A legendary theatre — The Grand Curtain — has been dark for decades, sealed by a curse. Four of its most powerful stories were locked away inside enchanted scene vaults, each one holding a magical artefact needed to break the curse. Tonight, the players are the only ones who can enter each vault, solve its challenge, and recover the artefact. When all four are in hand, the final seal can be broken — and the curtain raised one last time.
Tonight’s Programme
Forty-five to sixty minutes. All eight players together for the opening and the finale, with pairs splitting off to work each vault simultaneously in Act Two.
Act Two — The Hub
Groups of two work each vault simultaneously — nobody is left watching. Each vault solved yields one magical artefact. The Finale cannot begin until all four are in hand.
The Four Vaults
Vault One — Wicked
Elphaba’s Study. The Grimmerie is locked. Players must decode a spell from Elphaba’s notes to retrieve what’s hidden inside.
Puzzle type: Cipher · Code-breaking · Artefact: a small green vial
Vault Two — Hamilton
The Room Where It Happens. A sealed letter from the Founding Fathers holds the vault key — written in a historical cipher that must be cracked.
Puzzle type: Hidden message · History · Artefact: a wax-sealed envelope
Vault Three — Mean Girls
North Shore High. The Burn Book is locked in Regina George’s locker. Players must navigate the social hierarchy of The Plastics to crack the combination.
Puzzle type: Logic · Ordering · Artefact: the pink Burn Book
Vault Four — Six
The Vault of Crowns. The six wives must be identified and ordered correctly to unlock the vault. Each left a clue — only one sequence unlocks it.
Puzzle type: Sequencing · Trivia · Artefact: a miniature crown
Behind the Curtain
Three cinematic moments play on the room’s TV during the game, triggered automatically as puzzles are solved — no human operator required.
Opening cinematic. The story begins with a custom AI-generated film introducing The Grand Curtain and the four vaults sealed within it. All eight players watch together before splitting off.
Vault reveals ×4. Each time a vault is cracked, the room responds. A short clip plays — a character freed from their world, the artefact revealed. The other three stations keep running.
The finale. When the last seal breaks, the closing cinematic plays. The curse is lifted. The Grand Curtain — dark for decades — is restored.
About This Blog
This is the build log for the escape room — from first sketch to opening night. Eight teenagers, November 2026, a rented house in Auckland. The goal is to have them walk into a bedroom and believe, for forty-five minutes, that they are the only people who can break a century-old theatrical curse.
Posts cover everything: puzzle design and playtesting, microcontroller firmware, the video trigger network, AI-generated cinematics, prop sourcing, and the room layout itself. Each system gets its own write-up before the physical build begins, because locking in the design on paper is cheaper than re-soldering at midnight.
The intended audience is anyone who finds this interesting — other makers building similar things, or people who know Sevy and want to follow along. The build is documented in enough detail to be useful as a reference, not just a diary.