Analog Game Studies

Escape rooms are live-action games set in immersive environments. In creating these environments, many designers base their games off of real-world settings or specific fictional worlds. While these settings offer much to a designer to create challenges that are authentic and embedded in the world, they also carry a risk that some players who do not have the cultural background needed to succeed will be frustrated and unable to engage with the game. Reducing experiences of cultural bias is even more pertinent at the time of writing this paper, as the global COVID-19 lockdown has prompted the design of remote and virtual escape rooms that have the possibility of hosting multicultural teams of players from any location around the world. In an attempt to reduce these negative experiences for players, particularly those players who play escape rooms while traveling, this paper identifies best practices and provides solutions for escape room owners and designers looking to minimize cultural bias in their escape room designs.