Virtual Escape Room Challenge

19 March 2021

Virtual escape rooms use storytelling and problem solving, similar to a choose-your-own adventure novel. You need to work through each question, puzzle or riddle to get to the end and escape. We have created a simple escape room called The Story Portal, based on some of our favourite children’s fantasy fiction. 

Click on the envelope to enter The Story Portal escape room.

Create your own virtual escape room

We used Google Forms to create our escape room. You will need a Google account to use this feature.

Step 1.

Come up with a theme or setting for your escape room. Write down your ideas and draft your escape room in a word document or on a piece of paper. What characters are in your escape room? When we enter your escape room where are we? What is the goal of your escape room? What is at stake? Write an introduction that sets the scene for readers of your escape room.

Step 2.

Design the tasks, questions, or riddles you are going to use in your escape room. Try and come up with 4-5 challenges that people will have to pass. You might be inspired by mathematics problems, science problems, codes, jokes or trivia about any subject you are interested in. To pass each challenge/stage/puzzle your readers will have to enter a specific answer or password. It might be the correct answer to a question, it might be a code they have to decipher, or they might have to find hidden letters or numbers in a paragraph or image.

Step 3.

Once you have your escape room drafted and planned out, it is time to build it on Google Forms. Login to your Google Account and go to Google Forms.

Start a new form and give it a name, the name of your escape room. In the form description, enter your introduction and any instructions you may want to give your readers . Now you are ready to create the challenges. 

Step 4.

Where it says "Untitled Question" - this will be your first challenge. Give the challenge a name or ask a question. You might want to enter an image as part of the clue. Change the question type from "Multiple Choice" to "Short answer". Turn on "Required". Click on the three dots next to the required switch and select "Response validation". This will allow you to set the answer or password your readers will need to enter to move through the challenge. You will need to select the type of answer you want via the drop down menu. We used "Text" and "Contains". You might want to add "Custom error text" - this is what will come up if your readers enter the incorrect code. You might want to say "Sorry, try again", something specific to your story, or give them a helpful hint.

Step 5.

Click the equals symbol on the vertical menu on the right, to start a new section. For each challenge/puzzle create a new section. And create a final section for the completion of your escape room.

Step 6.

You can change the colours and style of your Google Form to suit your escape room. You might want to add pictures to make your escape room more fun. Preview and test your escape room to make sure it is working as you like. It might be helpful to get another person to test it, to make sure it makes sense. Send it to your friends and to us at the Unley Libraries. We can't wait to try it!

Notes: 

If you are feeling confident with Google Forms, you might want to try some of their other question types and settings for your escape room.

If you need more detailed instructions or ideas for creating an escape room on Google Forms, check out this blog post written for teachers.