Good news! You've received answers to your questions.
Jeff is the Chief Creative Officer and Co-founder of Immersive Tech in Canada. Immersive Tech designs and builds escape room designs, interactive and immersive experiences.
And Brian is a game designer at Immersive Tech and he was happy to answer your questions.
We'd like to thank you both for your help!
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INTERVIEW
team 1 - Could you describe us your most difficult and easiest escape room?
Answer: Certainly! To simplify this a bit, we're going to just point out that being able to define most difficult and easiest is a little misleading. We create experiences based on a number of factors, and, in truth, we set our expectations about difficulty based on elements like: demographics (age of players, area where the experience is going to be located, etc), designing-to-requested challenge-level, and based on playtesting.
More specifically:
One of our most ambitious projects was designed with scientists in mind. Because of the high-level of expertise this required, it definitely could be considered our most difficult.
As for our easiest, again, this is a bit related to how the interaction was designed and who it was designed for. We have a few examples of rooms designed for children under the age of 12. This one is the definitely the most straightforward. It is set in a magical workshop and players get to play around with magic with simple expectations to create spells, potions, etc.
team 2 - What are the most important elements in an escape game?
Answer: Story! Stories are very important elements for escape rooms and interactive experience. Always aim to have your story and your interactions/puzzles aligned so that they make sense and lead players from one to another. A good story will make every interaction meaningful.
team 3 - How do you find your inspiration for your escape games?
Answer: We like to, as much as possible, approach each experience with a sense of discovery. Inspiration comes from having a good foundation (story, a good idea of the space being used, etc) and then looking at how we can make the interactions fun and immersive for players. Of course, we are inspired by all manner of things, from technology news to art exhibitions, from movies and television, to music and everything in-between.
team 4 - In what way do you choose the theme of the escape game?
Answer: Generally speaking, we look to the types of people that we are expected to have for the experiences and then make our escape rooms special and exciting to meet those expectations. We try as much as possible, as noted before, to ensure we can build a fun story for players and then create the thematic elements around that story.
team 5 - How do you set the time for the escape?
Answer: We create interaction ideas, consider how long it would take our team internally and then have plenty of playtests to see how well the general public performs. This helps set the time and it is always easier to reduce time than to add to it.
team 6 - Which puzzle can we create with stuff from school?
Answer: You can look at cipher wheels, alphanumeric codes [replacing letters with symbols or other letters] with a decoding paper, you can create visual-clues that require a player to look at the information from a specific angle, you can make sound-based puzzles and mazes that have answers or hints to solutions. Really, your imagination is the most important drive here. Just look for ways players can logically approach information and then use it to solve other clues. If puzzles you create become a little abstract or need hints or directions -- add them! -- your focus should be making sure people have fun and feel rewarded -- not, as some people might believe -- to make the experience TOO hard or TOO easy.