the great houdini escape room: game design review
My last post was dedicated to identifying some of the most common design blunders in crafting escape rooms. This post follows up with a design deep dive into a well-executed escape room, The Great Houdini Escape Room by Palace Games…
common mistakes to avoid when designing escape rooms
Escape rooms are physical puzzle game environments where you get locked in a room with a group of friends and have a time limit within which you try to escape, by using clues and solving puzzles. These rooms are based…
best of palace games escape rooms: houdini, roosevelt or edison?
Over the years, I’ve been lucky enough to have played all of Palace Games’ in-person escape rooms. Located at the Palace of Fine Arts in San Francisco, Palace Games offers the trio of The Great Houdini Escape Room, The Roosevelt…
the attraction escape room is palace games’ storytelling gem: review
Palace Games’ new escape room, The Attraction, was a long time coming. When I booked it back in early 2020, I had no idea that a pandemic would postpone our date almost two years. But nonetheless, masked and equipped with…
dissecting and designing dark escape rooms
There’s a specific group of friends I enjoy going to escape rooms with. I’ve got my puzzle enthusiasts, those who love Sudokus or a challenging level of Baba Is You. There are one or two who fancy themselves detectives and…
escape room design: story first, puzzles second
Because escape rooms have their roots in games, I think an all-too-common design problem is the focus on creating really great puzzles. While clever, interesting and unique puzzles do add to the player experience, they are not the most interesting…
