Past Escape Rooms
Anthropolo - Winter 2025
While hiking in the northeast with your friends, you were suddenly caught in a storm that was far more violent than had been forecasted. To escape this sudden extreme weather, you seek shelter in the forest, where a hidden cabin becomes your refuge. Yet you are not the only visitor here. This cabin harbors an unknown presence: a creature known as the “Researcher,” which is drawing you into its experiment. Unravel the mystery and escape.
Building on the spirit of previous “Memory Museum” works, this experience explores new forms of interactive narrative and storytelling under the mentorship of Prof. Melissa Kagen.
The Memory Museum - August 2024 & December 2024
Chatting with friends by a cozy sofa, walking hand in hand with someone you love on an autumn path, savoring your favorite meal, or hearing a sweet little cat meow at you… Beautiful memories are treasures we keep close to our hearts.
But have you ever wished you could preserve these precious moments, protecting them from the flow of time?
Here, we have safeguarded many cherished memories and, with their owners’ consent, we’ve turned them into exhibits, building this small, warm, and intimate museum.
Here, you can share a room with precious recollections of countless lives. You can see, touch, and step into a space built entirely of memories—a place where people share their emotions and experiences, forming deeper connections with each other and the world around them.
Now, welcome to The Memory Museum – an escape room under the mentorship of Prof. Melissa Kagen.
Memoirscape - May 2024 & September 2024
Following the close of Home for the Holidays, a team of graduate students – once again under the mentorship of Prof. Melissa Kagen – worked to create a new, “cozy” experience based on the room. Memoirscape took participants back to a “recreated memory” of the fictional Dr. Julia Adler, from the summer before she started college. Like Home for the Holidays, Memoirscape received media coverage, and was received well by the WPI community.
Step into the recreated haven of a Queens, NYC, apartment circa 1986. Indulge in the warmth of nostalgia as you experience—or explore—a slice of time from Dr. Julia Adler’s childhood, long before she became a professor or started experimenting with memory technology. Come back to when everything was beautiful and perfect. Because it was perfect. It really was.
Remember how it felt to be happy, to be nothing but happy? Julie’s exhibit eagerly awaits your exploration.
Home for the Holidays - December 2023
Home for the Holidays was designed, built, and run by the Fall 2023 section of IMGD 5100 – Design of Interactive Experiences following a hiatus in 2022. This was the first room to feature live actors in the room for the full duration of each run. This was also the first escape room designed under the mentorship of Prof. Melissa Kagen. The room was enjoyed by both WPI students and members of the general public, and received media coverage from local network Spectrum News 1.
With the holiday season upon us once more, you’ve come home to be with your family… Wait, this isn’t your family – who are these people…? Test your observation and deductive skills in this interactive experience, putting the pieces together figuratively – and literally – as you uncover the truth of what’s really going on.
Holiday Escape - December 2021
Holiday Escape was designed, built, and run by the Fall 2021 section of IMGD 5100 – Design of Interactive Experiences. The final room featured 10 puzzles across 2 rooms (a train platform and the train dining car), with a mix of physical and code-breaking puzzles with combination locks, and hybrid digital/electronic puzzles. This was the first WPI escape room to feature 2-way audio between the puzzlemaster and the players (via the “train intercom”). This was also the final escape room designed under the mentorship of Prof. Dean O’Donnell.
You are boarding the train for your holiday tour of Santa’s toy shop, but something is afoot… the conductor can’t seem to get the doors to open. Upon successfully boarding the train, are greeted by a message from The Elves, who have rebelled and hijacked the train after tired of years of unsatisfactory working conditions making toys for the shop. If the train reaches its destination, you will be turned into elves and forced to take their place in the workshops for all eternity!
USS Cape - December 2020
Due to COVID-19 restrictions, the 2020 escape room was unable to run in-person. Instead, the team designed a digital escape room utilizing Zoom and featuring live actors and a digital inventory management system.
Greetings, Mission Control Operator [INSERTNAMEHERE] ! This is the USS Cape’s AI Assistant, SUSAN, reporting a problem on board. In the 53rd day of our flight to Earth from Mars, our ship halted its flight and all the astronauts seem to be locked in their rooms. I am currently running diagnostics to rectify the problem, but if you and your team of highly talented operatives could patch in to our database and help me out, it would speed up the process greatly. Thank you for your assistance, and IT’LL BE NICE TO MEET YOU.
In this virtual experience, you and your crew will patch into the USS Cape via Zoom to help the ship’s crew figure out what exactly is happening with the ship and help get it back on course. The friendly AI, SUSAN, is happy to help identify the problem… for now.
Help wanted archiving pre-2020 rooms.
If you would like to contribute to this page, please reach out to Mikel via the IMGD Discord