Designing an Escape Room for a broad range of age and skill levels

Escape room games are a recent and quickly growing phenomenon. They are primarily targeted at adults, though specially designed variations for children are also available. However, singular designs that cater to a large range of age levels are a rarity. This research aims to discover what factors are important in the designing of an age-agnostic escape room game. Research on the state of the art for escape rooms in the Netherlands is performed, specifically for those targeting younger audiences. An escape room themed after local history is developed for the Museum Hengelo (Netherlands), with an intended target audience of children between 8 and 14 years old. A design is ideated and multiple iterations are built and tested. Qualitative data is gathered using questionnaires and observations made during the experiments, and this data is used to improve the design. Generally, users enjoyed the resulting escape room, though the inclusion of some language-based puzzles appeared to be difficult for younger players. A possible relation between children’s curricular contents and the age-agnosticism of escape room puzzles is theorized, and further ways to improve upon the escape room design are presented. Additionally, part of this thesis may serve as documentation for the developed escape room game.