Year: 2024
Duration: 5 months
Team size: 4
Role: Main Puzzle Designer
Description: A physical escape case, prototyped for Sherlocked, consisting of four separate puzzles and mini storylines that combine together to solve one big problem.
The goal
Our task for this project was to create at least four interactable puzzles. Each puzzle needed to contain a certain theme or era in time so that they could come together in the overall story.
The client
Our client for this project was Sherlocked, an escape room company located in Amsterdam. They’d done a project like this before and wanted us to create a prototype for a sequel. We discussed their needs and values beforehand and took them into consideration while developing this project. The most important being that they did not want any visible technology present. In their mind, the players would then become more immersed in the experience, having an out to the ever-present technology in our lives.
My contribution to the project
The story
While the story builds on the experience of the first Time Crimes escape case, it’s stand-alone enough to be able to play on its own.
The original Time Crimes ends with a mad, time traveling scientist, being cast into the past so that he is not able to do any more harm. The scientist is locked away by the last people, now known as the time protectors.
During the banishing of the scientist, some time orbs, which contain the major knowledge of an entire era, got damaged and have lost their knowledge. The time protectors need the help of the players to go back in time and collect the essence of that era. During the game, it becomes clear that the time protectors have split up into two groups: the timekeepers and the timeseekers.
First, it wasn’t that much of a problem to have broken orbs, so they were not in a rush to fix them. But with new technology, they have predicted that without those time orbs, the universe itself will collapse. The problem is that they are not in agreement of what to do with the time orbs when they have regained their knowledge.
The timekeepers just want to restore the orbs and in turn the timeline to its original form. The timeseekers however, want to use a new device that they’ve been working on that’s powered by the orbs to shape a new future entirely. The problem with that, is that that future could not be predicted by the time machine and is therefor a huge risk.
The players will have to decide in the end who to give the restored time orbs to.
Game mechanics
I designed and made one of the four main puzzles and helped with another team members puzzle.
This puzzle is part of the Norse Viking era and is based on real practices used by some Norse women called the Völur. The players will use this practice known as seiðr, to find a code that’s hidden on a set of strings.
The players will get a wooden slab with riddles written in runes on the side. (the one in the top picture) They will have to use the translation diagram that’s on the left to translate them. Using these riddles, they can then start to figure out where each of the elastics that are fastened on metal hooks go. They need to use both the knowledge in the riddles as well as the diagram shown below. This diagram is meant to teach the players the rules of placing the elastics without outright telling them.
Arduino building & coding
When I was not working on my own puzzle, I was working on the Arduino aspect of another team members’ puzzle. Since his puzzle took a lot of work in the visual department, he needed me to complete the technical aspect of it. This was no problem, since I had calculated beforehand that the others might overshoot on their scope, so I kept mine relatively small. This enabled me to step in on their projects when they could possibly run out of time.
I have previously already had a class on building and coding Arduino projects, so this was not unfamiliar to me. There were times when I ran into some issues, mostly on the soldering aspect, but nothing some time and extra solder couldn’t fix.
The wiring out of the casing
The casing
The puzzle design and casing were made by Benito van der Zanden.
The Arduino detects the magnets that are on the underside of the wooden figurines. It remembers the order they get placed in and gives feedback to the player via LED’s. Once all six figurines are placed on top of the board, the LED’s will trigger in order of placement, turning green when correct and red when false. When it encounters the first false value, it and the rest of the LED’s that haven’t been turned on yet, turn red all at once.
Here you can find the Tinkercad file and the code for the project
Takeaways
This was the first project of this size I’ve done and I’m really proud of what I’ve accomplished and learned during it. I’ve worked with clients before and such I already knew some dos and don’ts, but I’ve definitely added a few more to the list. Especially on the matter of expectations, values, and knowledge about the subject.
Another soft skill I’ve improved during this project was working with people of different backgrounds and cultures. This project was made with two HKU students including me, and two students from the University of Utrecht. These students had never made something resembling a game before and so we had to show them the ropes for a while before they were able to complete things on their own. These team members were also not from The Netherlands and there were multiple occasions where I had to tell my fellow HKU student to ‘tone down his Dutchness’.
While at times it was difficult to work together with everyone, I did really enjoy the overall experience of it.