Last Updated on July 2, 2025 by Mary

Escape Rooms are very popular these days, and they are great for team building, having fun as a family, and keeping kids engaged in a screen-free activity. Escape rooms stimulate the brain and enhance problem-solving capabilities. I am sharing many free printable escape rooms on this site, but today I am sharing 28 DIY Escape Room Puzzle Ideas with Free Printables. These puzzle ideas will help you easily set up your own escape room, whether you need to set it up for a birthday party or some holiday.

You can either have different numbers as clues that players will get at the end of a puzzle and move to the next puzzle, or you can hide the puzzle pieces in different areas of the room and give the name of the area where the next piece of the puzzle is hidden as a clue.

You can hide the puzzles at these locations in a room.

1. Inside a trash can
2. under the table
3. under the chair or sofa
4. behind a plant
5. on the bookshelf
6. In a drawer
7. In a closet
8. in a box, bottle, or jar
9. in a sock, coa,t or shirt pocket
10. Inside a shoe
11. behind a mirror or painting
12. behind the TV

The places where you should hide your puzzles shouldn’t be really hard to guess. Sometimes clues kept in plain sight are ignored and missed the most.

If you want to use envelopes, here is a simple envelope template and you can print envelopes according to the number of puzzles and hide the printed puzzles in the envelope and write the clue number on it.

1. Free Printable Blank Jigsaw Puzzle Template for DIY Escape Room

Jigsaw puzzles are classic but not old. I am sharing here a free printable jigsaw puzzle template. You can print this on regular copy paper with a black-and-white printer. Now you can use this in various ways.

1. You can write down the place or direction of the next clue on the puzzle pieces.
2. You can print a puzzle image on one side and a picture on the other side.

After printing the puzzle and writing down your clue on it, cut the puzzle pieces with a utility knife and either hide the pieces at different places or place them in an envelope and hide that envelope in the room.

2. Tetris Tiles Blank Puzzle Template for DIY Escape Room

This is a free printable Tetris tiles template. Again, you can write one letter of the clue on each tile after printing it on a sheet. Cut each tile around the edges and hide your puzzle. Codes and Cipher Printables for DIY Escape Rooms

3. Free Printable Caesar Cipher Wheel

A fun and very popular cipher for Escape Rooms is the Caesar cipher. I am sharing two cipher wheels here. You need to cut the little window in the smaller wheel and start coding your message. Now, if you keep the smaller wheel on the larger one in a way that the wheel shows number 3, the A will become D, the B will be coded as E, and so on. Write down your coded message with the help of this wheel, and the players have to use the same cipher to decode that message.

You can download 8 Free Printable Cipher and Code Sheets for Escape Rooms Here

4. Using Scrabble Tiles for DIY Escape Room

You can use Scrabble tiles to share clues with the players in your DIY Escape Room. You can either place the tiles in a way that the corresponding number on the tiles leads to the numbered clue. You can also scatter many tiles on a table where a few tiles loosely form a word that leads the players to the next clue.

5. Using playing Cards to make Escape Room Puzzles

Playing cards can also be used in many creative ways to create a DIY escape room. In the picture I have shared above, the whole suite of spades is there, but cards number 2, 5, and 9 are missing and the missing cards will lead to the next clue. You can also place a few cards out of place to indicate that they mean something. Sum total of a few cards can lead to a clue. You can also use Uno Cards, Monopoly money and real money for your escape room clues and puzzles.

6. Free Printable 3D Box Shape for Escape Room

3D shapes can be used to make fun word-based puzzles for escape rooms. You can look at my Free Printable Harry Potter Escape Room to see how I have used a box to create a cipher.

7. Using Old Phones to Make Puzzles

There are both numbers and digits given on these old phones, and these are great for making DIY escape room puzzles. You can type a text on the phone and hide it somewhere, or you can use it to write a cryptic message. For example, if you write 23, 21, 81 it means letter number three on key number 2, letter number 1 on key number 2, and letter number 1 on key number 8. That will spell “CAT”.

8. Using Books to Create DIY Escape Room Puzzles

Books can be used in many ways to create puzzles. You can mark the letters on the spines of the books in a bookshelf that will lead to the clue. You can write a code that will lead to the page number, line number, and word number in a specific book. You can also hide printed puzzles inside a book.

9. Invisible Ink using Lemon Juice

This is probably the first method of writing a secret message that I learned as a kid. All you need is the juice of half a lemon, a Q-tip, a blank paper and an iron to make the message visible. Dip the Q-tip in the lemon juice and write your message. Let it dry and hide it somewhere. Show leads that the players have to iron the paper. You can hide the paper on an iron stand. Once it is pressed with hot iron, the secret message becomes visible.

10. Free Printable Nordic Elder Futhark Runes Cipher Wheel

Using Nordic runes to create your Escape Room puzzle is a great idea. These runes create a spooky touch to the room. You can use this free printable wheel to write or decode your message.

11. Using the Vitamin Bottle for Escape Room Clues

This is a simple idea. I have just underlined some letters in the label of this vitamin bottle. These letters form the word bake. You can use any bottle label to create your own puzzle or clue.

12. Free Printable Color the Boxes Graph

This is another fun way to create puzzles for your DIY escape room. Click on the thumbnail image of the graph on the left. Now, first make a rough sketch of the word or numbers you want to write, and then provide box numbers to the players. For example, you can ask them to color the box 2B, 6M, and so on to make the word ‘SUN’. You can see a complete example on this Free Printable Summer Escape Room Page.

13. Free Printable Labyrinth Puzzle for DIY Escape Room

If you are using numbers as clues, then you can use this free printable labyrinth puzzle for your. The players have to closely look at the letters they will find on the correct path. The solution is 5398. You can click on the image on the left to download the puzzle.

14. Using Maps to Create DIY Escape Room Puzzles

Maps and globes add another layer of adventure when you are creating puzzles for your escape room. I am sharing three pictures with different ideas. In the map picture on the left, the pins are marking the letters FOUR, which is 4. In the map given in the center, letters are circled, and they say ‘clue is under the sofa’. The third picture shows torn pieces of this map to make the puzzle more challenging. I didn’t have a map at home, so I printed one from Pixabay.

15. Paper over Paper to create a Puzzle

To make this puzzle, I have written text on two sheets of paper, and each sheet alone didn’t make any sense, but when they were held together in front of the light, this text was visible. You can download the printable for this puzzle on this page.

16. Using Calculators to Write Text, DIY Escape Room Puzzle Idea

Calculators can be used to leave clues for your escape room. 3045, when written on a calculator and read reversed, it makes shoe. I have used a calculator to write Globe and Oblige in these pictures.

17. Free Printable Changing Vowels Puzzle for Escape Room

Print and cut the paper from the dotted lines, then cut the shapes on the lower part of the paper. Now, place each cut-out shape on its corresponding shape, and A will become U, U will become O, and so on. You can now change the vowels in a piece of text as per these shapes, and players have to place the shapes in the correct spots to decode that text.

18. Free Printable Paper with holes over Paper

Print both images on different sheets of paper. Cut the one with the holes from the lines and remove the white part in each hole. This will create a puzzle. When puzzle pieces are put over the sheet with the letters, it will reveal the word ‘kindness’.

19. Using Calendars to Make Escape Room Puzzles

Old or new calendars are a great way to make escape room puzzles. The first Thursday in August would mean number 2 as per this calendar. You can also use thumb tacks or highlighters to mark different days or numbers on the calendar.

20. Free Printable Polybius Square Cipher

This printable cipher square will also help you create your DIY puzzles. 31 means L as per this cipher square.

21. Cutting thin Strips of Paper

You can write or type your clue on a piece of paper and cut very thin layers of it to create a puzzle. You can also mix these strips with other similar strips to make this puzzle more difficult. You can see an example of this puzzle on this page.

22. Folded Paper to create an Escape Room Puzzle

You can write text on different parts of a paper, and players have to fold it in a certain way to reveal the code or message.

23. Free Printable Arrow Directions Graph

I am sharing a blank graph on the left and its solution on the right. You can write different things on the side of this chart, and the correct clue beside the box where the arrows are leading. The players have to follow the correct path to find the clue. You can see an example of this puzzle here.

24. Atbash Cipher

You can use a simple Atbash Cipher to create your puzzles. In Atbash Cipher, A-Z, B-Y, C-X. Simply using reverse alphabets creates a cipher for your puzzles.

25. Invisible Message with Liquit Soap on a Mirror

You can write a message or clue with liquid soap on a mirror and let it dry. It will appear when someone takes a shower with hot water and steam accumulates in the room. You can provide a handheld steamer for your escape room.

26. Removing Letters from Popular Words

You can make a puzzle by writing a text in a way where letters are removed from popular and easy-to-guess words. For example, t_mato is tomato, and O is the word players would need. You can write a whole sentence this way, with a clue in the form of missing letters.

27. Weighing Scale

You can place a weighing scale at some place in the room and put different items on it. The weight of a specific item will lead to the next clue.

28. Backward Writing

Simple Backward Writing creates a difficult puzzle where ‘puzzle’ becomes ‘elzzup’.

There are many other ways to make puzzles, like using emojis, word scrambles, word searches, connect the dots, counting certain items, audio messages, nonograms, etc.

If you do not want to go through all this hassle, just print the free printable escape rooms I am offering on this website. Good luck and have fun.