Easy DIY Escape Room Puzzle Ideas You Can Use Today!

Are you excited about the idea of hosting your own escape room at home? Searching for creative DIY escape room ideas? While planning the perfect escape room experience might seem a tad daunting, I’m here to share some puzzle ideas that will kickstart your journey in no time.

HOW TO CREATE AN ESCAPE ROOM

So, my first tip is to KEEP IT SIMPLE. Puzzles don’t need to be hard to be fun. You can easily increase a puzzle’s playability by hiding elements around the room.

In my early days, I spent far too many late nights planning super crazy escape room puzzles and going totally overboard with my theme. What I learnt was that simplicity is key!

Choose your Escape Room Theme

Picking your escape room theme is super fun. Top tip: Don’t spend too much time pondering over it. It is just the starting point; the important part of the game is the various puzzles and challenges you create. 

Here are a few theme ideas to get you going.

• A Movie Escape Room Theme – Indiana Jones, Marvel films, and Goonies would be fun or any of your favorites.
• Book series – Harry Potter or Hunger Games are great themes.
• Video games – Tomb Raider, Super Mario,
• Favorite TV shows.
• A board game – How about Monopoly or Cluedo (Clue for my friends over the pond).
• A historical event – The “great train robbery” or the discovery of “Tutankhamun’s tomb”, for example.

DIY Escape Room Ideas!

Let’s start planning your escape room challenges and get ready to throw in a secret message or two.

1. Jigsaw puzzles:

Don’t underestimate the humble jigsaw puzzle. Everyone knows how to use them, which is a bonus, and you can easily adapt them to reveal different pieces of information.

How to use jigsaw puzzles in your escape room game.

• Use your own images to create your jigsaw puzzle. The images can lead to objects or items players need to discover. 
• Write your clue on top of your jigsaw puzzle. Your message is revealed when fully assembled.
• Use Black light torch to reveal a hidden message written with UV ink pen.
• The picture you use for the puzzle could be a QR code for players to scan. 
• Write a number on the reverse to reveal the digits to open a number lock.

2. Candy Lock Code Escape Room Puzzle

One of my favorite clues to reveal a lock combination is using candy. The correct answer is discovered by sorting and counting different colored candies into the right order.

This series of puzzles is great for younger players.

You don’t just have to use candy. If you can sort it, it will work. I’ve used LEGO bricks, cutlery, and even had players sort plastic bugs for one of my Halloween games.

3. Grille Cipher Escape Room Puzzle

I love the simplicity of using grille ciphers in my escape rooms. They are a great way to reveal information hidden in plain sight. The grille or overlay is placed over a piece of text or image.

Holes in the grille reveal information players need. Here are a few ideas for incorporating the grille cipher into your own DIY escape room. This type of cipher is a great puzzle for young children. You can easily increase the difficulty level by having the text discovered written in a secret code.

• Placed on top of a letter, the players discover a hidden message.
• Overlaid on top of a specific page in a book will reveal information players need.
• Place over a photograph to highlight details the players need to know.
• Place over a poster of the alphabet. Players unscramble the letters to reveal a word.
• Place on top of a map to reveal the location of the next clue.

4. Blacklight and Invisible Ink

Imagine uncovering hidden secrets with the flick of a switch! Incorporating blacklight or invisible ink into your DIY escape room adds an extra layer of excitement for very little effort on your part.

Picture your players discovering a seemingly unimportant piece of paper, only to reveal crucial clues under the glow of a blacklight torch. Whether it’s secret messages, hidden maps, or concealed codes, using invisible ink and blacklight is a fab addition to your game.

A simple clue card can lead players to the location of a further clue.

5. Balloon Pop Puzzle

I use balloons quite a lot in my escape game! I have used them to conceal keys, hide puzzles piecers, and even write messages on them.

TOP TIP: If you are planning on using balloons, check to see if players have allergies to latex or have a balloon phobia! The last thing you want is a bunch of terrified kids running around!

6. Secret Anaglyph Message

Secret Anaglyph Messages are another fun way to reveal hidden information in an escape room. When red acetate is placed over an image, certain colours disappear, allowing a secret message to show through. This is great fun when used in a spy treasure hunt or for a secret mission.

To create your own, print your clue using light blue tones and disguise it with red-orange text or images. To reveal your message, lay red acetate over the top. If you don’t have acetate, a clear plastic wallet, or a laminating pouch coloured in with a red Sharpie works just as well.

7. Peg Board

I grabbed one of these wooden geoboards from Amazon. All I did was write letters and numbers along the edges. For the clue, I wrote down the coordinates for where the elastic bands needed to be placed.

You can create letters and numbers using the elastic bands. If you wanted to make the activity more challenging write the coordinates on different pieces of paper and hide them around the room for players to find.

8. Audio Push Buttons

These buttons are a lot of fun to use. I purchased a set from Amazon. They are intended for training dogs, but they are perfect to use in escape room puzzles.

Each button is a different colour and programable to add your own audio. You can record messages, single words, add a song, or even play Morse code dits and dahs. Grab a set from Amazon.

9. Number Combination Lock

You probably have a combination lock lying around your house. The beauty of using a number combination lock is the puzzle possibilities. Anything that has a digit on it can be used as a clue.

• The numbers on a clock or watch face.
• Roman numerals.
• A takeaway menu
• A recipe
• Phone numbers.

Let’s look at a practical example using a takeaway menu to reveal a three-digit lock code.

I created a simple fake receipt for a local takeaway. Players had to find each of the dishes from the menu and perform a simple calculation to reveal a three-digit code.

10. The simple art of hiding stuff!

Yep, just hiding things around the room is simple and effective. Under rugs, inside books, behind a picture frame or door.

11. Measuring

There are all kinds of ways that you can measure different objects. Use a ruler or tape measure, weigh something, or measure the amount of liquid something holds.

Use the numbers to reveal information players need. The numbers can be used for codes or translated into letters to reveal a secret message. Regular tasks like this are fun as the players must do something physical to reveal the final solution.

12. Words and Letters

A very simple and effective way to reveal information to players is to hide your information in plain sight. This simple idea has players reading specific words or letters. There are different ways to do this.

1. Highlight words or letters in different colors.
2. Read capitalised, italic or underlined letters or words.
3. Only read the first word or letter in each sentence.
4. Words or letters are identified using co-ordinates.
5. Use UV pens to highlight important words.

In the postcards above, the clue reads “the key is under the plantpot”. On the first envelope, words are written in blue, so easy to read. The second uses number coordinates. 1-1 is the first line first word, 3-1 is the third line first word, etc. Super simple, but takes a little longer to decipher.

13. Popsicle Stick Code

I’ve used all kinds of objects to write clues on. Stacking popsicle sticks is a simple puzzle idea and its a nice one for kids to do. I really like these jumbo popsicle sticks for this activity. Stack the sticks ontop of each other. Write your message on the side in permanent marker.

The popsicle sticks need to be stacked in the correct order to reveal your clue. Here are a few ideas you can use to sort and order the sticks.

• Order by the colors in the rainbow (paint your sticks to match).
• Order them using numbers. Stack from 1-10. Make it trickier by using prime numbers or perhaps a date.
• Order them by letters in the alphabet. Stack from A-Z
• Use a word . Stack the sticks in order to spell your chosen word.
• Use a code or cipher. In the sticks above, I’ve used my favorite pigpen cipher.

Secret Codes & Ciphers

There are so many different types of codes and ciphers. If you are feeling adventurous, you can even make up your own.

15. Morse code

Incorporating Morse code is pretty easy! Write out your messages in the code using dots and dashes or be more creative using sounds or lights being flashed.

I will add a note to say that I have found there to be an equal measure of love and hate around the use of Morse code using sound. Players either really love it or hate it, so something to keep in mind!

 Find out more about Morse code and grab my free activity kit.

I tend to stick to using visual Morse code clues. If you have ever watched “Task Master,” in one of the episodes, they used balloons to reveal a message written in Morse code, just genius!

16. PigPen Cipher

I love using the pigpen cipher. It looks so abstract, but is super simple to solve. Using the cipher is a fun and easy way to add a coded message to your escape room.

This simple substitution makes your secret messages look like ancient secret code or new language, adding a fun challenge for your players to solve!

Find out more about the pigpen cipher and grab the free pigpen cipher printable.

Get Ready To Play

You’ve got plenty of puzzle ideas now, so it’s time to map things out. A quick, no-fuss plan showing where each puzzle goes and what’s needed to solve it is more than enough. If you’re new to creating games, keep things simple. You don’t need layers of locks and riddles to make it fun.

Before game day, do a quick test run. Check everything prints properly, the clues make sense, and any locks work smoothly. This is your chance to tweak things, swap puzzles out, or simplify if needed.

Grab a Don For You Game.

If you want to take out some of the hard work, you can take a look at my ready-made kids escape room games. Each one includes plenty of puzzles for a fun party-style game. Use them as a starting point for your own game, or just print and play.