Top products from r/escaperooms

• Exit: the game series (Highly recommended, fairly inexpensive, start with the cabin one)
  
• Unlock Series (I hated this one but the consensus is you either love this and hate exit:the game or vice versa so probably worth trying)
  
• escape room in a box series (only played the werewolf experiment, this one has locks which makes it neat but I felt the puzzles used a lot of busy work and weren't particularly challenging)
  
• escape the room series (I tired the second one and it's beautiful but I felt it was super easy)
  
• deckscape series (havent played yet, on my list of things to do).
  
  There's quite a few more if you look around.
  
  Edit: Formatting and added links

If you do want to somehow lock doors without marking it up, Command Tabs are pretty amazing. They really could hold a lock latch reasonably well. To see what I'm talking about if you're not familiar with them: https://www.amazon.com/Command-Medium-Mounting-Refill-9-Strip/dp/B00J5RAR0M but you can get them at Walmart or wherever.

When I did an at home escape room (gender reveal), I did have rules that you can't have in a normal escape room, and used red tape to specifically indicate things were off limits/not to be touched.

You can also do some puzzles and escape room can't. I did the lemon juice invisible ink thing for one that need to be baked in the oven to reveal the message. (I clued that a certain paper needed to go in the oven for a certain temp/time, it wasn't totally random.) I assume you don't have a vaulted ceiling somewhere in your apartment? Nerf shooting gallery to get clues down was fun too.

Typically get them cheaper than this, but these models work well. Trick with mag locks is the hammer has to be flush with the mag or it has no holding strength, so you have to let the hammer have a bit of flex.

https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B07DPQ5VZ9/ref=ppx_yo_dt_b_asin_title_o06_s03?ie=UTF8&psc=1

These relays are AWESOME...and the tongues are perfectly sized for female spades

https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B07T5XJRLH/ref=ppx_yo_dt_b_asin_title_o05_s00?ie=UTF8&psc=1


And this place is your friend....


https://www.digikey.com/

We have ceiling tiles in the rooms at our location. We cut the corners of the ceiling tiles so it fits the microphones that way they're hidden from the players. Then we run the wires to the control room and connect them to a mixer. The setup is pretty cheap. It's $30 per mic for each physical room and $25 per mixer for the entire room setup. You will also need to get RCA to quarter inch adapters for the mics and a headphone.

As for the quality, we can hear everything in the room. The only drawback is a bit of noise from the A/C unit but it's still acceptable imo. One great thing about this setup is that we can choose to listen to all the rooms in a themed room at the same time instead of just listening to one physical room at a time. You can also add more microphones in the room if it's a massive room.

Mic: https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B002S4G870
Mixer: https://www.amazon.com/dp/B000KIPT30

https://www.amazon.com/DAOKI-Sensitivity-Microphone-Detection-Arduino/dp/B00XT0PH10/ref=sr_1_3?ie=UTF8&qid=1498683713&sr=8-3&keywords=arduino+sound+sensor

Looks like this chip simply picks up volume. If it's installed within the metronome, the ticking would probably be the most prominent noise. (so other noises couldn't accidentally trigger it) Then measure the timing between peaks. And maybe have the code wait for x amount of ticks to make sure it's not triggered simply by scrolling through speeds.

And then just trigger a relay with the elecromagnet.

Hi, I am one of the owners of "The Other Tales" escape room in NJ (http://www.theothertales.com). Here are some basics.
We use a wired system, similar to this one: https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B00ZW63ESC ($95 as of now). It has 4 cameras - enough for 1 or 2 room setup. For microphones, you can use something like this one: https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B002S4G870/. I would also recommend adding HDD to the monitoring, so you can record some games. You can get one for $50 on Amazon. So, in total, the price for the monitoring system will be under $200.

Another question is, how you are going to communicate with the players? But that very much depends on the room design and tech. It can be anything - speakers, walkie-talkies, monitors that show typed texts or something as low-tech as paper notes.

Honeywell makes some great reed switches that are small, durable, and easy to hide. https://www.amazon.com/Honeywell-951WG-WH-Recessed-Magnetic-Contact/dp/B001UKY1A4

Here's a simple idea that's electrical rather than mechanical...

Buy this electromagnetic lock and this power supply and this remote controlled outlet.

The bare wires of the lock easily click into the green plug of the power supply. Then you plug that into the remote controlled outlet.

The two metal parts of the lock magnetize together when electricity is present, and come apart when there's no electricity. The remote toggles electricity on/off.

So you build a box or use an existing door, and mount the two metal parts of the lock to it to secure it.

Players find the remote elsewhere in your game. Then upon clicking the remote they unlock the electromagnetic lock. For greater effect, install a spring in the box so that the box lid flies open upon clicking the remote!

Maglock+spring or gravity is the usual answer. Linear actuators like in your link have their place, too. Car door power lock kits can do a few things.

Unless you find a really cheap maglock, cheapest might be these electric cabinet door locks. They make a nice popping noise and push the door open on activation. Drawers may have too much friction, though. They can, however, be re-latched, unlike maglocks.

They're not cheap, but reasonable at one per room. (We needed 4 cameras otherwise for good coverage.) We use a C25

New Excelltel SOHO-PBX SP-208 (2 x 8) PABX Telephone Switch System Control Exchange https://www.amazon.com/dp/B015MIQ12A/ref=cm_sw_r_cp_apa_h1sExb0YDNZA2

That's what I am using. But it won't be connected to the outside world. I'll only be using it for internal communication

Yes but it would be so cliched to use it as expected. I would pair the pirate map with this lock

We use these.

https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B0145OQTPG/ref=oh_aui_search_detailpage?ie=UTF8&psc=1

here, here

Locks you can get at Home Depot, Walmart, Lowe’s, office max.

I build my own using ESP8266 controllers - they're super cheap ($5), very reliable, built in WiFi, etc. For prototyping or learning get a dev board which has a USB port and pins for a protoboard like this one The company is coming out with a new one called ESP32 ( /r/esp32 ) soon that I will use for most everything. I keep spares so I can just pop in a new one if one fails - so far no failures. We also use Arduino Uno, Arduino Mega and Raspberry Pi.