Inquiry and Online Escape Rooms: Part 1

The Quahog Cup is a reading challenge for 6th graders. The 6th-grade team of teachers has chosen twenty-five books that are of high interest, award-winning or nominated, and engaging. The list includes novels both literary and graphic, non-fiction and picture books, and the books are available in both print and audio through various school and library resources. As with everything else in the curriculum this spring we have had to reinvent the challenges and games to make the event digital! I have been charged with creating an online escape room that involves puzzles, book references, map challenges, and more. While I made an escape room themed challenge last spring with locks and boxes and ring pop rewards, I felt for this digital gaming I needed more information. The reason I am musing about this in my Culture of Inquiry Blog is that I am using an inquiry model to take me through the steps of creating an online version of last spring's successful and fun event. 

In October of last year, I went through an escape room challenge with my family. It was loads of fun and I was thankful to be with three great problem solvers and analytical thinkers or I would still be locked in the haunted room with a plastic skeleton trying to find the missing artifact! Full disclosure, I am not a great puzzler. Math has always been a challenge to me and puzzle-based games seem to lend themselves to a mathematical mind. I have committed to this escape room, so I will follow the steps of inquiry to a Breakout game I can share. 

Wonder, Investigate, Connect, Create, Share, Reflect, are the steps to the process. My wonder phase has been made clear in the first few paragraphs and I have moved on to the investigation stage. I watched a webinar last Monday that was both delightful and helpful to develop an online escape room using Google Forms. I may have to watch it again and I am quickly running out of time but I do think I understand the basics. While they are puzzle-based there is a writing element to escape rooms, the story has to be good, draw the participants into the storyline quickly, take the team on few twists and turns and fit into a time frame. 

Writing is crucial. I chose to base my escape room on one of the books on the list, Alanna: Song of the Lioness by Tamora Pierce. I have also been investigating games for DIY escape rooms. Today, I'm moving on to the "create" phase and I'm going to use this space to write out my story, plan the games and start to make the Google Form that will be the container app for the puzzles. First, the challenge. 

Alanna disguised as Alan of Trebrond has been taken in to train as a knight under Duke Gareth. Here she meets and is befriended by Prince Jonathan of Tortall. Using her untutored magic she saves Jon from the sweating sickness. Jon trusts young Alan and asks Duke Garrett to allow Alan/Alanna to accompany him as his squire to Persopolis where they both face the magical beings inhabiting the Black City and defeat them, but only for the time being. Somehow the foul beings and dark magic of the Black City are connected to Jon's uncle, Duke Roger, a powerful sorcerer and the heir to the throne of Tortall after Jonathan himself. 

For the purposes of our escape room story, Jon and Alan/Alanna have gone to visit Sir Myles Olau, their History of Warfare professor and friend. He hikes with them to the ruins at the top of a hill on his property. The local folks including Sir Myles's own servants will not venture near the ruins. There is an evil presence, ghosts they say, but Alanna knows from a previous visit that there is a dark magical presence hidden in the labyrinth underneath the ruins. During her first visit, Alanna opened the locked passage to the maze beneath, thinking it was the armory. While she was in the maze she was nearly ensnared by a dark presence but the focused power of the light emanating from a crystal embedded in the hilt of a sword meant for Alanna casts a powerful magical light that causes the black force to withdraw, freeing Alanna to return to the surface and safety. 

Before she and Prince Jon leave for Persepolis though, they must retrieve a powerful magical artifact, a sapphire ring, lost in the labyrinth. It will give Jonathan the power he will need to face and defeat the sorcery of the Black City. As they descend the stairs to the darkness appears to have an eerie blue glow of the sapphire ring fills the passage as does the black presence that nearly possessed Alanna on her first visit. The time to find the artifact is running out and the passageway leading to the center of the underground maze is blocked by metal doors marked with runes, numbers, and maps that hold the keys to unlocking each one. In order to retrieve the ring and escape to the surface, Alanna and Jonathan have to solve the ancient messages left by the sorcerer who stole the artifact and buried it deep in the earth. The clock is ticking, can you and our team help? Look for the puzzles and their solutions in the next post as I move on to the "Share and Reflect" steps of the process.