The Mad Scientist- A Murder Mystery

As a part of a Game Design internship at Secret City Studion, this AR-based mystery room game was designed for Casa Loma, Toronto

Technology Used: Ar.js, 8th Wall, Aero

The Idea

Secret City Adventures takes the escape room experience a step further. They have several escape rooms with various themes ranging from fantasy to secret missions throughout a span of timelines through history. The escape games also feature live actors throughout. These games are perfect team-building exercises that challenge and engage players to ensure they work together to succeed. They use several technologies like AR and microprocessors to make an immersive experience.

Building an escape room game by integrating AR was a one-of-a-kind experience. The knowledge gained at OCAD, this experience taught me how to use the knowledge I have gained to build immersive experiences. Building gameplay strategies and scenarios that bring the technology and the players together creates a memorable and challenging experience.

Watch the Experience

Set-Up

Groups of 2-3 members were given a brief description and handed a torchlight with two modes- white light and black light. The white light was used to navigate through the rooms, and the stilt and the black light revealed clues painted in different parts of the room. Once the players entered the space, the first hurdle was to open the door. The door had a secret message that could be revealed by shining the black light. Once the players managed to open the door, they could enter a new space with two more rooms. In these spaces, 16 barcodes were hidden, and in the middle of the room, there was a table with four photographs of the ghosts.

The players had to look around and find the hidden barcode. Once all the barcodes were found, the players had to scan them on their phones, and these barcodes were double-sided; one side revealed 3D assets, and the other had distorted numbers. They had to analyse the 3D assets and match them to the photographs as they showed the ghosts' professions when appropriately examined. Once the players were successful in categorising the codes, they had to flip the barcodes over to reveal the distorted number. The numbers were placed on cult symbols that had to be matched to a projection that was played at the entrance of the experience; upon reaching the characters with the help of AR and setting them in the correct order revealed a four-digit code. This code could be used to open the four locks on a box strategically placed in a different part of the room. Once the players could solve the code and open the locks, that experience ended.