A CHRISTMAS CARNAGE

ROLE

Level / Puzzle Designer

GENRE

Puzzle

MADE WITH

Escape Simulator

A Christmas Carnage available here

General Information

A Christmas Carnage is self-study project made for the game Escape Simulator, using its built-in level editor. In this Christmas-themed murder mystery escape room, players have to solve puzzles in order to find clues and thereby identify the murderer, murder weapon and motive.

As I found there were few Escape Simulator levels that truly utilized the potential of a murder mystery theme, requiring the player to gather clues and eliminate suspects was a major focus for this level.

RECEPTION
6000+ downloads

- 1000+ Reviews -
- 90% Positive -

Rating

Puzzle Design & Theming

Setting the Tone

Tying in with the murder mystery theme, I set up a central puzzle where, using clues found across the room, the player has to cross off suspects based on their traits identified on an overview until only one remains. When they have identified the murderer and the correct murder weapon and motive, the room is completed.

To immediately onboard the player to this concept, they start facing the suspect overview and the list of possible murder weapons and motives.

Thematic Puzzles

Other puzzles reinforce the murder mystery theme as well, for instance this puzzle where the player has to dust for fingerprints on the murder weapon. It also serves to break up the pace of the puzzle solving; as the player has to solve a series of puzzles to find the murder weapon, they can now take it a little easier by following a set of instructions.

Iterating

Improving player feedback

I extensively playtested the level to make sure that the puzzles weren't too difficult or obtuse and that the solutions made sense to players. Based on this feedback, I iterated not only on the puzzles themselves but also on the feedback I give the player.

A notable example is the gramophone puzzle, where the player needs to play several vinyl records to decipher a morse code.

Instead of one record playing the entire code, I split the code between 3 different records that need to be played in the right order. This made the morse code sounds less overwhelming while also adding an additional layer to the puzzle.
I added text indicating short beeps and long boooops above the grammophone to help players who had trouble hearing the difference.

I also added optional hint buttons, similar to the official levels. These are located at specific puzzles that were found to be more difficult during playtests, allowing players the choice to take a hint or try longer.

The hints were also designed to only give an important clue without spoiling the whole puzzle. For instance, the hint in the puzzle below hints at players to convert the clock time into digital format, without giving away the entire code.

Custom Assets

I developed several custom assets for the game, such as the ladies' hat seen on the right, made in Blender.

Takeaways

This project taught me much about puzzle design. Some of the most important takeaways for me are the following:

The player should always know if they have all the pieces of the puzzle or not. In some of the initial puzzle designs, it was not always clear to players that they did not yet have all the required clues to solve a puzzle and so they kept trying to solve them while missing crucial information, confused as to why their solutions were not working. I changed these puzzles to indicate more clearly that there were more clues to find.
There is a wide variety in the difficulty perception of puzzles between different players. This seems obvious but it is incredibly important to keep this in mind and consider why some players find the puzzle easy while others struggled. I often inquired about this after a playtest to determine whether and how I should change a puzzle. I used multiple ways to address this, by making feedback as clear as possible and including optional hints for players who get stuck withouting making the puzzle too easy.