Forum Discussion
A Full 60-Minute 360° Escape Room Built in Storyline
This project started during a one-month workation in Portugal.
I was staying in a beautiful little house overlooking the surfers’ beach in Arrifana.
It wasn’t one of those empty, soulless vacation rentals – the house had so much character. The decorations on the walls especially caught my attention because some of them almost looked like clues waiting to be solved.
So, alongside my client projects, I started building something just for fun.
I had wanted to experiment with Storyline’s 360° feature for a long time. I also wanted to see just how many triggers I could possibly squeeze into one project. 😉
Spoiler: There’s one slide with around 300 triggers. Can you guess which one?
But most of all, I had always wanted to build a proper digital escape room – not just a few simple puzzles connected by a Next button, but something challenging enough to give you that satisfying “YES! I figured it out!” feeling.
The scenario is simple: You’re a freelancer in Portugal with an important online meeting coming up. There’s just one problem: the internet isn’t working.
Time to explore the house...
How it works
I deliberately chose a very open structure.
There is no fixed order in which you have to solve the escape room. Instead, there are several interconnected paths, puzzles, items, and chains of events you can discover and work on simultaneously.
The house also changes depending on what you’ve already discovered or which items you’ve found.
And there might even be a second version of the house you can unlock...
But I probably shouldn’t say too much about that. 😉
Behind the scenes
One of my biggest design challenges was connecting traditional Storyline slides and puzzles with the 360° environments without making it feel like you were suddenly leaving the world of the escape room.
Another challenge was creating an inventory that worked naturally with the open structure of the game.
And then there’s the chick game.
That one nearly broke me.
It might also break you a little bit. Sorry! But it took me so long to build that there was absolutely no way I was taking it out again. You’ll just have to be fast. 😉
Technically, however, the hardest part wasn’t any individual interaction. It was keeping track of all the puzzles, variables, dependencies, and event chains – and making sure everything still worked logically when players could explore the house in almost any order.
I also used sounds, visual details, and hidden clues throughout the environment to help players make connections and notice when something has changed.
Making a difficult escape room playable
I wanted this escape room to be challenging. The goal was to create something that actually feels rewarding when you solve it.
After testing it with both experienced puzzle solvers and beginners, however, I realized that the open structure also makes it harder to connect the clues.
So I made a few puzzles slightly more forgiving and added optional hints. You can still try to solve everything completely on your own – but if you get stuck, help is there.
The full escape room takes approximately one hour, depending on how quickly you solve the puzzles.
I’d absolutely love it if some of you took the time to really play through it – especially fellow Storyline developers and escape-room fans.
And I’d love to hear your feedback: What worked? Where did you get stuck? Which interaction did you enjoy most? And, of course...
Did you land the project? 😉