Writing Trap Door Escape Rooms to Life: An Inside Look into Designing Escape Rooms
By: Janis Adams
An Inside Look into Designing Escape Rooms
Grab a pint, sit back, and enjoy an adventure into the head of master puzzle creator, Jason Stroud. He has been designing escape rooms for more than a decade. More than that, Jason is known for ferreting out ideas, intricate well-mapped designs, and challenging decryptions. In fact, he is the fantastical mastermind behind “Treasure Hunt,” which is coming as part of the Cursed Pirate Tales, at Trap Door in their new WindCreek Bethlehem, PA location.
Jason Stroud’s Predilection for Designing Escape Rooms
Stroud’s first go at an escape room saw him win with one minute and 47 seconds to spare. The group he was in managed to solve four puzzles in a mere five minutes. After masterminding the puzzle, Stroud and those same friends made their way to a pub to celebrate their victory.
Grab a Pint
Whilst there, Stroud could not stop enumerating the merits of playing an escape room and then wondering on the details that went into designing escape rooms. His friends tried to hush him but to no avail. Stroud had found his passion for puzzling on two platforms, as a player and as a creator.
Needless to say, he was hooked.
Designing Escape Rooms in His Head
He said that he was overflowing with interest in the entire process. From there, he made it a habit of frequenting game rooms close to his home. And from there, he slowly began expanding to traveling to get to them.
Stroud was puzzling in his head with clues and strategies, numbers and texts, ready to play his next room and conjuring up what it would be like to make a puzzle himself.
When Worlds Collide
This instant connection to puzzling was much in the same as his fortuitous meeting with owner and masterful entrepreneur, Anthony Purzycki, of Trap Door Escape rooms. The meeting was kinetic.
Making Connections
Stroud had ventured across the pond from his home in Peterborough UK to attend the Transworld Escape Room Conference, held in Chicago, pre-pandemic. By this time, he had been making puzzles for close to a decade. Now, he was focused on honing his craft, connecting with others to possibly delve more deeply into the puzzling world, and learning more at conferences and world wide communications.
Instant Creative Connection
Purzycki and Stroud knew from their opening conversation that they wanted to work together. As for their meeting, Purzycki says that it was “one of an instant creative connection,” something that is rare in the business. In Stroud, Purzycki found someone who can both carry out a theme and expand it to make it unforgettable, within the confines of an allotted space requirement.
Designing Escape Rooms for Cursed Pirate Tales
“I knew the world needed to see his work on a grand scale,” said Purzycki about Stroud. And that is just what puzzle seekers will find when the doors open to Cursed Pirate Tales. The new Trap Door Escape experience in Bethlehem, PA is set to be the grandest grouping of rooms on a national scale.
Defining the Scope
Once Stroud and Purzycki defined the scope of the game, Stroud got the go ahead to begin making puzzles. However, in truth, he had already been coming up with ideas in his mind. According to Stroud, the project, from start to finish, took about a month.
The Trick to the Best Puzzles
For Stroud, who is a teacher by trade, he says that puzzles need to show their players, not tell them, what the next clue is. That the players need to be afforded the opportunity to be challenged to the very edge, but given the clues not to fall over the precipice of an unsuccessful bid to win a game. However, if you need any trade tricks, check out this article: Top 10 Escape Room Tips for Noobs.
Diorama Direction
Bringing to life his puzzles is key to Stroud’s inventive success. He does this by creating a miniature storyboard, and then takes that one step further by fashioning a complete diorama with figures that allow him to work out the clues as a player would. The diorama is constructed to scale, so there are no mishaps to his plan when it reaches the stage of implementation.
This can be multi-level, and Stroud says there are times when he has to create the storyboard and diorama from the beginning again until he reaches perfection and it is ready for its literal creation and implementation.
The Fruits of Stroud’s Labor
Purzycki spoke of Stroud’s work as “spectacular.” Of all the game creators who have been employed to craft rooms Trap Door Escape Room, Stroud’s puzzles have been the ones that need no tweaking, no backpacking, and no reconfiguring.
Where Does the Creative Genius Come from
Stroud credits his creative genius to his profound immersion into the creation, as a mastermind, as a designer, and as a crafter. Not only does he implore his skills as a teacher by recognizing human limitations. He propels puzzle players to strike out on their own and use their own intuition.
His ultimate flex is that he has yet to see the space he created this specific puzzle for, yet he designed it so intricately. And, superbly.
Conclusion
About further projects, the masters Stroud and Purzycki both are ready to work together again. The creative connection is one not to be missed, nor will be the grand opening of Cursed Pirate Tales.
Trap Door Escape Company
Trap Door Escape Room has 4 locations: 3180 Route 611 in Bartonsville, PA in the Poconos; 60 White St. in Red Bank, NJ; 34A Speedwell Ave. in Morristown, NJ: and 77 Wind Creek Blvd in Bethlehem, PA. The Red Bank location was the first of the 4 locations, opening in the fall of 2015. Morristown followed in the summer of 2017, and Bartonsville opened during the holiday season of 2018. Wind Creek is currently undergoing construction and will be opening in September 2022.
History
The idea came to Tone Purzycki back in 2011 after he wrote a screenplay that developed into a live-streaming game. The game revolved around an actor trapped in a situation and the audience had to solve puzzles to figure out where he was trapped. The “Find Me Event” had more than 1,000 people playing over the course of several hours. After the success of several other streaming events, the idea of an escape room was born.
Location
Each location has different rooms from which to choose. Our Morristown location is home to Day of the Dead, Witch Hunt, and The Greatest Freakshow. In Bartonsville, you’ll find Cure Z, F5 Tornado Escape, Fear the Bogeyman, Mad Hatter’s Tea Party, We’re All Mad Here, and Prisoner Z. In Red Bank we currently have Everest – our first 2 story escape room. Ripper of London is also available at this location. Our pirate themed games will soon be open at Wind Creek.
Trap Door Escape Room also offers team building, streaming events, and birthday parties. For more information on any of our games, prices, and locations, explore our website or call 570-234-3366