In this series, we’re interviewing and shining a spotlight on some of the other businesses in and around the escape room industry. Starting with - game design!

Miquel Mansachs is a puzzle and escape room designer based in the UK, and he founded Escape Puzzles which, for the past eight years, has been quietly helping escape room owners around the world build better games. We sat down with him and asked him a little more about the company - how they got started, what does the day-to-day look like at Escape Puzzles, and why there’s absolutely no shame in asking for help.

How Escape Puzzles Began

Miquel’s game design career started out, as many of the best designers in the world do, making and playing as many games as he could get his hands on as a kid.

“I was designing murder mysteries for my friends. I would invite them over for a party, and invest a lot of time in creating murder mysteries and roleplaying games where I could sneak puzzles in.” he explained. “...And that was long before escape rooms even existed!”

At the time, designing live games and escape rooms seemed an unlikely business path, but fast forward a decade or so and escape rooms had really taken off in Europe, particularly in Barcelona, where Miquel is from.

By then Miquel had moved to London, UK where he found himself working for big escape room franchise owners with sites across the UK. Looking back, he explained that game design services weren’t what they are today.

“I remember seeing designs which were a few sheets of paper, with a couple of links to electronics, and no real instruction on how to run the game, how to fix the game, or what the player’s experience is. No escape room magic!”

So Miquel decided to do something about that.

About Escape Puzzles

Today, Escape Puzzles offers two things:

The first is a catalogue of pre-designed escape rooms, fully documented and with ready-to-build concepts that owners can license and construct themselves, adapting to their specific unique spaces.

The second is bespoke commissioned design, where the team works directly with owners all the way from their initial concept through to a fully designed, playtested experience tailored to their venue, team and budget.

Today, Escape Puzzles has worked on projects all over the world from escape rooms to tabletop experiences, to scavenger hunts to elaborate one-off events.

Favourite projects are hard to pick, “It’s like choosing a favourite child!” Miquel joked. But some notable recent highlights include a commission to design a scavenger hunt in Utah desert, which he got to work on and playtest onsite.

An excerpt from one of the puzzles in the Utah Desert

Another highlight involved designing a pasta themed puzzle for David Middleton’s Midnight Madness event, a scavenger hunt lasting from midnight to morning in London. There, Miquel spent the night dressed as a monkey.

“Sometimes I’m like “what am I doing with my life” then I get to go to work and every day is just so much fun.” he explained with a laugh.

Today, Miquel runs Escape Puzzles alongside Avraam, his right hand man who Miquel describes as the “social butterfly” to his own “sitting at a desk in the workshop designing” brain. Avraam handles events, community, and crucially being the first person to playtest everything Miquel designs. If you ever attend any of the in-person events such as RECON, IEN or you’ve probably met Avraam too!

Working with Escape Puzzles

If you’re thinking about working with Escape Puzzles, or any escape room design service for that matter, Miquel is very honest about what information clients should think about in advance.

He explained some of the questions he typically asks potential clients right at the start:

• Your space (ideally a floor plan)
• Your budget
• Your timeline
• Your ideal theme
• Your team
• Your local market
• What sort of experience you want your players to have

The points of “budget” and “timeline” are possibly the most underestimated, as Miquel explains:

“I’m not going to sugarcoat it, if you think it’s going to take one month, you should be prepared to learn it might end up taking at least double that. I always want to set realistic expectations.”

He recalls, “I once had a client who said they were going to build three escape rooms in two months. It’s possible! I’ve done it before. But it’s more realistic to plan for this sort of scale over a year, unless you have a big team to back you up.”

Escape Puzzles also takes a practical approach to electronics and build complexity, and will design for your strengths rather than requiring skills you don’t have.

“If you can only build a 1st Generation room with padlocks, that’s absolutely fine, lots of players love it, and not every escape room needs to be the "next best experience", if you are risking too much of your business on it. You should be honest about it, and we’ll make something awesome (the important bit is that you put all your passion into it!). Just maybe I wouldn’t recommend a high concept sci-fi room in that case!” Miquel explained.

“You’re going to live with this escape room for many years” he says, “So we always try to design something you can call your own, love running and your players love playing for many years.”

When to ask for help with Game Design

One of the things Miquel and his team feel strongly about is something that still carries a quiet stigma in the escape room industry, and that’s getting outside help.

“It’s still a bit taboo. A lot of companies I work with don’t want to admit they got help, but it’s nothing to be ashamed of.”

He digs into it a little further, “If you want to open an escape room you might be an awesome game designer, but that doesn’t necessarily translate to operating a business - and the same in reverse. You need both, and more, to build a successful escape room company.”

This is especially true, he argues, as the escape room market has matured. New venues aren’t competing with other new venues, they’re competing with established companies who have been refining their games for years.

The final puzzle in an immersive experience, as designed by Escape Puzzles.

Even experienced escape room owners need support. Escape Puzzles regularly works with clients who have already built two or three rooms themselves, but as their business gets more successful, they simply don’t have the time to design a new one from scratch whilst also running the company.

The reassurance Escape Puzzles can offer is this,

“Think of it as a collaboration. The same way you’d hire a builder for your build, you can hire a designer to help on some or all of the gameplay. It's hard to get it right from the get-go just on your own, but we have done it so many times that we can really help close the gap and save you a lot of trial and error.”

How to get in touch with Escape Puzzles

You can find out more about Escape Puzzles by heading to their website here. If you’d like to work with them on either a commission design, or explore their catalogue, the best first step is an email explaining briefly your project or what you are looking for. In Miquel’s own words, “No idea is too crazy!” From here they’ll set up a meeting with you directly to get all the juicy details.

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This article is part of an ongoing series of spotlights on businesses and people making the escape room industry great. We at Buzzshot have known Escape Puzzles for many years, and are featuring them because we genuinely believe in what they do.