
Beyond the Lock
Escape rooms, as interactive and immersive experiences, have gained significant popularity worldwide.
Originating as live-action, team-based games, they offer an engaging blend of storytelling, puzzle-solving, and collaboration. Participants are challenged to uncover clues, solve riddles, and complete tasks within a limited time, typically with the ultimate goal of ‘escaping’ the room. This unique form of entertainment—situated between play, reflection, and narrative immersion—has evolved from various influences, including live-action role-playing, point-and-click adventure games, puzzle hunts, interactive theater, and museum education programs. Appealing across age groups, professions, and cultural contexts, escape rooms have become not only a widespread leisure activity but also a valuable medium for education, cultural experience, and organizational development. Their adaptability allows them to be tailored for diverse themes and narratives, offering rich potential for creativity, engagement, and innovation.
The following contributions examine the many facets of escape rooms through concrete examples—from educational innovation and participatory design to curatorial reflection and artistic interpretation.
Editorial
IntroductionPeer Reviewed Papers
A night in the museum: A museum exhibition that turns into an escape room by nightParticipatory Design of an Educational Escape Game about Alcohol and Partying: Lessons Learned from Co-Designing with young learnersScientific Papers
Der schmale Grat zwischen Fakt und Fiktion: Das Escape-Abenteuer „Mission: Goldener Panther“ auf der Schallaburg (2024/2025)How to value an object: Workshop on the use of storytelling in Escape Room Design for Educational PurposesOn your marks, get set, go: Research on an educational escape gameSolving Educational Escape Room Games: Group Strategies and Talk About Educational ContentPosition Papers
About The Archivist`s Dream: A brief documentation of the Escape Game at the Archives of Contemporary Arts and research on the projectTimeShift: Ein Escape Room-Erlebnis in völliger Dunkelheit mit PerspektivwechselInterview
„Mich interessiert das Narrative“: Interview mit Deborah Sengl
