VERSION 1, SCRAPPED
This is a first draft of the escape room idea that I had, upon later realisation, it was scrapped but I will still include it here.
Overview
For this Unit, we were tasked to create an escape room in Unreal Engine.
My idea for this is a sci-fi horror style type of escape room where you have to find clues and keys that will let you continue onwards to the next rooms, time is of the essence as you try to defuse a bomb.
Story
The story behind it is that you are an agent (or a team of agents) and you are tasked with defusing a time bomb that is inside of a sci-fi blacksite laboratory that is on lockdown, you have to get through doors, find keys and codes to doors and finally defuse the bomb at the end of it all, but you also never know whats in the shadows..
Puzzle Interactions
You will have 30 minutes to complete the puzzle room, otherwise a bomb blows up. This is told to the player at the very beginning but the player will have no physical timer for a sense of pressure in the back of their mind.
A key part of this puzzle is also the lighting in the building, the game will start off very well lit, but in 5 minute intervals, the lights will flicker, dim down and some bulbs will begin breaking. The player will also be equipped with a limited resource lamp that lights up the area around them. The shadows will begin killing the player if they stay in the darkness for too long.
Find codes, keys, pages with door lock combinations and symbols around the room to fill out that code, possible slight platforming to reach higher places, crawl through vents to find the key to a room.
Final room is a server room with a bomb in it, you will have to find a bomb defusal manual, which has a code, you find the code around the room which is 4 digits displayed on random server displays, find which order of servers is correct, after initial code, you have to figure out which wire to cut and the bomb will be defused.
Stay out of the darkness, it will kill.
Market Research
A game very similar to this idea is something like MindLoop, a bomb defusal puzzle game where you have to figure out the code for the bomb from other puzzles, the final room will be looking very similar to this, with the previous rooms scaling in difficulty and complexity of the puzzles such as amount of any codes, symbols and the like. The game also has features of Don’t Starve and the Vashta Narada from Doctor Who with the fact that the darkness kills you. The game will also feature a fake weeping angel that stays in one place, but will always face the player whenever LoS is broken.
Level design
Very cyberpunk style rooms, metallic with lights and wires etched into the walls, with big server rooms or some like big tech ceo office room and hallways along with general staff rooms.
1 – The starting room, a simple 4 digit code password in a lock on the door, digits found around the room
2 – another, simpler than room 1, 4 digit code which opens the small room on top, the wall in the room is filled with shapes and writing on the floor, the writing on the floor corresponds to a shape, the shape a number, 5 digit passcode opens the door into room 3
3 – simon-says colours type thing, possibly dodge lasers?
4 – search shelves for keycard, keycard opens a safe, safe has keys, keys opens cabinet, cabinets have numbers, one of the cabinets shows which cabinets hold the correct numbers for the 5 digit code.
5 – Server room, the bomb room, different displays show different numbers, some of the numbers displayed are used for a cabinet that opens into a key, used to open the glass case around the bomb, the other numbers are going back to the 2nd room’s shapes for the pin on the bomb, there is 1 number shown and multiple wires, the number corresponds to the room number and what the “main colour” of that room is, is the colour of the wire you have to cut which disarms the bomb.
Art direction
Reasoning:
The reason that this idea was scrapped was because I had not felt like it was up to par as to what my ideas could achieve, the goal was very difficult to design as this was something that I feel hadn’t given me any motivation to get it done. I prefer to prioritise myself and my mental when it comes to projects so that I can go into future projects and a lot of activities that I do within a day with a positive mindset. This idea for a project was just not it but I still liked some of the ideas I had so I made a second idea that sat a lot better in my mind with more ideas and inspirations making me want to actually do the project.
Version 2:
Overview
For this unit, we were tasked with creating an escape room in Unreal Engine.
My idea for this is for it to be a sci-fi themed abandoned server room, featuring small references to other sci-fi media.
Story
You’re stuck in an abandoned server room, supernatural beings live in it which slash at anyone who steps into the dark, as lights scare them. The building has been set up to be demolished and a bomb has been planted to blow the building up.
You have 20 minutes to defuse it.
Puzzle Interactions
The game features several puzzles, Keypads, basic navigation, morse code and mazes.
As the first step for my puzzles, I followed this keypad tutorial and then proceeded to tweak it as I needed for the needed functions and for them to have multiple doors that open it.
This is the results of the keypad tutorial, they are functional and work.
A lot later in the production, I created seperate keypads that work to make a random console turn on and present a randomised code for the next room to be opened.
A lot of the game features randomness, where consoles will be turned off and one of them will be turned on, these consoles will set a random code to a set keypad that activates another set door.
Upon the completion of one of the puzzles, another random console opens up and shows another randomised code and the pattern repeats.
^ Aformentioned Morse Code puzzle. Good luck.
I had talked with a Year 2 student, Logan Brickhill and he had created a tutorial showcasing an idea for a system in unreal that deals with the player taking damage in light or dark, vice versa. After implementing this tutorial into my game, I placed all of the lights into specific areas that the player will have to navigate through in order to not die. I have tweaked this code to remove chunks of health rather a continous stream of damage. There is a check that happens that for every 3 seconds that the player is outside of the light, they take 2 damage.
These are the 3 mazes that are included in the escape room. 2 of them include ways to find the code to progress forward.
The last maze only includes the bomb that you have to diffuse.
Market Research
Puzzle games are generally a very niche community for games, this can be both a good and a bad thing; the niche commnunity means that not a lot of people may know about this game and it might be very difficult to open to a wider audience. However, the way that the puzzle games niche works is that word can spread very fast because of how small it is. When one person plays it and hangs around in puzzle game spaces, they can tell everybody else about it and they will most likely try it out as well.
Looking at media that share similar features with this game such as the “Vashta Narada” from Doctor Who, which are creatures who attack the in the dark, its an innovative gimmick that will add depth to the game, allowing for a stronger audience pull.
Level Design
The level will feature 2 stories, where the second story acts more as a catwalk, a secondary floor with ways to look down into the first floor. This is done as an extra challenge for navigation around the map.
^ I was thinking about something like that for the general design of the first floor.
Production log:
The base layout of the map, first created and very barebones
I made this console mesh in blender and learnt how to export it into UE, I then proceeded to create further Server meshes which I put into the world as well to give the feeling of a server room similarly to the previous picture that inspired it.
Made the logic on a MasterController of the consoles that selects a random console to turn on by detecting whether or not certain consoles have a boolean that the Master turns on for them.
This is also the code that are used among all of the consoles that show that they are turned “off” by default and then they turn on when selected by the master.
To test whether any of this worked, I created a small cylinder that runs the logic to randomise different consoles being picked. It works.
The next thing I did was work on a console which progressively showed more numbers one-by-one.
The logic works very similarily to the base code creation, however the main difference is that it keeps track of the actual length of codes better, only adding 1 number everytime it triggers instead of all of the numbers.
With the creation of the consoles, I had achieved what I wanted to which is explained by this diagram:
I used this simple tutorial to create a game over screen and a win screen for the needed conditions.
Lose and Win screen as show in game ^
I also created a main menu screen to startup when the game has been executed.
Gameplay Video:
This video showcases all of the puzzles featured in the escape room as well as the solutions to them as well as a win state and a death state.
Reflection
This project has taught me a lot about the processes of Unreal Engine has allowed me to get a beginning grasp on the basics of it as well as taught me a lot of problem solving skills in order to figure out how I wanted my logic written for the game to run as smoothly as possible. If I were to have given myself more time with this project the game would have had a lot more rendering and texturing on most of the objects, I decided to focus more on the mechanics aspect of the game as that is what I would consider myself more proficient in and it is something I enjoy doing more than graphics work.
I published my game on Itch.io for my friends to play and for the public to view! (it might update soon with some quality of life mods based on feedback received from my friends after they play-tested the game) Good luck.
Play it here: https://thewisemogy.itch.io/escape-room
References
Filip “TheWiseMogy” Witkowski. “Escape Room Showcase.” YouTube, 26 Feb. 2026, http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lbtsZyL_nb0. Accessed 2 Mar. 2026.
Gorka Games. “How to Make a Simple Game over Menu in Unreal Engine 5.” Www.youtube.com, 5 June 2023, http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZpQmL_TzSPo.
Kauai VFX. “How to Create an Interactive Keypad System in UE5!” YouTube, 4 Nov. 2025, http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Waps-WcHg6U.
Logan Brickhill. “UE5 Light & Shadow Damage System Tutorial.” YouTube, 9 Dec. 2025, http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XFv6OWcnmhA. Accessed 2 Mar. 2026.
