Evangelia Drosoula Mastrogianni, Varvara Garneli, Angelos Floros, Ioannis Deliyannis

Institute for Game Research, Ionian University

Presented: DCAC, Hybrid - Corfu/Online, May 24-25, 2024

Keywords: Escape Room, Physical Computing, Arduino, Immersion, Collaboration, Interactive Storytelling

Escape rooms are immersive games built on environmental storytelling and logic — a themed room, a set of interlocking puzzles, a fixed amount of time, and a group that has to think together to get out. What they rarely include is physical computing: sensors, actuators and embedded devices that let the room itself respond to what players do.

There is very little research on what happens when they do. This study builds one in order to find out.

Visconti, Conti e la bomba is set in the Teatro alla Scala di Milano, during the 1955 performance of La Traviata. The room runs on Arduino-controlled puzzles and interactive props, with real-time communication between players over walkie-talkies — so that the group is split, and coordination becomes part of the mechanic rather than a courtesy.

Six participants played it, and were interviewed afterwards. The qualitative evaluation asked whether the physical layer changes anything that matters: immersion, collaboration, and the coherence of the story being told.

It does. Physical computing enriches the experience by deepening the narrative and holding player engagement — not because the technology is visible, but because a room that answers back is a different kind of place to be trapped in.