Case Study: Pencil Puzzle “Escape Rooms”

Escape rooms are all the rage these days. And why not? They’re a great way to engage with your friends and colleagues, working together towards a common goal — which is, of course, escaping from a locked room before the clock runs out.

There is one small problem with escape rooms, however: They can only hold perhaps ten people at a maximum. What if you want an escape room experience for dozens or even hundreds of people?

At the request of Will Shortz, editor of the New York Times crossword and organizer of the Annual Crossword Puzzle Tournament in Stamford, CT, Eric created a pencil-puzzle escape room. Contestants formed teams of two or three and worked together to solve a series of variety puzzles — crosswords, of course, but other kinds of puzzles as well — in order to escape from the Stamford Marriott ballroom.

The event was successful enough that soon after the Connecticut Library Association came calling. For their 2017 convention, Eric created an event called “Escape From the Haunted Library.” Once again, teams (of five or six this time) needed to work together to solve a wide variety of pencil puzzles, each themed to a different literary monster. Only the smartest and most communicative teams could figure out who had locked them into the library, and how they were supposed to get back out again.

You can solve both of these “escape rooms” at home! Both are hosted at the Web site for Foggy Brume’s P&A Magazine. You’ll need to create an account there, but that’ll take a minute. Then you can pay what you want for either or both events. Both events have eight puzzles. The ACPT is a little more crossword heavy, and Haunted Library goes a little further afield in terms of its variety.