Escape the Office - a Storyline2 game

May 08, 2017

Hi All

Not so long ago I went on a hen weekend and did an Escape the Room game – it was loads of fun, but it got me thinking – could I not build something like this in Storyline?

I wanted to look at compiling a load of different elements in to one course to show the world what we here at Willow DNA are capable of with tools like Storyline2. I think that sometimes people get stuck on what they have seen in the past and the same old elearning routines.

We decided to make something totally fun and not focused on compliance or health and safety but on what is possible within Storyline so that we can show clients something totally different – and then talk to them about how the different elements could be applied to their learning.

For the next three weeks we have a competition running for Learning At Work Week (15th – 19th May) in which you can win a £50 Amazon voucher for completing the fastest time – Ts and Cs apply and only UK residents over 18 can enter – but anyone can have a go at playing the game.

Elearning heroes is a great resource and I certainly couldn’t have built it without you guys. I have used some great downloads and tutorials from here: Exporting values – Kate Robertson, Javascript Timer – Christopher Krieger and used Dave Mozealous’ Better Calculator as a guide to building the phone.

Here is the link to see the game:

www.willowdna.com/escape

Enjoy!

54 Replies

almost 7 years ago05/11/17 at 7:46 pm (UTC)

Ha ha Owen - I'm in the land down under we are 230V just to be different :-)

David Jones

almost 7 years ago05/15/17 at 3:01 pm (UTC)

Fantastic game. A great challenge to get the brain working and showcases a number of interactions available on storyline . Great work!

Akshay Reddy
Partner

almost 7 years ago05/18/17 at 6:42 am (UTC)

This is Crazy...

Lizzie i think i will have to put multiple brains to complete this.

This can be a Brilliant use case for conditions.

Thanks for sharing,

Lizzie Wakefield
Author

almost 7 years ago05/18/17 at 12:26 pm (UTC)

Thanks David and thanks Akshay!

Patrick Thompson

almost 7 years ago05/19/17 at 2:37 pm (UTC)

stuck on two numbers....very addicting.

Heather Beaudoin

almost 7 years ago06/02/17 at 8:07 pm (UTC)

Is it still available through another link? I found it through the Featured Discussions page of Articulate and would love to check it out.

Kalena Hornkohl

almost 7 years ago06/02/17 at 8:11 pm (UTC)

Looks like I missed out on a lot of fun. Any chance the game will be available (sans prize) to check out at another time?

Lizzie Wakefield
Author

almost 7 years ago06/05/17 at 8:04 am (UTC)

Hey Heather and Kalena

The competition finished on the 26th May - and has been removed completely for the week so as to alleviate any confusion.

we will be putting the game up at some point this week for people to have a play around with, as a demo of what can be done with Storyline

- I will post again when it is live :)

Thanks for the interest

Lizzie Wakefield
Author

almost 7 years ago06/07/17 at 1:43 pm (UTC)

Hi All

The game is back up on the same link as before: www.willowdna.com/escape

please let me know what you think

(the competition is over so no prizes this time!)

Heather Beaudoin

almost 7 years ago06/07/17 at 2:34 pm (UTC)

Love it! I'm stuck on how many numbers there are in a UK phone number. The internet says 6 after the initial set, I've seen clues up to 7, but there's space to type 8. And I think I've figured out everything except what the calendar is telling me. :) Great job with all the clues & Storyline development!

almost 7 years ago06/07/17 at 2:50 pm (UTC)

This post was removed by the author

almost 7 years ago06/07/17 at 2:53 pm (UTC)

The calendar is killing me! I really need to get work done, but this is addicting.

almost 7 years ago06/07/17 at 3:04 pm (UTC)

Thanks Heather - glad you enjoyed it.

The phone is set up so that it is not too easy to tell straight away how many numbers you need :)

hint: there is something else where in the room to solve the calendar.

Heather Beaudoin

almost 7 years ago06/07/17 at 3:23 pm (UTC)

Well, I won, but I did a bit of trial and error on that calendar to find the answer. Thanks for the fun diversion!

almost 7 years ago06/07/17 at 3:27 pm (UTC)

Well done how long did it take you?

almost 7 years ago06/07/17 at 3:29 pm (UTC)

My win slide said 32:32, but I must say I paused and went to the bathroom and pondered a couple puzzles before returning with the answers. :)

Michael Ryan

almost 7 years ago06/08/17 at 8:45 am (UTC)

Stuck on digit 4 and 8! Please give clues! :)

Lizzie Wakefield
Author

almost 7 years ago06/08/17 at 10:25 am (UTC)

Hi there Michael - the phone might allow for more numbers than are needed.

Have you used all the other elements you have found? Sometimes all the pieces of a puzzle aren't together and you have to reflect on what you can find

Zsolt Olah
Hero

almost 7 years ago06/18/17 at 3:54 pm (UTC)

Still converting British pounds to dollars... :)

Looks very good. Great use of various interactive elements with nice execution.

What also makes escape rooms great is the social element. People working together to escape the room under tight deadline. Of course, it's easier to tap into the social component when it's live (In my ATD ICE session we used augmented reality and a clue hunter app.) with the audience.

It would be cool to hook up your escape office with xAPI and an LRS, and have a team remotely escape. Statements would be sent from each player, so if I found the key, it would show up for everyone :)

Jamie Lodge

almost 7 years ago06/21/17 at 8:37 am (UTC)

I've just discovered this and really like it. Had to un it in Chrome rather than IE due to our limitations here, works great!

almost 7 years ago06/21/17 at 10:02 am (UTC)

wow - that would be great- I did not know this was possible with Storyline - is it something you have done?

almost 7 years ago06/21/17 at 10:03 am (UTC)

Thanks Jamie - it actually took quite a lot of testing in Chrome to make it work the same as IE - there are a few differences between the way the HTML5 output works and Flash - but I think we solved them all in the end - lots and lots of testing!

almost 7 years ago06/21/17 at 3:01 pm (UTC)

I'll send a LinkedIn invite and chat. I used my own xAPI framework, not the built in reporting. It would be a great experiment to play around for the escape. This was my session at DevLearn: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sgh3yIdPi1w It's a combination of Storyline and Construct 2 game engine but you don't need the game engine for the escape. In this session participants answered questions and their confidence level through xAPI. The data was then aggregated and showed on the presenter's screen what the vote is. Then, it distributed the points to each player depending on their confidence level. So, if you selected the right answer but only 80% sure, you got 80% of the total vote.