Introduction

Every year I make an escape room/scavenger hunt for my kids birthday party. This year, the theme is Sonic the Hedgehog!

I use Miro to brainstorm, plan quickly, and move things around as needed. There is a lot of iteration in this process, so freedom to make changes often during planning is important.

I didn’t know a lot about Sonic going into this, so I did A TON of research. I had no idea Sonic had so much out there lore!

As I have for the past couple years, I make two branching paths because if too many kids (more than 2-3) are working on a single puzzle, they cannot contribute and become disengaged.

One question I get often about doing these parties is, “How long does this take?” It takes about a month. My birthday is a little over a month before my kid’s, so I know on my birthday, it’s time to get started.

Setup

I decorated our basement as if it was Eggman’s world/base. Many “Eggman Rules” posters sprinkled with some Sonic “RESIST” posters.

NOTE: I found much of these posters and other decorations online and had a hard time finding credits. If I used your work, please let me know!

Game Start!

Eggman introduction letter outlines his diabolical scheme to make Sonic solve puzzles! A test where his speed means nothing! Certain words are capitalized. I wonder what that could mean?

Nearby, among the other posters, was a Periodic Table. The players needed to sum the atomic numbers of the mentioned elements to the get the first 3-number code.

Box 1

Since Eggman kidnapped Sonic’s friends, each box contains a little plastic toy of one of the Sonic characters. Some of the boxes contain Chaos Emeralds!

The first box had Tails and two puzzles. The first was a set of icons where players had to count the colors to get a 4-number letter combination.

The second was a Sonic word search puzzle where the left over letters revealed a 3-letter code.

This started the branching paths. Note! I re-used quite a few puzzles from last year since my kid was bummed they didn’t get to do a number of puzzles on the “other” path at their last party.

Some boxes have Sonic gold rings looped onto a string. These all must be collected to open the final puzzle.

Path 1-1

This first box had a small transparency with a riddle. I am not normally a fan of riddles but I was okay with this one to give a hint.

I have many keys but only one lock.
I have a large space but no rooms.
You can enter and escape.

The answer is… a keyboard!

This spelled out CAT TREE, where a key was hidden.

Path 2-1

This was a small box full of darts. Dangerous games returns from last year! This was the part my kid was most upset about missing, so I had to do it again. They have to throw darts and hit the targets and then use the number of the dartboard to form a 4-number code.

Path 1-2

This box had a number of transparencies that were cut up into squares. There was a hint about “freeing the animals”. Players had to assemble to squares correctly form the path and unlock a 3-animal code on an animal-icon lock. I have to admit, there was a lot of squinting to make this one work. The last icon was a bike, which is kind of close to Shadow on a motorcycle? So the code was horse – butterfly – bike. Not the best outcome but I was trying to us some new locks.

Path 2-2

This box contained 3 push pins with tiny flags on them and each pin had a different color and length piece of string. Players had to place the pins in the correct place on the map and then use the string to triangulate the location. The first word of that location with the 4-letter code to the next lock – SAND.

Path 1-3

I leaned on a Tunic puzzle (again). Where Sonic can move in a straight direction creates the directions for a directional lock.

Path 2-3

This was a Polybus code and the key was hung on the wall among the other “blueprint” type posters. This is a pretty simple code but I have a running dad joke where I don’t understand if Amy Rose is Sonic’s girlfriend or his sister and I ask my kid this every time her name comes up, so I had to work this into the game. So this code is “sister or girlfriend” and the answer is Amy R.

My word lock always has a 0 at the end. I need to get a better one.

The Final Box!

Now that players have unlocked all but one box, they have all the Chaos Emeralds! Where is Super Sonic?

Five of the boxes had gold Sonic rings on a string (another small present) and counting each number of rings and then putting them in order from smallest to largest gave the code for the final box, where Super Sonic awaited to defeat Eggman (and get cake)!

Cake and Treats

We had a Sonic cake (which we cut into before taking a picture) and, of course, chili dogs! We also had onion rings (get it? Golden rings) and other various assorted snacks. We made little food labels and used art from “Something About” series, since that’s one of their favorites. There was also blue sports drinks with a “Sonic Juice” label. In hindsight, kind of weird.

We dressed up a bit and even our dog got a Sonic costume, which she was really happy about.

One more year completed! Who knows what fixation my kid will have next year but I look forward to it.