Wonderful school festival / cultural festival

I want to run an escape game at the school festival! How to create a real-life escape game and tips

10 years as a kindergarten teacher / elementary school teacher / junior and senior high school teacher / childminderkepiko
Graduated from Kunitachi College of Music, Faculty of Music (now: Department of Music Culture and Education, Early Childhood Music Education major). In elementary school, my homeroom teacher was Jun Kusaba, a game researcher. After graduating from university, I worked for 10 years as a kindergarten teacher and for 7 years as an after-school childcare instructor, then took a post as a music teacher at an international school in Singapore. In addition to music education, I also engaged in activities that shared Japanese culture, traditional games, and recreational play, working with many children. Afterwards, through freelance writing, planning, and editing work at Shogakukan, I met many delightful adults and experienced the joy of communicating and conveying ideas. Leveraging the perspective cultivated in educational settings and my experience as an editor, I aim to deliver practical information—focusing on fields related to music and children—that values both input and output. Hobbies include instruments, singing, handcrafts, toys, drawing, traditional play, the outdoors, books, DIY, and crafts. Special skill: spinning-top tricks.
Editor-in-Chief, RAG MUSICHane Keisuke
Editor-in-chief of RAG MUSIC. JFC-certified fact-checker. After working in a music studio and handling wedding sound, joined the RAG MUSIC editorial team in 2016. Experienced with a variety of instruments: marching band in elementary school, clarinet in junior high school wind ensemble, and drums in a band from high school onward. Drawing on my own musical activities and the experience gained through my work, I produce daily articles, including various song introductions, features on music festivals around the country, and live reports. In music, I enjoy not only rock from Japan and abroad but, lately, a wide range of J-pop as well.

Some of you might be thinking about creating a real escape game as your school festival attraction.

It’s a game where you solve various puzzles with the goal of escaping from a locked room, and it originally started as a computer game.

Recently, real escape games—where participants are actually locked in and try to escape—have been getting a lot of attention.

If you can pull this off as a school festival exhibit, it will definitely become a hot topic, but many people probably don’t know how to make one.

So in this article, we’ll introduce how to create an escape game and tips to improve its quality!

Item ideas to use in a game (1–10)

padlock

This padlock is the simplest option, yet it really gives off an escape-room vibe.

You can use it in many situations, like locking the exit door or a box containing items needed to solve puzzles.

Think carefully about where to hide the key and build a preliminary puzzle around that.

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IC card, NFC tag

[NFC] Just hold your iPhone near to trigger actions automatically! 5 super-handy Shortcuts + more

IC card, NFC tag

Did you know that iPhones can read IC cards and NFC tags? For example, with an app, you can hold your iPhone over transit IC cards like Suica to check the balance.

Plus, using the Shortcuts app that comes pre-installed on iPhones, you can read an IC card or NFC tag to open any app you choose or send a message.

By leveraging these features, you can imagine various uses: the numbers in a Suica balance could serve as clues in a puzzle, or scanning an IC card or NFC tag could reveal the hiding place of a key needed to solve a mystery.

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dial lock

This is another type of key that’s easy to use for puzzle-solving! A dial lock that opens by matching numbers is recommended when there’s no place to hide a key, since you don’t need to hide anything.

When using a dial lock, it works well to pair it with puzzles whose answers are numbers—like Sudoku or math problems—so the setup feels natural and justified.

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a box fastened with screws and nails

Recommended physical gimmicks unique to real-life escape games include screws and nails.

Prepare or hide separate tools like a screwdriver or crowbar for removing the screws or nails, and have players use those tools to open something.

Actually using tools to open a box adds realism and enhances the sense of immersion in the game experience.

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Book-shaped storage box

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Book-shaped storage box

If your setting is a classroom or library, consider incorporating these book-shaped storage boxes.

Mix them in with real books and hide key items inside that are needed to progress in the game.

This setup can capture the core fun of escape rooms—investigating suspicious objects in the room to find key items.

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black light

DAISO Magic Light Pen - Invisible ink pen

black light

When it comes to puzzle-solving, this is indispensable! Blacklight is a classic trick: when you shine a blacklight, you can see letters written with a special pen, making it perfect for hiding important hints.

You can even buy this special pen at 100-yen shops, so it’s easy to incorporate, which is great.

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In conclusion

We’ve shared tips and structuring tricks for planning an escape game for a school festival. From building the foundation of your story to coming up with puzzle ideas, weaving in the perspectives we discussed should help you create a school-festival escape game that deeply captivates participants. Work with your teammates through trial and error to craft a unique world and deliver a truly special experience.