Thanks to the incredible popularity of the escape room game genre, it's not surprising that some rooms have been devised for those hard of hearing or those either partially or wholly blind. It's certainly an interesting concept from the point of view of the initial design. Of course, it forces us to confront one of our most important senses, and how the world would be without it. So working out how to design clues and puzzles, whilst at the same time making sure that they can be found by someone without eyesight is a huge but ultimately rewarding enterprise.

The tiny capital city of Slovenia, Ljubljana, has a restaurant where food is served in complete darkness. Called, "The Dinner in the Dark", it's much more than some silly tourist trap. The idea behind the venture was to bring food back to the basics, and not be so concerned with the food looking as if it had jumped from the crisp pages of an upmarket cookery book. But rather concentrate on taste and smell. Part of the meal involves being served items and then having to identify them by taste. The restaurant is fully booked and has glowing reviews on TripAdvisor. So, they have taken the idea of blindness and devised a complete restaurant around it.

In many countries, if you offer a public service then it needs to be accessible to all members of the public, including those with disabilities. Of course, most escape room game owners will not really have considered having blind people play their games. So many puzzles and clues rely very much on the visual, that there would be little a blind person could achieve whilst the clock is counting down the minutes.  

In 2017, an escape room business in the US, received a booking from a group of blind students. This got them thinking. Exactly one year later, they opened three new escape rooms that had been built from the ground up with blind customers in mind. As such, it wouldn’t matter for blind people whether the room was lit or in total darkness. But this escape room wanted to create a room that would also allow those with normal sight to be able to experience the world through the non-seeing eyes of the blind. To that end it was decided to make the rooms completely pitch dark. 

These rooms were an immediate hit. Not just because it offered a completely new means of playing traditional escape room games, but also because it gave many people their first insight into living in the world of the blind. As for the design of the escape rooms themselves, there were various changes needed from the traditional set up. 

1.Safety Concerns
This makes perfect sense, as a group of people are going to be locked in a small but totally dark space. So one of the first things is to be sure that everything is tall enough so that players will not be tripping over stuff. This also will mean padding the furniture against bumps and knocks which, in tidal darkness can be quite hard. The props need to be of a shape that’s instantly identifiable, as well as being light enough so as not to do any damage to toes and feet if they are accidentally dropped. 

2. Puzzle Difficulty
Without the means of seeing, all the puzzles will need rethinking. If you think about the use of colour, graphic design, and focal points used in a normal game, then without these factors everything becomes harder. You still need to get across the meaning of the clues and puzzles but in a nonvisual way. To that end, the puzzles and clues will be more direct and the “depth” of the puzzles can’t be too deep.

3. Linear Routing
With a regular escape room, you’ll more often than not have to cross and recross a room a number of times as you collect everything needed to solve the puzzle at hand. With a room in total darkness, you’ll need the players moving forwards at all times. If there’s a possibility of doubling back, then players will become disorientated and lose their way, thus slowing down the gaming progress. 

4. Game Master Interruptions
Unfortunately there will be a number of times that the game’s immersive nature will be broken. If, for example, someone drops a set of keys in the dark and is scrabbling around on the floor, but fails to locate them, then the game master has to step in. As a result, the whole gaming experience can suffer adversely.

Many owners say, quite rightly, that the whole escape room gaming experience works so much better when many of the clues are visual. The main problem with searching in the dark is that visual stimulation is zero, meaning that you’re relying solely on touch and audio clues. As a huge amount of the atmosphere of the game comes from it’s visual design, then missing out on all the colours and props will lead to a decrease in the immersive ability of the game.  

Though we thoroughly applaud owners who orpen rooms for those with disabilities, and in particular the blind, we’re not sure if these rooms really offer a good value and great gaming experience for those you can see. In the dark game, all the players had to rely on a narrator, so it felt more like playing a blind version of “Simon Says”, as opposed to finding your own way around and discovering the puzzles and clues for yourself.

To that end, we feel that an escape room game played in total darkness isn’t going to give a paying customer a better experience, if anything it will be worse. There’s just too much need for light in these rooms. One thing we have seen that we think is a great idea, as it really can help with the ambience, and that’s playing in a completely darkened room, but with each player having a tiny flashlight. If it’s a creepy or scary game, this is a wonderful addition to the atmosphere and helps to create tension, as there’s not quite enough light to see everything….and who knows what’s lurking in the shadows!