Zombies are everywhere!
And they're hungry ?
hungry for ?
PIZZA!
Trapped in an apartment on the 28th floor, can you rescue the pizza, get the gun, unlock the door, and defeat the zombies?
What will such a feat of bravery and heroism take? Solving lots and lots of interesting, fun puzzles, of course!
Welcome to d'Escape Room Z, an hour-long puzzling adventure for you and your crew.
As the host of this event, you will prepare everything so that your crew is ready to defeat the zombies and win the day. Keep scrolling down this page for all the setup instructions. Once the game is ready, join your friends and play!
Note: If you won't be playing the game yourself, follow the same setup instructions but also use the bonus process map (contains spoilers!).
View the process map (complete spoiler)Download and unzip the game zip file. Inside you'll find the game itself, along with editable posters, invites, and designers kit for customizing.
From here it's super simple to get the game ready to play:
However, if you enjoy creating custom puzzles, you can easily edit the game using the Builder's Kit included in the download. It contains the editable PowerPoint file and all creative assets:
In the game download, choose your print option:
Print the photos at any office store or online via (Amazon Photo Print). To keep the gritty look and feel, choose matte/satin rather than gloss.
Open the PDF file Print at Home Version.pdf and print the escape kit on standard A4 paper.
d'Escape Room Z also includes optional props to make the experience even more immersive. Print any props you'd like from the Props folder. None of these are required to play the game, but if you want to go the extra mile, it's totally worth it!
Although you can play d'Escape Room Z on a table, like a board game, it's much more fun to hide the puzzles around the room like a real escape game. For a truly immersive experience set it up in an apartment building living room, since this is where the storyline happens.
Feel free to be creative and customize to suit your needs - there's no wrong way to do this!
Just follow the steps below to set up the experience.
Place these 5 clue cards anywhere in the room. They're great for hiding if that's something your group enjoys.
Substitute: The colored QR code takes players to a website where they'll enter a passcode. If you'd prefer to replace this with a combination lock or a real safe, click to expand the spoiler below.
Add a safe or lock (SPOILER) ExpandThere's a QR code puzzle that takes players to this website on their phone where they'll enter a 4 digit passcode.
You can optionally replace this with a 4 digit combination lock, or a home safe, by removing the colored QR code card. Then set the combination to:
Here's some easy at home alternates to a safe:
A kitchen tub with a bicycle lock wrapped around it (the one in the picture wouldn't work for this particular puzzle because it uses letters, but you get the idea):
Stick these 4 cards to the walls around your escape room.
Substitute: Nothing.
Note: The props folder contains some bonus posters. If you print the zombie poster, ensure you include the zombie photo card as well since it's required for a puzzle.
These 3 cards form a triptych when placed side by side. They simulate a hoard of zombies waiting for players on the balcony. Stick them to the glass on an external door.
Bonus: The props folder has a larger version of the message that you can cut out and place for extra style points.
Cut out the 2 hook signs and hang them on the oven door. Stick the child lock dials next to them. Make sure there are scissors nearby for players to cut out the dials. The oven is now locked and can't be opened until players solve the puzzle!
How to make it even cooler ExpandOne of the other readers, Susan C, designed an easy trick to enhance this puzzle:
Kara Dern didn't have an over, so she improvised this for her Airforce team building day:
Place the pizza card inside the oven.
Substitute: A real pizza in the oven or some of these pizza keyrings so everyone goes home with a souvenir.
The oven label can also double as a prop when playing as a tabletop game.
Tape this card to a NERF gun or one of the options below, then place it somewhere visible. Players will be informed when they have earned access to the gun. (Check the spoilers at the bottom if you'd like to know how, but you can trust me).
Weapon Options:
Prepare a zombie shooting mini game! This final challenge occurs after players have rescued the pizza, retrieved the gun, and unlocked the door.
Build all the zombie targets and line them up outside like a firing range. You can place them anywhere you like. (We did ours indoors because it was too windy that day).
Corde Lane, an escape room fanatic, designed an awesome shooting game "Last Stand". Here's how it works:
How "Last Stand" works: ExpandIn the end, collectively the two teams hit only 10 of 11 targets (and technically did not escape the room). However, no-one cared at this point since it was 11:30 pm and everyone was talking about impossible shots and their experience overall.
They loved it!
Gather your friends and let's get this party started!
When you're ready to begin, give everyone a quick rundown on how escape rooms work since some people will have never played one before.
Open the Survival Guide on your phone at lockpaperscissors.co/z and watch the intro video together.
Le kit d'Escape Game Survival Guide also contains plenty of hints for solving each puzzle. Agree on how you will use the hints as a group before the game begins. As a rule of thumb, it's time for a hint if players are stuck on a single puzzle for more than 5 minutes.
Now it's time to start the game!
Hints and tips survival guideI ran Escape Room Z a couple of weekends ago with middle school/high school students and adult leaders. Our crew had about 32 people, so four teams of 6-7 and everyone finished within 90 mins, with the fastest team being 70 mins.
We mostly used the 4x6 picture puzzles and added a couple of real props of our own. Overall the game was enjoyed by all, kids really liked the challenge. I had to give a lot of hints, as the game was quite hard, but tried to let them push through it for a while before dropping any clues.
One puzzle I added at the beginning was to order a case like this for each group. In it, I put their puzzle picture cards, a pair of scissors, and tape in each box. I set the combination to 894. I also had placed a mirror in the room in which had the word HID written in red fingerpaint (to look like a bloody message) and like a finger smear beside the D like the person was actually trying to write the word HIDE. The letters HID are a standard A1 Cipher.
Upon starting the game I gave each group their box and immediately they had to figure out how to open it. I did give them the clue that upon waking up in the apartment they found a note scrawled on a piece of paper that read Roses are Red, Violets are Blue, A is 1 and B is 2. I did not draw their attention to the mirror. This first puzzle took about 10 minutes before groups started figuring out that HID was the combination. This was a fun little starting puzzle to get to the real puzzles.
The case add-on was a lot of fun and was interesting to see which groups made opening their cases the priority as opposed to some groups who initially spent a lot of time inspecting the other items in the room. You could use really any three digit word on the mirror, at first I was going to use DIE with combo 485, but I thought HID was more curious and drew more attention that it might be more significant than just a message. Writing on the mirror just made sense since they needed it to view the backwards blood message too, and it was just a good creepy decoration.
I also thought handing each group a mysterious case was a lot more exciting than just the stack of photos alone. Spotify playlists were good too!
Additionally, we used a metal box and a combo lock which I put the nerf guns in, that definitely made it more exciting too. I believe you had made that suggestion on something I had read and it really made it more exciting to have hands on it.
What made me laugh was the phrase Obey Your Hunger has come to be an inside joke for the students who went on the retreat, they think that is hilarious.
d'Escape Room Z comes bundled with optional props to make the experience super authentic. These are located in the Props folder when you downloaded the kit.
None of these are required to play the game but if you want to go the extra mile it's totally worth it!
Grab the escape room kit here if you haven't downloaded it yet.
Click for the complete game process map & solutions (French): Expand
Grab the escape room kit here if you haven't downloaded it yet.