Looking for something fun to do with the kids on an evening after school or for a birthday party? What about playing an escape room? They are lots of fun and a great challenge. But escape rooms can be expensive, especially if there are a few people going. A DIY at home escape room pack is the answer. We have been trying out some print-at-home escape room packs and they have been lots of fun.
Print-at-home escape room packs are becoming very popular. You buy and download a game, print it and then cut out the clues and puzzles and put them around your own room for the players to find, solve and escape the room,
PaperEscapeCo have print-at-home escape room packs for children (aged 5-8 and 8-12) and adults. They are escape room puzzle games suitable for all ages in groups of any size – just print, play and escape!
Kids spent a lot of their day at school and when they get home, they might just think that they have escaped school or ready. But now it’s time to add in a bit more school fun with School Escape – a print-at-home escape room suitable for children aged 8-12 years old. Grab the kids, invite some of their friends around and get them solving some brain-teasing puzzles in the hope that within the next hour they will escape the school whilst having plenty of fun along the way!
Once you purchase School Escape from the PaperEscapeCo website you will instantly receive an email with 5 PDF files:
- How to Play – includes information on how to set up the game for play and how to play.
- Clues – includes all the clues required to play the game and the answer sheet for the players to fill in.
- Answers – includes all the answers for the ‘clue master’ to check.
- Hints – includes hints for the ‘clue master’ to give out when players are stuck.
- Story – a quick introduction that tells the players what they need to do (not a story as such).
Once you receive the email, download the files and print them out (ideally, the clues should be printed in colour). When everything is printed, grab your scissors and cut out the different clues (around the blue dotted lines). There are two different difficulty levels to play with just to make to make it easier or harder depending on the age of the children playing – you can group relevant clues together or have them all separate for players to figure out.
The idea of the game is for the children to solve all 10 clues with the ultimate goal of solving the word scramble at the end.
To play the game, ideally you need a ‘clue master’, someone to give out hints and check if answers are correct. You can play without a ‘clue master’ but once somebody checks an answer, they are out of play solving the puzzle if the players got it wrong (as they now know the answer). We found it best to have an adult as the ‘clue master’, someone impartial to direct the flow of the game. The clues can be solved in any order without impacting how the game is played.
To solve the clues, players must use decoding skills and basic maths skills to decipher number and pictures to gain the answers they need. Game play takes about 30-45 minutes to solve all the puzzles and to find the hidden word needed to escape the school!
Overall, we found this to be an excellent escape room game. All you need is access to the internet to purchase and download the files, a colour printer to print out the files, pencil and paper and of course, children to play it. Apart from pencil and paper, no additional materials are required to play.
Setting up is easy. It takes approximately 15-20 minutes to print and cut out the materials. You can group relevant clues together or just leave them for players to decide what puzzles and decoders/ciphers/charts go together (this makes it a more challenging game, perfect for older children).
There is no real story to immerse the players in, we would have liked to see a longer story on the story cards that could be told whilst the players solve clues, just to add that something extra. The story that comes with it is really just a short introduction of what to do and what happens when you finish.
The puzzles are excellent and a good challenge for 8-12 year olds. There are mazes to work your way through, codes to find and decipher, maths puzzles to decode and solve (using Roman numerals to up the challenge level) and more. Lots of fun and challenging puzzles to put young minds to the test, and they can work as individuals or as group.
A fun and entertaining puzzle game and an excellent social activity for the kids.
If you are looking for something fun for family game nights, birthday parties or just something to entertain the kids on a raining day, School Escape is excellent enjoyable and entertaining fun that will engage the players.
We would have liked it to have been built around more of an immersive story, but the puzzles were good fun and aimed at the right age group (and there was always the help of the clue master if and when they did need that little bit of extra help).
Rating: 4/5
RRP: $13.99 USB (approx. £11.38 at time of writing)
For more information or to buy for instant download, visit paperescapeco.com.
