August 31st, 2026
#008: How do we keep things from breaking?
Question of the Month:
“With all of the people touching the game components and scenery, how do you make them last? I am sure not everyone is gentle with everything.”
Submitted by Greg M.
Honesty moment: I have broken things in our rooms before.
NEVER intentionally, but it happens; things break!
However, our team puts hours upon hours into durability testing, iteration, and yes, even breaking our components. Let's get into it!
Choose an topic:
"Unbreakable" breakables
On doing the impossible
The Death Rattle:
In our collaboration with Only Murders in the Building, our team was tasked with recreating the death rattle from the beloved show. We wanted to match the overall design, nail the satisfaction element, and ensure overall quality. This took multiple rounds of iteration, testing, and material changes!
The iterations:
We started with a solid plastic rattle to get a feel for the design. Our team quickly realized that this wouldn't work, as we needed the rattle to... well... rattle! So we pivoted to a hollow, wooden design that hit all the marks on satisfaction, but came with some inconsistencies because we had to rely on hand-painted details.
Finally, the answer came from one of our game designers late at night: 3d printing! This became the final version of the rattle that existed in the game,
Rachel
Game Designer
Background:
Rachel has been taking things apart to figure out how they work since she was four years old, from household appliances to, eventually, puzzles. Raised on Nancy Drew and a love of mysteries, she studied criminology with a focus in psychology and sociology before discovering escape rooms in 2015 and beginning her professional design career in 2017. Since then, she has played more than 250 escape rooms, designed complete immersive experiences, and joined The Escape Game as a Game Designer in 2022.
BONUS Question of the Month:
(Spoiler warning for Special Ops!)
“In Special Ops, if we fail to find the lab and leave the marketplace, does that mean we win the game? Since we would not have activated the missile launch as a trap set by the villain.”
Submitted by Chun L.
I called in backup on this one!
When our team put it to a vote, nearly everyone else voted that Iron Wolf would have set off the missile another way. (Remote access, etc.)
But I have to go against the grain and side with Schrödinger: if you never see it, the missile never goes off!
Do you have a different opinion? Put it below 👇👇
