know.

CookbookHobbies and playNo. 59

A puzzle hunt or escape-room nightpuzzles, answers, staged hints and a players’ link

Recipe No. 59 · Hobbies and play

For: Someone writing an escape-room night for friends

You get: A control page, staged hints and a players’ pack with no answers

Time: Two evenings and two playtests

See it in know.sh

The organiser’s private control page: the flow from briefing to door as a flowchart, and each puzzle’s stage as a kanban board.

The Keeper’s Last NightNo. 1

Hunt controlThe Keeper’s Last Night

6 sections, 1,420 words, about 6 minutes, filed 30 August, revised 20 September, 2 highlights.

Four puzzles, one meta and a four-letter word lock on the cottage door. Eight players in two teams, seventy-five minutes, Friday 16 October in the school library. Private: the players’ pack is a separate document.

Run the room from this page and Answers and hints; never from the players’ pack.

Sections

  1. 1Running order and timingsDecision, key
  2. 2The room: where each prop is hiddenObservation, keyThe tide table in the tin box on the mantelpiece; the chart in the desk drawer.
  3. 3The word lock, and the spare combinationRisk, keyThe door is never really locked. The fire door stays clear and unlocked all night.
  4. 4Two teams, one metaQuestion

and two more sections

A puzzle in the private answers document: what the players find, the answer, the hints as tabs from a nudge to the full solve, and what the playtest changed.

The Keeper’s Last NightAnswers and hints

4of 6

Puzzle 4The chart

Evidence, key section, 1 highlight, 2 playtest notes, 290 words

What the players find. A sea chart in the desk drawer, opened with ROCK. In one corner a compass rose sits on a five-by-five grid of letters, I and J sharing a square. Pencilled in the margin: 52 11 51 15.

Answer. WAVE, a Polybius square read row first: 52 is row 5, column 2, W; 11 is A; 51 is V; 15 is E.

For the meta. WAVE is the fourth answer, so it gives its fourth letter, E.

Playtest notes. Test 1, 12 September: two of five testers read the first digit as the column, got KAEV and stalled for eight minutes. The Nearly there hint now says which digit is the row, and the grid now has 1 2 3 4 5 printed across its top.

The only document with a link: the story, the rules and the text on each puzzle card, as the players read it on their phones.

app.dev.know.sh/share/…, Read only

The Keeper’s Last Night — players’ pack

Shared from a library on know. 7 sections.

The keeper of the Skerry Point light kept his log for thirty-one years. On his last night he wrote one more entry, locked the cottage door behind him and was never seen again. You have seventy-five minutes to find out where he went, and to open the door he locked.

Two teams of four. Everything you need is in the room; nothing is behind a picture, under the carpet or on a high shelf. When you are stuck, ask for a hint: each team has three, and a fourth costs five minutes. Anyone may leave the room at any time: the door with the word lock is for the game, and the fire door beside it is never locked.

Sections

  1. Rules of the room (Decision)
  2. How hints work (Decision)
  3. 1. The signal lamp (Observation)
  4. 2. The logbook (Observation)
  5. 3. The tide table (Observation)
  6. 4. The chart (Observation)
  7. The keeper’s last entry (Observation)

How it works

A puzzle hunt is two books that must never meet. Yours holds the flow from the signal lamp to the door, a board of every puzzle from drafting to ready, and each puzzle’s hints in tabs, from a nudge to the answer. The players get one link: the story, the rules and each card’s text, and not one answer.

  1. Give your assistant the theme and the puzzles

    Ask for three documents: Hunt control, Answers and hints with a section per puzzle, and a Players’ pack holding only the text on each card. No answer ever goes in the pack.

  2. Draw the flow and the board

    Ask for a flowchart element of which puzzle opens which, down to the word lock on the door, and a kanban board of each puzzle from Drafting to Ready. Then solve every puzzle by hand.

  3. Stage the hints in tabs

    In each puzzle’s answer section, ask for a tabs element: Nudge, Method, Nearly there and Answer. After each playtest, rewrite the hints where people stalled.

  4. Share the pack and run the night

    Press Share on the Players’ pack alone, with a password and an expiry the day after. On the night, open one hint tab at a time on your phone and read it aloud.

Try this prompt

Your assistant, connected to know.sh (Claude, ChatGPT or a local model):

Using know.sh, make a shelf called The Keeper’s Last Night with three documents: Hunt control, Answers and hints, and Players’ pack. From my notes [paste], give each puzzle a section in Answers and hints with the answer, the solve path and a place for playtest notes, and a section in the Players’ pack with only its card text. No answer, hint or solve path goes in the Players’ pack.

Your assistant, connected to know.sh (Claude, ChatGPT or a local model):

Using know.sh, add a tabs element to the section “Puzzle 4 — The chart” in Answers and hints: four tabs, Nudge, Method, Nearly there and Answer. The nudge points at the grid without naming it; the method names a Polybius square without solving anything; nearly there solves the first pair; the answer gives WAVE with every step. Change nothing else.

Made with

ShelfDocumentYour AI assistantElementsPublic linkThe iOS app

See also