research-article

Puzzles Unpuzzled: Towards a Unified Taxonomy for Analog and Digital Escape Room Games

Authors:

Andrey Krekhov,

Katharina Emmerich,

Ronja Rotthaler,

Jens KruegerAuthors Info & Claims

Proceedings of the ACM on Human-Computer Interaction, Volume 5, Issue CHI PLAY

Article No.: 269, Pages 1 - 24

https://doi.org/10.1145/3474696

Published: 06 October 2021 Publication History

Abstract

Escape rooms exist in various forms, including real-life facilities, board games, and digital implementations. The underlying idea is always the same: players have to solve many diverse puzzles to (virtually) escape from a locked room. Within the last decade, we witnessed a rapidly increasing popularity of such games, which also amplified the amount of related research. However, the respective academic landscape is mostly fragmented in its current state, lacking a common model and vocabulary that would withstand these games' variety. This manuscript aims to establish such a foundation for the analysis and construction of escape rooms. In a first step, we derive a high-level design framework from prior literature. Then, as our main contribution, we establish an atomic puzzle taxonomy that closes the gap between the analog and digital domains. The taxonomy is developed in multiple steps: we compose a basic structure based on previous literature and systematically refine it by analyzing 39 analog and digital escape room games, including recent virtual reality representatives. The final taxonomy consists of mental, physical, and emotional challenges, thereby providing a robust and approachable basis for future works across all application domains that deal with escape rooms or puzzles in general.

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Cited By

Burbage APace A(2024)A scoping review of international allied health professions escape room practices and scholarshipMedical Teacher10.1080/0142159X.2024.2322151(1-16)Online publication date: 11-Mar-2024
https://doi.org/10.1080/0142159X.2024.2322151
Krois SYigitbas E(2024)Prototyping Cross-Reality Escape RoomsHuman-Centered Software Engineering10.1007/978-3-031-64576-1_5(84-104)Online publication date: 8-Jul-2024
https://dl.acm.org/doi/10.1007/978-3-031-64576-1_5
Choueib ABerkman M(2024)Comparing Performance and Experience in VR vs. Real-World Through a Puzzle GameVideogame Sciences and Arts10.1007/978-3-031-51452-4_6(72-85)Online publication date: 3-Jan-2024
https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-031-51452-4_6
Show More Cited By

Index Terms

Puzzles Unpuzzled: Towards a Unified Taxonomy for Analog and Digital Escape Room Games
1. Human-centered computing
  1. Human computer interaction (HCI)
    1. Interaction paradigms
      1. Virtual reality
2. Software and its engineering
  1. Software organization and properties
    1. Contextual software domains
      1. Virtual worlds software
        Interactive games

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Published In

cover image Proceedings of the ACM on Human-Computer Interaction

Proceedings of the ACM on Human-Computer Interaction Volume 5, Issue CHI PLAY

CHI PLAY

September 2021

1535 pages

EISSN:2573-0142

DOI:10.1145/3490463

Editors:
Kathrin Gerling
KU Leuven
,
Elisa Mekler
Aalto University
,
Regan Mandryk
University of Saskatchewan

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Copyright © 2021 ACM.

Permission to make digital or hard copies of all or part of this work for personal or classroom use is granted without fee provided that copies are not made or distributed for profit or commercial advantage and that copies bear this notice and the full citation on the first page. Copyrights for components of this work owned by others than the author(s) must be honored. Abstracting with credit is permitted. To copy otherwise, or republish, to post on servers or to redistribute to lists, requires prior specific permission and/or a fee. Request permissions from [email protected].

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Publication History

Published: 06 October 2021

Published in PACMHCI Volume 5, Issue CHI PLAY

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Cited By

Burbage APace A(2024)A scoping review of international allied health professions escape room practices and scholarshipMedical Teacher10.1080/0142159X.2024.2322151(1-16)Online publication date: 11-Mar-2024
https://doi.org/10.1080/0142159X.2024.2322151
Krois SYigitbas E(2024)Prototyping Cross-Reality Escape RoomsHuman-Centered Software Engineering10.1007/978-3-031-64576-1_5(84-104)Online publication date: 8-Jul-2024
https://dl.acm.org/doi/10.1007/978-3-031-64576-1_5
Choueib ABerkman M(2024)Comparing Performance and Experience in VR vs. Real-World Through a Puzzle GameVideogame Sciences and Arts10.1007/978-3-031-51452-4_6(72-85)Online publication date: 3-Jan-2024
https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-031-51452-4_6
Hirsch LMüller FChiossi FBenga TButz A(2023)My Heart Will Go On: Implicitly Increasing Social Connectedness by Visualizing Asynchronous Players’ Heartbeats in VR GamesProceedings of the ACM on Human-Computer Interaction10.1145/36110577:CHI PLAY(976-1001)Online publication date: 4-Oct-2023
https://dl.acm.org/doi/10.1145/3611057
Lee JRestoles DVidal E(2023)A Virtual Reality Object Interaction System with Complex Hand InteractionsHCI International 2023 – Late Breaking Papers 10.1007/978-3-031-48050-8_9(122-134)Online publication date: 23-Jul-2023
https://dl.acm.org/doi/10.1007/978-3-031-48050-8_9
Arendttorp EWinschiers-Theophilus HItenge HSkovfoged M(2022)Save the Yummy Candyland: An Asymmetric Virtual Reality GameExtended Abstracts of the 2022 Annual Symposium on Computer-Human Interaction in Play10.1145/3505270.3558319(221-227)Online publication date: 2-Nov-2022
https://dl.acm.org/doi/10.1145/3505270.3558319

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