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Emotional Environmental Puzzle Design

• Speaker: Tori Smith

When creating “No Worries: The Uncozy Escape Room Experience”, one of the design challenges was how to emphasize narrative emotional impact through puzzle solving. While escape rooms often advertise high production value through lighting, set design, props, etc. asking the players to commit to roleplaying a character within this staged play space is a newer crossroads between escape rooms and LARP.

In “No Worries”, the player is distinctly told that the objective is not to escape, therefore solving puzzles is not a stressed priority. They are asked to clean and explore the space while virtually communicating with NPCs. While they perform these actions, they may discover puzzle elements that ultimately unlock a box.

But these elements and their placement tell their own story: the content of the books placed on the bookshelf just so, the pictures the player character has chosen to frame and where they hang them on the wall, the items that may or not make their way to the trash bin. The activity of decluttering has distinct effects on the emotional tone from start to finish, creating an emotional escape room instead of a physical one.

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