Create a virtual escape room to redefine entertainment and engage your audience in a new way. With over 30 free digital escape rooms available, you can choose a topic and use backward design to plan the escape room. Virtual Escape Rooms (VERs) operate similarly to physical escape rooms, contextualizing them. Genially offers an easy way to bring the fun and challenge of an online escape room into the virtual world.
Craft a compelling scenario using themed rooms and exciting scenarios to create immersive experiences. Write a good story to hook the audience. Create your own virtual escape room with ThingLink, a free online editor for creating point-and-click games with puzzles, riddles, clues, locks, and more.
Create a classroom escape room in Google Forms for students by accessing Google Forms, starting a new form, crafting your home page, and creating sections for challenges. Follow these steps to create your own virtual escape rooms:
- Pick a topic for your virtual escape room.
- Create your form and add sections for challenges.
- Use Canva (canva.com) to illustrate the space with your chosen theme.
- Choose an escape room builder that fits your needs.
- Use Google Sites (sites.google.com) to create a virtual “room” or multiple areas.
- Consider the key factors to consider when selecting an escape room builder that fits your needs. By following these steps, you can create an engaging and educational virtual escape room that engages your audience in a unique and engaging way.
📹 Google Slides Bitmoji Escape Room Tutorial
In this video, I will show you how I created an interactive digital escape room using a combination of Google Slides, Docs, Forms, …
📹 How to Create a Digital Escape Room Using Google Forms | Tutorial for Teachers
TUTORIAL + FREE GUIDE + PRE-MADE TEMPLATE Digital escape rooms are an engaging activity to incorporate in your …
This is amazing! Thank you for the clear explanations. One thing I am struggling with…I want to have them solve multiple other clues in the room that don’t necessarily connect with the answer to escape. Is there a way to ensure they have solved all the other clues in the room before they are able to click the lock and escape?
I created a great one based on a field trip we took and the directions were great!! Thank you! I had one problem. I changed the link to preview and then posted it in classroom. They all had to ask for permission and then it still took them to the slides and not straight to the room. Also, our school blocks youtube and you can’t insert safe youtube articles as articles just as links. Do you have a suggestion for making my timer play automatically that way?
I love this tutorial and the concept of the escape room! Thank you so much for the clear instructions. I am having trouble with the timer. When I click on a link and go to an external resource, the timer stops and restarts when I return to the main slide. How can I ensure the timer continues to run as my students work on their clues?
This is great! I have been trying to create one myself for my team at work. I’m just not sure how to link the clues so that they can go back to answer the questions. When I press present they can go to the clues but they are unable to get back to the room or back to the room from answering the questions. Would you be able to point me in the right direction?
I have made some escape rooms for my students in the past using a very similar method, but never used the clock embedded because mine always had multiple rooms. I was curious though, one issue I had in creating my room was that if you click on the slide where there is nothing linked, it acts like a regular google slide and goes to the next slide in the presentation. Also, if you click on the black border bars on the right and left of the presentation, it will move to the next slide. I apologize if I missed that in your article, how did you prevent this? Thank you!
Will this sharing hack work the same for a computer, cell phone or tablet? We want to share a link to our google slide with clickable links on our social media page for our library’s summer reading program. We want patrons to be able to view it without having editing capabilities. Thank you, we love your article tutorials!
Thank you for posting this. I have been thinking about doing this for some time. Have you ever made one where there are multiple puzzles to complete within one room? I am wondering if I should just have one google form and each puzzle brings them to the same form, or a form for each puzzle? I want to have 6-7 puzzles for them to complete.
I am on a roll now!! This was a fantastic tutorial. I’ve learned so much and have put together so many ideas with this. Very easy now. Question though, after you change the link to “preview,” is there a way to only show that one slide? As in I have links to pictures or other slides or whatever, but I don’t want them to advance each slide. I only want them to click on the invisible links. Is this an option?
Thank you so much for this amazing tutorial! I made one as we are starting with the hybrid model this week, and I know the students are going to need something fun to do by the end of the week. Thank you for being so specific and clear with the steps. It was so easy to follow. I have two questions: Do I need to make a copy of the slide for each student? Or can they all share the same link? How do I link the Google Form so that it is not editable to the students? I am really struggling with this. Everytime I copy the send link and try it out the pen comes up to edit it? Could you possible show the share settings you use for the slide and attached links
I’ve created a virtual classroom, and I was able to link articles and items that I have published. But, whenever I link a Google Doc, the students have to request permission to open it. Is there a way I can link a doc for my students to open? I’d like all of them to receive a copy, so they can type into the doc, without having other students typing on the same doc. I hope my question makes sense. Thanks for the article. It is so helpful.
Hi! Thank you for this tutorial — it was super helpful. I also watched your escape room hack article. I had a question about the last question you had on the lock in GoogleForms: the question is worded that students should select one of the multiple choice times to see how their time compares with others. How did you do that so students could see their time in relation to others? Thank you in advance!
HI thank you for the informative article. Could I check if it is possible for me to do this on mobile devices as well. As when i do it, it prompts me to go back the the gslides app itself, which shows the editable mode instead. Is there anyway for me to play the game on google chrome without being prompt to use an email to enter the app?
This is amazing, it’s super clear and I can already make something simple from just one viewing. Thank you. My quick question is: “Is there a way to incorporate the form into the ‘room’ itself. For example, students have to key in the answer code on the blackboard on the wall? Or clicking the lock on the door will open a slide with the lock zoomed in, and then they have to key in the answer on the lock itself?”
if i provide the link of preview to a group of people (about 5), will they be able to play together or this escape room is played by one person only? If we wanted it to be by group, there should be a person manipulating the preview. They cannot play simultaneously or else, it means they have to play it alone?
Hi there, Thanks for this info. very easy to understand. I had a question. for the “clues” that you are adding links to. are the links linked from a google slide? or can i put in any old link and have them go there? for example if I created a crossword from a crossword generator, can I pt that direct link in, or do I have to impose the crosswordontow a slide and then use the slide to link?
Another question. I’m trying to do the last step that you explain, where it appears as a webpage instead of slides. It’s just not working for me. I’m in Victoria, Australia. All of our students and teachers are logged in to google classrooms. Would this have something to do with it? Whenever I send it to one of my colleagues it only shows up for them as the slides in edit view.
Hey Amanda, these articles have really inspired me. And thanks to you I have now managed to create an Escape room, which i will be sharing with a very large number of people. My concern is about access to the site and storage. How many people do you think would be able to access the site at one given time, would it crash if too many people access. I have added Microsoft and Google Forms to capture responses, how much space would that take in Google drive or Sharepoint. Are there chances to overload those? If you can respond to these queries that would be great. Thanks again for your help.
I work for a local history museum and we’re wanting to create escape rooms using our historical buildings on our campus. We’re in the process of writing the stories and clues now. Do you have any written instructions you give your students before the play? We’re going to offer these escape rooms to our local community. Thanks.
I was wondering could you you have the instruction article on the escape room timer I got it posted on my first page but I was wondering how do I keep it from continuously counting down from the time it starts? i know you may have answered this question before but I was not for sure if i understood correctly.
Hi there. First of all, amazing! you inspired me to make a few rooms of my own and have shared them with most of my family. I couldnt have made these without your article. I do have a technical question (the worst part right?!) tho. I have my room shared with another teacher and they want to share it with their students however when she went to assign it, she wasnt able to see her students “responses” as she is not an original collaborator on my escape room. The share settings on my GoogleSlides room are set to “Anyone on internet with link can view” but the GoogleForm “The open lock form” wouldnt allow her to edit as it was only in “viewform”. Now, I don’t intend to make everyone who downloads it a collaborator/editor, so my question is: do you have any workaround to make the GoogleForm editable for the assigning teacher to see their custom responses while at the same time preserving /not giving edit access to alter the original Escape room (Google Slides) ? In a more simple ask: can the assigning teacher edit the googleform and assign it without me having to make them a collaborator everytime? If this is confusing, I am so sorry. You seem like a guru and I’d figure id ask. I would be willing to share the escape room with you if it is in your interest to help. Thanks, Confused Creator
This is amazing! Question: Once I finish my escape room, If I wanted to share the room with other teachers but I did not want their students responses to come to me (since I created the google form) How would you suggest that work? Or do you just have every student response that ever completes the escape room?
I loved our article – the directions are wonderful and I can’t wait to try it! One question – I noticed that your students have to enter the 4 letter word to unlock the door. Is this your only question on your Google Form? From the various clues they solved, how did they know what the four-letter word was? I thought this would be a great Back To School activity and wanted to use the word, “Welcome.” Thanks so much for sharing!
This was so fun to watch and totally my jam! I’m super extra with these types of things too! I was waiting for this article ALL WEEK! So excited to try this out! Thanks for showing us how to make the GIFS last week! I know I’ve said this a million times, but I love your tutorial articles! They are so in depth and easy to follow! I hope you had a wonderful Thanksgiving and I’ll see you next week!
Happy Thanksgiving to you and your family, Michelle! I am excited to use this digital escape room with my class during December to keep them motivated and excited to learn as we lead up to winter break. I appreciate the ideas you share with us that elevate the quality of our instruction. Have a wonderful weekend and week ahead! 💜
Michelle, Back when I was a young autistic school student one day when the bus dropped me off at home and I knew that I did not have my house key I got so frustrated that I had to kick the front door down just to get in my house at the time and perusal you do this reminds me of that time. I hope that you and everyone there had a Happy Thanksgiving. – Dwight
Do you ever think about how many teachers don’t have time or energy to create new things? Teaching isn’t a hobby career for most people. We are just trying to make it through the day. There’s a movement of teachers that make us teachers look bad. I can accomplish just as much without creating my own escape room. But I don’t need admin to shame me because of teachers that go above and beyond. Do you ever consider the disservice you are doing to the ordinary teachers among us just trying to get by? It’s lovely that you are so passionate about creating new materials from scratch, but I don’t like this trend and see it as kind of toxic in education post-pandemic. Not meaning any disrespect at all, but just wanted to give another point of view to consider.