Quest for the Fabled Fortune

Introduction:

Spring 2023 Texas Theme Park Engineering and Design (TxTPED) set out to create an immersive escape room set in the Amazon rainforest centered around an original story. Brainstorming started in early December with a project end date being set in early March, giving the team about three months to design, build, and run this escape room. While this was a shorter timeline than this team has ever been on, these amazing students rose to the occasion and helped transport all those who played into the Amazon for an Indiana Jones style treasure hunt for the fabled fortune.

Our Story:

Our story centered around your eccentric relative Dr. Tesoro and their research bungalow in the Amazon. For the pre-show, guests were given a satchel which held a letter and various items guests might need for their adventure. The letter informed the adventurers that Dr. Tesoro had passed and since they had no direct descendents, their will instructed reaching out into the further branches of the family tree to see who should get the inheritance. As it took Dr. Tesoro years of dangerous quests to collect their fortune, they need to ensure that whoever inherits it, is worthy of it. If you can solve the puzzles and find the treasure, it is yours, but beware, you are not the only ones invited for a chance at the treasure. The next boat of adventurers will arrive in 45 minutes, so you only have until then to find Dr. Tesoro’s fabled fortune.

Schematics and Planning:

To start off the brainstorming process we discussed different storylines, settings, and puzzles we found interesting before deciding on a finalized story and puzzles to which all members of the team contributed. After this process we formed different sub-teams, each responsible for a different part of the room. These sub-teams each consisted of a lead and various team members who helped plan, budget, and build the specific elements each sub-team was responsible for. These sub-teams are as follows:

Structures: Responsible for creating a build model for the PVC and particle board structure and designing and building the new structural elements for the room.

Electrical: Responsible for the cameras in the room, the projector and timer, and the lighting and music for the room.

Puzzles: Responsible for planning and building the puzzles.

Set Dressing: Responsible for props and set pieces in the room, as well as working with structures for the set portions of the new structural elements.

Marketing: Responsible for creating the project website and poster. Responsible for physical advertising on campus in the forms of posters and tabling, as well as advertising on social media through Instagram and local Austin media sites.

Operations: Responsible for creating and running the Eventbrite, as well as creating the Operations guide for game guides to follow.

Pictured below is the blueprint for the room and large set pieces, a wiring schematic for the RFID puzzle which unlocks the hidden cabinet, and a picture of the wiring within the radio puzzle.

Operations Guide:

We had two operations guides for this project, allowing for game guides to come and go throughout the running of this project as they all had access to both sets of instructions. The electrical guide included instructions for the cameras, projectors, and lights in the room, so that anyone would be able to set up and run the game. We also had an operations guide which outlined reset procedures with reference pictures to help with re-setting the room. It also had all the hints for the room as well as puzzle codes so that game guides could see what guests were missing when they asked for clues. This guide also included a list of ways to fix puzzles and reset locks in the event that something broke and whoever had originally built it was not currently there. This allowed for seamless operations and for our guides to stay on schedule, as there was only one game slot that didn’t sell for the entire 3.5 days so we were running games back to back.

Goals and Statistics:

This project came with different challenges, and thus, different goals. The timeline for this project was shorter, meaning we had less time for fabrication and play testing. That being said, we reviewed what we had created in our last escape room and decided on things that we either wanted to improve or new ideas we wanted to try.

Our operational goals were very clear from the beginning; we had a shorter run time for this project, meaning the money we could make back would also be smaller. Our goal was to spend under $750 so we would have to sell roughly 50% of our tickets to break even. We set this goal based on last year’s ticket sales where we sold 57% of our tickets. However, with a larger emphasis on marketing for this project, we managed to sell 85% of our tickets, which means we sold over a 100 more tickets than needed to break even. We made $1690 in ticket sales, leaving us with a profit which will be put towards future projects.

Due to the shorter timeline we made a decision that instead of changing the main structure developed for the last escape room, we would instead focus on elements that we felt would be more noticeable to guests. We decided to build a window and collaborated with the College of Fine Arts to get a backdrop painted to really sell to guests that they were in the Amazon. We also wanted the final prize reveal to be a surprise so the structures team built a hidden cabinet that could be unlocked via mag lock. We wanted this to open on its own, so it was designed to open downwards and we used pulleys and weights to regulate the speed of the opening so it could not slam open and potentially startle or hit anyone.

We also wanted to make the experience as immersive as possible while still reusing old materials, so the set dressing team embarked on a huge endeavor to paint all of the walls with a dark brown wash to hone in on the main color tones that would work well with the painted backdrop. This was a very large task as they had to paint 496 ft2.

We also wanted to improve our marketing effectiveness and did so by creating a week by week marketing plan and investing in large posters. These helped us spread the word and attract attention throughout campus. We also aimed for a better social media campaign, making it on to some local “things to do in Austin this weekend” sites.

Team Member List:

Emily Regner – Project Chair
Natalia Martin Rodezno – Vice Project Chair, Scenic Designer, Marketing, Poster Designer
Zavier Angel Campos – Structure, Build
Jack Hinegardner – Electrical Lead, Electrical Layout Designer, Puzzles
Sandhya Iyer – Puzzles, Picture Documentation, Story
Austin Livingston – Structure, Scenic
Emma Richardson – Structures Lead, Puzzles
Nik Risoldi – Structure, Build
Zach Rezazadeh – Structure, Build, Budgeting
Jon Siemon – Operations Lead, Puzzles
Peter VanBenthuysen – Structure, Build, Puzzles, Electrical Effects
Jonathon Voss – Puzzles, Electrical Effects, Stickers
Nate Vutpakdi – Marketing Lead

**We are in the year 3-4 category**