
Show HN: Remotely Controlled Escape Room - alexissantos
https://www.thebureauorlando.com/remote-games
======
alexissantos
Hey, Hacker News! I launched an escape room venue in Orlando about four weeks
before everything went into COVID-19 lockdown. My team and I started noticing
remote/virtual escape room offerings that were just Zoom calls where players
direct a game master to look at/interact with things in a physical space.

We liked the idea of playing with a real environment from home, but wanted to
give players direct control over the environment. Paranormal Panic is our
first stab at a remotely playable escape room.

Players have 30 minutes to catch a ghost, and must work together as two
squads. Each team connects with a separate device (laptop, desktop, or
tablet), and although they have live video feeds from the same room, they see
different angles inside it. They also have control over different equipment,
and have different information on their control panels.

It's built using Vue, Websockets, Jitsi, Raspberry Pi HQ cameras, and Python.

We got lucky that escape rooms are a reasonably safe entertainment option
(gatherings of eight or less, no strangers, sanitized, etc.) during these
times, so we're fortunate to have reopened and are seeing good attendance.
That said, we hope these remote experiences (esp. as team building events)
will be a good supplement to our in-person business. We're developing a few
other remote experiences that are more ambitious, and we expect to have them
ready soon.

~~~
JamesSwift
Thats awesome. I'm sure the orlando dev community would love to hear about the
implementation side of things. I know for a fact the IOT group would love it.

Are you in the odevs slack? If not send me your email and I will get you
invited.

~~~
alexissantos
Just shot you an email!

------
tonyhb
Ha, this is ironic! Didn't escape rooms come about from 90's escape room flash
games on miniclip? Now we've gone full circle making a virtual game of a real
escape room modeled from a virtual room :D

This looks pretty fun, and definitely fit with the times! Splitting into two
teams is also interesting.

~~~
tantalor
"Crimson Room", Toshimitsu Takagi (2004)

[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QleA1WfdswE](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QleA1WfdswE)

------
mattlondon
Great idea. I would have liked to have seen a video about what actually
happens - e.g. is it just some Hue lights changing colour and a LCD screen
that flashes green etc, or are there actual physical things that happen in
response to players? Like does a door spring open if you "hack" something from
your laptop? Do you need to pan and tilt the camera around? Do you have to
physically move things remotely like turn a safe tumbler to the right
combination etc? Can you drive a "drone" around to take a closer look at
something on the wall?

Seems like a very scalable idea though :) Good luck with it! I can imagine one
or two "SREs" running a warehouse with 15 or 20 rooms all going simultaneously
and there to fix/reset if 100% automation cannot be done easily (e.g. a remote
drone that gets stuck/falls over).

I know during lockdown our teams have been _screaming out_ for team building
activities that can be done remotely and this sort of thing would be great.

Nice one.

~~~
alexissantos
Thanks, Matt! We've got a few quick shots of the experience tagged to the end
of this teaser:
[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NQYt0L-6K-U](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NQYt0L-6K-U)

This is very much a v1 of our take on remotely playable games. Some quick
examples: Players can control light, sound, some electronics that physically
move (nothing crazy for now -- a tape deck, a centrifuge), and influence a
"ghostly orb" to move around the room.

Here's a peek at what's coming down the pike: \- One remote experience that's
an adaptation of an existing in-person experience we have, but made in such a
way that it can handle many concurrent sessions. The idea is that this'll help
us with larger team building events. \- Another experience with camera
control, more influence on the environment, and more elaborate sets. This is
_definitely_ going to be a first of its kind.

Would love to see something like that warehouse style operation happening!

Shoot me an email if you want to arrange some team building.

------
jot
Very cool! It’s been so good doing things like this with family during the
lockdown.

If you’re interested in discovering more remotely playable escape rooms this
directory has loads:
[https://livevideoescaperooms.com/](https://livevideoescaperooms.com/)

------
moretta
Great idea! Are the rooms reset after each round to make way for the next
group, or is it built in such a way that they can continue from the previous
attendees setup?

Also I think as a potential player, it would be great to see an example video
of it in action within the browser. Unfortunately the idea is something that
could often be done poorly with a lack of actions/control, so I would prefer
to see exactly what I'm paying for in terms of the setup.

~~~
alexissantos
Thank you! They're designed to reset automatically!

We've got some very short clips at the end of this video to give a taste of
gameplay:
[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NQYt0L-6K-U](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NQYt0L-6K-U)
We're probably burying it by presenting it this way.

I'll take a moment to figure out how to highlight that on the page better.
Thanks for the feedback!

------
wnd_pn
I like the idea so much!! Last weekend was the first time for me in an escape
room and I simply loved it, would like to see how entertaining it is online.
Only one doubt: isn't 30 min too little time to play it? And isn't 49$ too
much for such a short time?

~~~
alexissantos
Thanks! :)

We've seen quite a few escape rooms charge per person or per connection for
online zoom experiences. One of the largest escape room operations out there
([https://theescapegame.com/remote-
adventures/](https://theescapegame.com/remote-adventures/)) charges $30 per
person for their hour-long experience, and requires a minimum of four players.
So that's $120 for an hour vs a $50 flat rate for 1/2 an hour. We think we're
offering a good value and more interactivity.

The other reason for 30 min vs an hour is the cadence of the experience. We
thought it's possible that a 60 minute experience could feel drawn out, so we
opted to experiment with a well paced 30 min for our first offering.

------
valiafetisov
I wonder what is the reason to make the game in the real world if it's played
fully online? Wouldn't it be possible and more cost-effective to create same
room and scenarios within let's say Unity and stream videos from there? Or is
it something about the pricing?

~~~
alexissantos
If we can re-use an existing environment from one of our in-person rooms, the
costs to get something like this up and running is marginal. We'd wind up
getting a second playable experience, with a potentially wider audience, for
not much more spend.

That said, this experience was purpose built to experiment with the remote
game concept. (At the time, we weren't sure how to adapt our existing in-
person games.) It's a small physical space (approx. 11ft x 9ft), and we used a
ton of props we already had.

~~~
alexissantos
Also, after going through this process, we've come up with a few ways to adapt
our existing games for remote play without an in-room game master.

------
matt_f
This is gad-danged cool.

