Puzzles at Home

The start of our play-at-home puzzle adventure

Rewind to March 2020.

I (Eric) had just gotten a text message from a coworker sharing with me the fateful news:

“School is cancelled indefinitely”

It was s sobering, shocking message. Over the course of the next 24 hours we would cancel every invoice for our school-based business and delete every upcoming booking from the calendar.

The next morning, I sat on the floor with my head in my hands without a clue of where to go next.

Paul, my brother-in-law and business partner arrived shortly after. He was down but not out,

“I think we can do this…” he said. “Let’s just do what we’ve always done… let’s make escape games! We’ll just do it in a new way.”

Thus began a journey that would change the course of our lives.

We called the new venture Escape Mail.

What might this new game look like?

The question now was, what did this new game look like? It had to be something we could send to people to play from the comfort of their own home.

Right away we knew it wasn’t going to be a purely digital game. We could tell that Zoom fatigue was clearly going to be a reality, and we also knew that we’re not hardcore video gamers, so that wasn’t our cup of tea.

But how about a physical game? That would really jive with our ideas around the importance of physicality and kinesthetic learning.

What if it was made of simple materials? This would make it more affordable for the customer and easier for us to rapidly iterate and produce.

(To print or not to print?)

Should we ask people to print off the game at home? Hmm. This was a legitimate question that we considered. We didn’t feel too excited about it though for a few reasons.

1. We had never played a print at home game, so we were less familiar with it.

2. Printers are notorious for not doing their job well (or reliably) and we wanted the experience to be excellent for everybody, every time (“Low ink?!? Come on!!”).

3. We felt like there would be something exciting about getting a package in the mail and opening it up and playing it right away.

4. There was also a strong desire to send lots of different kinds of paper (thicker card stock, tickets with perforations, glossy paper, wrinkled and weathered paper, etc.)

5. As well as other kinds of materials altogether (metal, plastic, string, cloth, etc.)

In the end, we’re glad we went with the non-print-at-home option. And yet there are aspects of this genre that we do appreciate and did adopt.

What about using scissors and tape?

This was another decision we had to make. Some game makers send everything die cut, and all you need to do is punch out the items. There’s something admittedly very slick about this. For our storyline, however, we opted for a more hands-on approach that required you - the puzzler - to actually cut out the items.

There was a little bit of this in episodes 1 and 2 and then LOTS of it in episode 3. We heard from customers that it was a bit too much (although for some people this is their favourite episode).

We ended up using less and less scissors and tape in future episodes and incorporated some die cutting later in the season.

How do you play escape games?

We love hearing from our players!

Are you a sit and read and think kind of person? Are you a hands-on learner? Does cutting the game feel wrong to you, or incredibly immersive?

What about a game that was both shipped to you as well as required you to print something off at home?

Now we’re just spit-balling here :)

Let us know your thoughts!