Introduction

This is it. My magnum opus.

I make a birthday escape room every year for my kid (now 17) and when they picked Silent Hill as the theme, I was elated.

Thing I knew I wanted to do:
– Eschew my normal use of cyphers for Silent Hill style riddles and puzzles
– Create less linear paths than I normally make – the players would have to revisit previous areas to make it more in line with Silent Hill format
– Have a story. I wanted this to be an (semi) original Silent Hill story but it had to be quick and tight for a short escape room.
– Lean into a few clear themes in a Silent Hill way. I settled on numbers, animals, and dolls.
– Gotta have a radio somehow.

TL;DR: Here is a video.

Planning

As always, the planning is the most time consuming task. I only have so many locks, boxes, rooms, and other supplies. I have to craft puzzles around the items that I own, which can be a challenge. I usually allow around a month to plan and build my room but this time, I knew I was going hard, so I started an extra month early. I use Miro to plan and replan and replan. It take A LOT of iteration. This took every free moment I had for a couple months.

The Story

Your best friend has been having dreams about Silent Hill. They hear the walls whispering calling them — calling “The Watcher”.

The first case file the player finds speaks of twins who were rescued from a cult ritual where everyone present was immolated but them. One twin is obsessed with animals, the other with numbers. They speak of a third who did not arrive as they should have – They who watch.

At the start, it seems as if your friend is The Watcher being called to Silent Hill. However, as the story unfolds, it becomes clear your friend is one of the twins and YOU are The Watcher Dun, dun, DUUUUUUN!

At the finale of the story, it is revealed they really only need your head, so please leave it or they’ll come take it. There are a lot of doll heads throughout the escape room leading up to this.

The Setup

While people think Silent Hill, they think of the foggy small town. However, my first thought is the dark, haunted hallways and locked doors of the school, hospital, prison, etc. Luckily, my basement allows me to emulate this setup.

I have 6 doors in my basement (also a secret room). I installed locking doorknobs on each door. I put up quite a few framed images of creepy vintage hospital pictures I modified to be more Silent HIll-y with smeared faces and such. There were also a lot of disturbing kids drawings and photos of animals. Naturally, I made a map.

There was a staging area where the final key, Room 106, sat at the bottom of a carafe far too narrow for hands to reach into. There were some notepads for players.

The first puzzle is in the intro note to a 3-number lock that is clearly tied to the note. This puzzle proved to be surprisingly difficult. It’s just the numbers convert from minutes to hours 5=1, 45=9, 25 = 5. Players just anchored to things like hours, minutes, seconds or the “years” aspect. I should have made it more clear. This gives the key to the first door.

The First Door

This reveals a number of doll heads which is the combination for a directional lock. This also has the case file for the lore of the story and the twins.

The Paths Diverge

Here there are two main paths – one for each twin.

One riddle identifies 3 creatures, the second the count of these creatures. Players had to figure out what the animals for the first puzzle and then find and count them on the pictures on the walls. I had to use a bike as an animal because my “animal lock” has a bike on it for some reason. I included in the lore that one of the twins thinks of everything as an animal. Kind of weak but I have to work with what I have.

Each riddle opened a box with a key. I used old style hotel room key tags.

The Bathroom

It’s Silent Hill. You gotta have a creepy bathroom! The bathroom has a few puzzles. The toilet is locked, there is a riddle on the wall, and the cabinet is locked.

The tank of the toilet is filled with doll parts and this riddle is above. One doll part is burned, one has the fingers cut off, one foot is whole and the other crippled. Putting the parts in the right order and counting the symbols opens the toilet lid lock.

Unfortunately, no one got any pictures or video of this(!) but I put a sitz bath in the toilet and filled with questionably looking (but food-safe) slimy liquid. It was just tea, food coloring, and corn starch. The player had to reach into the dark water. Inside was a sealed set of batteries.

The Bedroom

Inside the bedroom was a puzzle lifted straight from Silent Hill but with a twist. Players had to align a set of books to reveal the image of a creature. Each book had a zodiac symbol at the bottom which tied to a zodiac symbol lock. Players then had to take a blacklight bulb and reveal a clue which showed which books to use and in which order.

The Radio – Part 1

Inside the battery compartment of the radio was a clue to what radio station the players should tune in. The solution is 8 – 9 – 5. The spiral could have been a 6, but radio dials don’t go that low and they worked this out easily.

I bought a couple bluetooth FM transmitters and was continually broadcasting a couple stations. I was worried once once the players had the radio, they would discover the second station before it was time to do so, but they didn’t event try. I use text to speech to record a Silent Hill radio show. The players had to get all four answers of the show, based off lore and photos throughout the basement, which opened a letter lock.

The Maintenance Room

This room was very simple since it was my wife’s office and I did not want to impose on her. I blocked most of the area off with a screen and had a locked toolbox. This had a note on the bottom documenting the history of past maintenance workers. This as a code to the previously unlocked bathroom cabinet. This revealed another radio station puzzle.

The Radio – Part 2

This time players tuned into a station just playing creepy sounds. Players had to count the sounds to open the 4-number lock on the toolbox. Inside the toolbox was a seal with an infinity symbol.

The Figures

In the penultimate room was an array of small drawing maquette in various positions. This tied to a cult page hung up in the main hub area. There was also a bottle of dark, red liquid with a locked top.

The Word of Power

The maquette puzzle led to a challenging word riddle where players had to figure out a sacred word to the cult. This was because I ordered a letter lock and the “word” to open it was nonsense but at least it sounded like cult babel. At a thrift store, I found a beautiful rosewood box that had photo slots on the outside. I made some creepy animal photos. The players had to arrange the first letters of each animal in a particular order. This revealed the second seal – the animal.

Note: I talk about this in the conclusion, this was a great example of players anchoring to the wrong idea. They kept thinking an “alpha” would be a wolf even though there was no wolf photo. “The alpha is the omega” just meant the first and last letters were the same. Also, I don’t adhere to outdated ideas of “alphas”.

The Seals

Each seal was a magnet. I repurposed child-safe cabinet locks on this sliding drawer box. Both seals had to be in place to open the box. This is where the diverging paths had to reconnect. Inside was a riddle to open the bottle of liquid. Star = 5, Void = 0, eyes =2.

The Final Key

Instead of drinking the liquid and sealing the pact, players pour the liquid into a vase, and key (attached to a floating key ring) that has been taunting them the entire game, floats to the top, finally putting it in reach.

The Final Room

As players entered the final room, the tone changes. I had been playing ambient Silent Hill music but now the music switched the loud, clanging “Red Pyramids”. Players had to enter the “secret room” in my storage area, which is a narrow access area behind the walls. I used a smoke machine and a horizontal green laser to create the “swamp effect” often used in haunted houses.

This legitimately freaked some people out and they refuse to enter.

Here it is revealed the twins really just need your head to perform the tasks of The Watcher. Someone, has left a note and a key that unlocks a blacklight flashlight in the hub.

The Escape

On the back of each door is a number. The numbers indicate a letter of the alphabet and the order is the number of the six doors, 101-106. This gives the code to the final codex, which gives the final key to escape!

Conclusion & Learnings

Everyone universally loved the escape room. Since I worked so hard on this, I ran it for my friends in addition to my kid and their friends. My gang are escape room enthusiasts and they said it was better than some acclaimed pro rooms they’ve done (pats self on back).

What I learned is writing riddles is very, very hard. Players anchor their minds to the wrong thing and have a hard time getting off of whatever their idea of of what is “right”, as opposed to ciphers, which have objectively logical answers. Also players start looking for clues and answers in EVERYTHING. I mixed some flavor notes with the puzzles and there was a not a clear delineation, which caused some confusion. Next time I will have clear, visual indicators of what is just lore.