of various types must be solved, mainly through deductive reasoning or by discovery of hidden clues. They are conventionally considered a one-time experience, consequently offering little or no replayability. This thesis aims to provide a proof of concept for a generator capable of creating escape rooms. This would among other things, enable escape room companies to more easily create new escape rooms and therethrough give them the wherewithal to adjust their escape rooms to be accessible by most people, regardless of ability. Furthermore, the thesis describes the construction process of the generator and the decisions involved. User testing was done using two generated escape rooms structured in different ways. The results from these tests showed that the escape rooms were perceived as enjoyable although subject to biases. The generator achieves and exceeds the intentions set for the project. However, due to lack of testing, confirmation of whether an escape room creator is able to construct the puzzles involved in the generated room could not be concluded.