Fun Locks For Your DIY Escape Room.

Are you planning to run an escape room at home? No doubt you will be looking for ingenious and devilish ways to keep your escape room players entertained for as long as possible. There are a lot of really fun ways to add locks into your DIY escape room. From bottle locks to pill pots you will be able a few ideas that you can use to hide your clues and puzzles.

There are lots of fun ways to use locks in your escape rooms. Lock away keys, puzzle materials and items needed by the players in the game. The locks though are secondary to the way in which you give the clues to open those locks. This is where the fun is created, the clues you use to open the locks. Grab my freebie at the end of this post for some helpful printables.

TYPES OF PUZZLES YOU CAN USE TO OPEN LOCKS IN YOUR ESCAPE ROOM

There are so many creative ways to add your locks into your game. Read on to see some of the different types of locks you can use in your DIY escape room. The printable at the end of this post includes some printable lock clues that you can use in your DIY escape room.

Cryptex

Cryptexes are perhaps one of my favorite additions when it comes to making escape rooms more challenging and exciting. A cryptex is essentially like a combination lock but with letters instead of numbers – so instead of entering numbers into it, you have to input words or phrases instead! It adds another level of difficulty since you have an unlimited amount of combinations available (unlike combination locks where there is only one correct answer), so it takes some serious brain power for players to figure out what phrase will trigger the cryptex!

I love the look of this Cryptex lock, I don’t know why but they seem like proper locks to use in your escape game. You can actually make your own, I’m currently working on a tutorial for one, but in the mean time If you are interested in making one yourself, you can find some great tutorials on youtube (I’ve watched a few, lol).

Escape Room Bottle Lock

Use this three-combination lock on the neck of a bottle. This could just be a prize for the end of the escape as I have done used it to hide important clues and information inside. A quick tip if you are planning on putting paper inside, roll it up and fasten it well so it can easily be pulled out of the bottle. This can be a fun lock to add to your escape game. For a Christmas escape room party I once created for my family, I used one of these locks on a rather tasty festive tipple to include in the game. Needless to say, it was fun watching them desperate to find the clues to get into the bottle and quaff its contents.

Feeling crafty when it comes to your escape room? Get out the glue stick and make the bottle match your theme. Create a bespoke label with the clue to open the bottle right there on the outside. If you are feeling devious, as I often am. Print out your label but print it double-sided so the clue is actually on the inside of the label. Fill the bottle with a dark liquid, and once the players have emptied the liquid they can read the clue.

Fill the bottle liquid, so it fills another vessel to a set level. The players then have to pour this into a beaker. The beaker can have numbers or letters on the side or other information for another one of your puzzles.

colour combination lock

Although this is just another number lock, the coloured wheels give you the opportunity to make clues to using a mixture of numbers and colours. The simplest way is to have the players count out groups of objects in different colours. I often use jelly beans for this, and I naturally have to eat the ones that are not needed for the puzzle lol. One of the pages in the freebie printable lock kit uses this idea. You can grab the freebie at the bottom of this post.

Pill Lock Box

These are nice little boxes that can hold your clues. If you fancy a little bit of DIY, you can drill holes into logs of wood and hide the container inside there. I have seen this done for hiding containers for geocaching (FYI geocaching is a lot of fun).

Think outside the box when planning on using this lock. Although it is a simple key mechanism, you can use it in ways that make it a lot of fun. Hiding the pill box is probably one of the most fun things you can do. How about this idea…For a Halloween game, grab a Pumpkin and cored-out space for the pill pot to fit. Place your clue or item inside the pill box lock for players to find. I’m sure that there are plenty of great locations you could hide this box. If you think of some more ideas, do drop a comment for others at the bottom.

Ben & Jerry’s Ice Cream Lock

I can’t say that I have used this lock myself, but what a fantastic idea for an escape room lock. Pop an item inside a clean ice cream tub for your players to find or if it’s for a children’s party, have them find the code to get to the sweet treat inside. I may have to use this one in a future DIY escape game for my kids.

Combination Word Lock

Another simple but effective lock, I have a few of these and they are quite robust. Choose your five-letter word and let your players find the clues to reveal your letters. Create five mini puzzles and the answer to each one should reveal one letter of your code word.

You can be devious, and let’s be fair, I love being devious. The answers to your five puzzles can be encoded with a cypher, written in binary hidden as morse code or just a simple substitution. This will add another layer of code cracking to your DIY escape room. You will also need to include a hint somewhere. It could be a picture in a frame with morse code written on it, a note telling them to reveal their word, they have to use binary or just have a cypher wheel hidden in the room. You can be as cruel as you like. But always remember it should be fun, and the ultimate goal is that players can escape your game.

The only problem that you have when using these locks is that you are restricted to the combination you can make. Just be aware of this when creating your game. It can be annoying if the word is something totally random to your theme but hey ho!

fun puzzle boxes

Definitely take a looks around Amazon for these types of boxes. I have purchased a few different kinds over the years. They are not all built to the same quality but for the ad hoc escape game they work really well for hiding clues and keys

These kinds of puzzle boxes are also a lot of fun for individual gift reveals. Pop a gift card or cold hard cash inside, and voila, a fun gift.

Rotary Combination Lock

Another great addition to your game is one of these rotary locks, there are lots of fun ways that you can give clues to the combination. I find that the locks themselves are secondary to the clues you give to open them.

Book Lock

A pretty simple but fun way to hide essential clues or prizes for your escape room game. Pop your game material inside this lock book, then hide on a shelf. If you don’t want players rummaging through your bookshelf, just pop it on the table, or in a prominent position in your room with a couple of books around it.

These book locks can also be used to create stand-alone escape room style games. Cram it full of different mini puzzles and lock up, these work great as gifts or revealing for revealing a special trip. If you don’t like the look of the outside of the book box, grab some paper and recover it. Make your own dust cover to match your theme.

THE HUMBLE PADLOCK

Padlocks are traditional mechanical locks that use keys for unlocking. While these might not be as techy as other types of locks, they can still be effective in creating an additional puzzle for your escape room players. If you want to create a really simple escape, these colour-coded locks are a great way to have teams find a particular colour puzzle and open the corresponding lock; very simple to set up. You can buy this set cheaply on amazon, but I bet you have a bunch of them lying around the house.

Get creative with locks

There are lots of ways you can make your escape room game more challenging and exciting by adding creative types of locking mechanisms like the combination, magnetic, card, padlock, keypad and cipher locks – not forgetting cryptexes which really add an extra layer of difficulty! With all these options available, there should be something new you can add to your game, making sure no two games ever feel quite the same – so get creative and have fun building your own unique escape room experience today!

Locks are a fun way to hide information and clues for your escape game. There are some fab locks in this post that you can use but don’t forget the humble lock and key. Keys can be hidden in a pocket, attached to tags, stuck behind a picture frame, or under a dining room chair. It doesn’t need to be complicated.

GRAB THE FREE ESCAPE ROOM LOCK PRINTABLE

Grab yourself some printable lock clues. I use these all the time when making my games. I hope that you can use these lock clues in your own DIY game. By signing up to get the freebie, you will be added to my email list. I don’t send things out every week, I’m too darn lazy, but I do send out new game info and regular freebies to my list.

Hope there are a few ideas that you can use in your escape room game, have a blast planning your games, Dawn x