A Guide for Running the Hacker
Escape Room
This guide has been created for anyone who would like to run this hacker-themed
escape room at school or as an extra-curricular event. We’ve piloted this with some
KS2 students and also tried it out at the Cambridge Festival in March 2024, with
positive feedback.
If you have any feedback about this guide or the escape room itself, please let me
know by emailing outreach-admin@[Link].
Instructions for Playing
● You have just found out about an evil hacker, who is planning to destroy the internet
and it’s your job to stop them. You have a limited amount of time to find the hacker’s
computer and shut it down.
● The aim of this game is to work through the puzzles sequentially, such that
completing each puzzle unlocks the next one, until you reach the final puzzle.
● At the start of each puzzle, you are given an extra piece of the story that
contextualises the puzzle. I recommend reading out the paragraph of the story before
handing out the next puzzle. You may also choose to read out each puzzle
description before handing it out (especially for the tricker puzzles).
● Getting to the hacker’s laptop and shutting it down is represented by a box locked by
four padlocks. You can find the combinations for these padlocks by solving the
relevant puzzles.
● To reduce the likelihood of damage to the locked box, players should be encouraged
to not try opening the box until they’ve solved all the puzzles and unlocked all the
padlocks.
● Players are encouraged to:
○ Work together
○ Ask for hints if they’re stuck
Instructions for Running
● Designed for KS2 learners, best played in groups of 2-6.
● From experience, the escape room usually takes between 20-30 minutes (perhaps
good for a small extra-curricular activity)
Setup
● The activity is designed to be played with all the equipment below, which is mainly
made up of a lockable box, padlocks, pens and printouts for each puzzle.
○ I would recommend laminating the printouts and providing whiteboard pens
so that students can wipe their working out if they want to try a different
approach. This also makes the printouts reusable for future sessions. If this is
not possible, paper and pens/pencils work just as well. It may also be worth
providing some scrap paper for working.
● The printouts for each puzzle (see the Puzzle Printouts folder)
○ You should hand out the printouts one at a time, in the appropriate order as
the students progress through the escape room.
○ I recommend at least two sets of printouts for groups larger than 3.
● The locked box should be easily accessible so that the students can try out their
solutions as often as they need to.
Equipment
1. Two number padlocks (4 digits) + Two letter padlocks (5 letters)
○ These need to be coloured/marked in some way to allow students to identify
which puzzle corresponds to which padlock.
○ Each puzzle that gives a code as a solution will specify which padlock the
code is for. (See the table below for more details on the puzzles).
○ For our escape room we used a blue and silver number padlock, as well as
two black letter padlocks which we labelled number 1 and 2.
○ You can buy appropriate padlocks on Amazon or you can just add coloured
post-it notes to regular padlocks (see the Adaptations section if you don’t
have padlocks).
○ If you’d like to use different colours, make sure you edit the exercise printouts
accordingly.
2. Box that can be locked using the padlocks
○ Or something similar that can store prizes
○ Because the lock for our box only fit one padlock, we also used a hasp to
ensure that all padlocks had to be unlocked before the box could be opened.
3. Prizes for the locked box e.g. sweets
4. Pens and paper (whiteboard pens if laminating the puzzle sheets)
5. (Optional to make the escape room more immersive!) Some suspenseful music to
play while working through the escape room. We have used this playlist.
The Puzzles
Each puzzle is listed below with a short overview. The answer to two of the tasks is a four
digit code and the answer to two other tasks is a five letter code. You can find the printouts
for each task in the Puzzle Printouts folder.
Each puzzle sheet contains a bit of the story to contextualise the puzzle. The vital
information of each puzzle description is highlighted using a colourful box. In the table below,
colour refers to the colour of the box used to highlight this information.
Puzzle Colour Short description Answer Required
# Name equipment
Shortest Orange By inspecting a map of the area JLSYN Puzzle
1 path to the players must work out the shortest description
Hacker’s possible path to the Hacker’s lair.
lair Printout of the
Note that the map’s starting location map to the
is labelled as the Computer Science Hacker’s lair
Department, however this can be
changed to suit your location. You can Letter lock 1
edit the map by double-clicking on it or
left clicking once and pressing “Edit”.
Spotting Blue In order to get past a big gate that’s in 0088 Puzzle
2 code the way, the players are asked to (see description
changes “edit” some code. Solutions
for more Printout of
They must find the 10 differences detail) Program 1 and
between Program 1 and Program 2, Program 2
then add together all the line numbers
of the lines with the changes. Number
padlock 1
Note that it is not possible for one line
to have multiple changes.
Decrypting Green The main door into the lair has an MODEL Puzzle
3 a electronic lock that requires a (see description
passcode passcode. This puzzle requires the Solutions (3 pages:
players to decrypt a note that has for more description,
been left by the door by using the detail) conversion
algorithm they’ve been given. table and
ciphertext)
This puzzle usually takes quite a bit of
time and some scrap paper is very Letter lock 2
useful here. It’s important to
encourage the players to complete
each step fully before they continue
on to the next one.
Finding a Red The players must navigate through the See Puzzle
4 path to the lair to find the hacker’s computer, Solutions description
Hacker’s while being careful not to activate the (3 pages)
laptop lair’s security system.
Pens / pencils
The players do this by finding a path
through the lair by completing the
table they’ve been given while
following the rules stated in the puzzle
description.
To check whether they’ve got the right
solution, the players will have to show
their solution to the person running
this activity.
Working Purple Finally, the players have access to the 2837
5 out the hacker’s laptop. In order to shut it Puzzle
cancel down, they must read through the description (2
pages)
code code and work out the value of the
variable variable “Cancel Code”. Number
padlock 1
Solutions
Puzzle 2
Code = 1 + 2 + 3 + 7 + 10 + 11 + 12 + 13 + 14 + 15
= 88
Puzzle 3
1. ThiS Note has no signifiCancE. don’t pay attentioN TO it or the CApITal letters iN
pArticular.
2. ThiSNotehasnosignifiCancEdontpayattentioNTOitortheCApITallettersiNpArticular
3. ThiSN oteha snosi gnifi CancE dontp ayatt entio NTOit orthe CApIT allet tersi NpArt
icula r
4. ThiSN CancE NTOit CApIT NpArt
5. abbaa abbba aaabb aabaa ababb
6. M O D E L
Puzzle 4
Adaptations
In a KS2 classroom, some changes may need to be made to run the escape room. Here are
some examples of how things can be changed to help you run the escape room in your own
context.
No chest/padlocks:
○ We were fortunate to have money to spend on a lockable box/padlocks/hasp,
which totals up to about £30. Of course, you/your school may not have the
funding for this.
○ Instead of using a box and padlocks, you could draw each padlock on a
whiteboard for players to write the codes onto. When they write a padlock
code, you could tell them whether it’s right or wrong.
○ Alternatively, you could just ask players to tell you their guesses for the
padlock codes, but make sure you have some way of keeping track of which
ones they’ve answered.
○ Either way, once all the padlocks are solved, you could give them the prizes
yourself.
● Fewer puzzles:
○ If you don’t have time for a full-blown escape room, you can always remove
some of the puzzles (none of the puzzles rely on previous ones).
Questions
Anything unclear? Just email me at outreach-admin@[Link].
