We love going to escape rooms as a family, we are all very competitive so we really give it our all to escape! But sometimes we like to create our own at home, these escape room puzzle ideas are so much fun.
I was so surprised by how many escape room puzzles I could create for free that looked absolutely amazing.
So I wanted to share with you what we found. So you can have the best escape room party with your kids.
All of these puzzle generators are free to us and they make the best games for kids of all ages.
**There may be affiliate links in this post. You can read my full disclosure at the bottom of the page.**
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Escape room party ideas
There are so many ways you cam have fun with escape rooms:
- Halloween escape room. We used these escape room puzzles as a scavenger hunt last year. If you don’t want to create your own Halloween escape room.
- Birthday Party. This is a great free birthday party idea for kids and adults alike. Everyone will have so much fun.
- Have a Thanksgiving escape room with the whole family, it will certainly break the ice.
- Christmas escape room. Why not create escape room puzzles to find a small Christmas treat? Etsy has you covered if you don’t want to create your own.
- New Year’s Eve. Get everyone together this New Year and have lots of fun at home, with these escape room puzzle ideas. (If you are looking at how to celebrate New Year’s Eve with the kids check out our fun ideas.)
- Easter. Are your kids too old for a scavenger hunt? I would argue that all ages love scavenger hunts. But if you want something a little more challenging why not have an Easter escape room?
- Homeschool. If you want to treat the kids why not create an escape room for them? Just make the challenges slightly harder or science-focused!
- Classroom. These easy classroom escape room ideas are such a fun activity the kids will love.
Printable escape room puzzles
If you don’t have time to create your own free Escape room at home I highly recommend these.
- Schools Out escape room
- Trapped in game escape room
- Candy escape room printable
- Halloween escape room printable
- Thanksgiving escape room printable
- Christmas escape room printable
Find the best escape room board games!
Best escape room puzzles
There are so many free escape room at home ideas you don’t need to do it all on your own.
Rebus generator
This is my absolute favorite escape room puzzle generator. Not only does it look really cool, but it can also take a while for kids to decipher the clue!
This one is “roses are red, violets are blue, the bathroom is where I have hidden your clue”. But you can make these as long or short as you want.
Spiral word puzzle
This one below is easy as I have written the next clue at the end of the spiral. But you could mix up a favorite poem and add in “wrong” words that all together would give them the clue. You can generate your own spiral word puzzle for free.
This clue is simply “The next clue is hiding under the kitchen chair.“
Fake newspaper
You can easily create a newspaper clipping with a special code in it. You can edit everything here including the date, heading, headline, and the entire story.
Riddles
If you are looking for riddles check out Brainzilla for some really cool ones, for both kids and adults. These can either be played online or you can download them for free.
Fake receipt
Create a clue on a fake receipt. This one I have kept fairly simple by writing the clue with the vowels missing, but you can write what you like. There are four lines with amounts so you could leave a clue anywhere on the receipt.
Online fake receipt generator, I couldn’t easily print it, but I just used the snipping tool and saved it as an image, and printed it from there. That way you can size it to make it more realistic.
Letter with missing text
This missing letter generator is great as you can choose to take out vowels only, or whatever letters you want.
Morse code
This one is much harder than the other, or should I say longer to decipher. Although to make it easier maybe write fewer words. You can generate your own morse code clue easily.
This is my message which reads “ghosts and ghouls are screaming, the next clue is where you will be dreaming“
Fake driving license
You can personalize these driver’s licenses with the child’s name and photograph. You can change their height, eye color, date of birth, and address.
We would use the ID number (you can easily add up to 12 numbers) to decipher another code.
Maybe give them a book with this clue, and the page numbers could be where you would hide another clue.
Personalize your own fake driving license, they also have UK driving licenses to personalize.
PigPen cipher
This is another great clue generator, of course when using this for clues do not include the plaintext!!
Concert ticket generator
I love this concert ticket generator. You can change the theme to Christmas, Easter, the USA flag, Halloween, St Patrick’s Day, Thanksgiving, and Valentine’s. Which will change the color, you can also change the image at the back.
There are lots of different cool ones you can choose from.
This clue is really easy, but you can write on nearly all of the fields, so you could make this much harder. This one is what we used, and the clue was “where you keep your outside cushions”. This was the final clue for us as this is where we hid the Halloween candy.
Word maze
This is a super easy word maze generator, write the clue in the field and it will generate the following maze. Create your own maze with this free word maze generator.
Can you see what I wrote? If you don’t have time to work it out I will tell you at the bottom of the picture!
“To escape this room you need to find the clue behind the vase” but you can write whatever you want to make it easier or harder.
Fake text conversation
This one is lots of fun, you can edit the name, the time, and the conversation, and even include images. Create your own free text conversation and you can either print it out as we did, or you could take a photo of it on your phone and it’ll be more realistic.
Reverse text
You can use this free generator to either reverse text or create a mirrored version. This one is fairly easy, but you could make it much harder by adding in a secret message inside the text.
This of course reads “Witches have a crooked nose, the next clue is hiding where she would keep her clothes“
Escape room games
If you don’t have time to create your own Escape room puzzles, no problem, you can buy them. These are the best escape room games we have found.
Escape Room The Game, Version 2. With 4 thrilling escape rooms. Solve the mystery board game for adults and teens.
Think Fun Escape The Room The Cursed Dollhouse. An escape room experience in a box for ages 13 and up.
Thames & Kosmos EXIT: The Enchanted Forest| Escape Room Game in a Box. A family-friendly, at home escape room experience. Perfect for 1 to 4 players, ages 12+.
If you just had one child who wanted to join in an Escape room, check out Outschool. They have loads of online escape rooms they can join. Well, they have online classes in every subject imaginable
If you have younger kids I highly recommend these scavenger hunts as an alternative party idea:
- Halloween treasure hunt clues
- Thanksgiving scavenger hunt clues
- Elf on the Shelf scavenger hunt clues
- Christmas scavenger hunt clues
- New Year’s Eve scavenger hunt printable
- Valentine’s Day scavenger hunt clues
- Free printable Easter scavenger hunt clues
Last Updated on 3 April 2024 by homeschoolof1
