How to Build Digital Escape Rooms in Deck.Toys

Many teachers have jumped onto the digital escape room bandwagon to engage their students further. Instead of mundane worksheets to emphasize on key learning content, you can convert these material into part of a great escape room (also known as a ‘breakout’) and get your students totally immersed into the experience – without them realizing that they are actually learning! Another plus point is that playing digital escape rooms promote critical thinking skills as students solve a series of tasks or puzzles to unlock the code.

Here we are going to give you some useful tips on how to build an unforgettable digital escape room in Deck.Toys! The example digital breakout T-Rex School Rampage is found in this link, which comprises elements of English, Science and Maths: https://deck.toys/a/mJ_oMPzu9

#1: Draft out a Storyline

The greatest draw of an escape room is the suspense that evolves throughout the tasks, creating an aura of drama as students solve the puzzles. Get inspired by the latest Hollywood and Netflix movies, video games (Among Us is the craze right now!), or novels for that initial spark. Let your imagination run wild! 

You should have a great introduction or a mission statement, with the storyline flowing through a series of Activities that will ultimately converge to the grand finale. It’s just like writing a movie script yourself!

#2: Structure the Paths

Flesh out the storyline by putting them into Activities on the Map within the Deck.Toys Deck Builder. These Activities can be Signposts, Slide Activities or Study Set Games and can be inserted by a simple drag-and-drop action.

In this example of the T-Rex School Rampage, we start with a Signpost to introduce the mission, which is to save schoolmates from a T-Rex that has escaped from Jurassic Kingdom.

Thereafter, the students will go through various rooms in the school to get clues and solve puzzles to reach the final escape point. The path is not linear, as there are two divergent paths from the hall, where the first one requires the student to bring 2 kids into the hall, whilst the second path moves to the computer room to unlock the master code to fortify the hall. A successful escape must converge back to the ‘SAFE’ Signpost.

Structure these paths, also known as Learning Paths in Deck.Toys terminology, by linking them in the sequence you intended. Students will not be able to bypass the activities that are set out in these paths.

#3: Match the storyline with an amazing Deck Background

While you are developing the paths, it helps tremendously to have an eye-catching Deck Background to complement the storyline and stimulate the creative juices further. In our example, the deck was designed with Powerpoint, complete with the school room layout and frightening dinosaurs!

With some ingenious animation applied, the whole deck background comes alive! You can download an example PowerPoint Animation here.

Read more here to learn how to make Deck Background Videos. 

#4: Flesh out the Activities

Once the main structure is out and placed onto the Map, you can then go into each and every Activity to develop the tasks further.

Embed GIFs liberally to make your story visually appealing when using Slide Activities. Embellish the Slide Activities with interactive Slide Apps, particularly the Drag-n-Drop, Mystery Crypt and Mystery Piano Slide Apps! 

Another pro tip is to put a hidden code in an image, and turn it into a Jigsaw puzzle using the Jigsaw Slide App! Students will then use this hidden code to unlock their next activity!

You can also hide your clues using the invisibility function. Make sure you give enough clues to help your students find it, if not they will be stuck forever!

You could also use study set games and provide passcodes in the Advanced Setting tab when students successfully complete the game! This is perfect for drumming in important concepts from your original educational content.

#5: Strategically Place Locks and Treasure Key Rewards

The three most useful Slide Apps for digital escape rooms in Deck.Toys are the Lock App, the Treasure Key Lock and the Activity Entry Lock. When strategically placed and matched correctly, you can create the most powerful, multi-dimensional escape room that is not possible with a simple Google Form. Do go through the example deck to see how all these were utilized! 

At the end of the escape room creation, remember to preview as a student to make sure all the locks and treasure key locks are properly configured. The last thing you would want happening is an inescapable escape room!

#6 Be Inspired by Other Escape Rooms

Get inspired by other pre-made escape rooms that are available for free in the Deck Gallery, created by other teachers globally! Not only that, you can make a copy and edit the contents to suit your own classroom requirements. Here are a few that we recommend:

• Home Alone Escape Room: https://deck.toys/a/QyA4TTIIq
• Among Us Escape Room: https://deck.toys/a/Xk7KEic49
• Order of Operations Math Escape Room: https://deck.toys/a/71D_r3rrL

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