OIT/IDRE Escape Room Review

Escape Room Review

Written by Johnny Lin

The OIT/IDRE Escape Room event was a great success due to Eileen Chao's keen organization efforts and inventive ideas from the rest of the team (Albert, Johnny, and Mon). The process involved first brainstorming ideas for puzzles and piecing the puzzles together so that it formed three separate trails. Every string of clues had to eventually lead to a single number which unlocked the three-digit lock. We wanted the clues to be UCLA or OIT related (e.g., Bruin, campus map) and easy enough to be solved in 25 minutes or less… That’s why we did a field trial to assess the practicality of the puzzles and found that some of the clues were either too obscure, too easy, or didn't fit with the overall theme of the Escape Room. After evaluating the results from the field trial and getting feedback from the participants, we tied some loose ends together. For example, the participants had a difficult time figuring out the link between the word scramble (e.g., Bruin, Nope, and Wrong) and the password to unlock the Word document, so we decided to place an icon of Microsoft Word on the envelope of the word scramble (did anyone catch that?). Another head scratcher was in how to hint at the order of the three-number lock combination. Initially we wanted to have the order of the number combo be based on the OIT organization chart, by order of hierarchy, but found that difficult to tie into the puzzle after receiving feedback from participants. Eventually we decided on more subtle clues, like for example having the eight Word documents unscramble to "Second Clue". All in all, I think the actual Escape Room event was a great success and we got a lot of positive feedback from participants. Additionally, the food was awesome and way more than we expected. Good food and a fun game = great team-bonding event for OIT! Hope for another one in the near future! 

View Escape Room Powerpoint Presentation