Free Halloween escape room: a 45-minute game to run at work
Six spooky puzzles, clue cards to print, a host script and every answer. Run it in a conference room or on a video call.
Midnight at Hollow Hill Manor is a free Halloween escape room you can run at work with nothing but a printer and some envelopes. Teams solve six chained puzzles, each answer opening the next, to find the key before the clock strikes twelve. It is spooky, never gory, and every puzzle has one clear answer. The clue cards, the host script, the hints and the answer key are all below.
- Time:
- About 45 minutes
- Players:
- Teams of 3 to 6, as many teams as you like
- Puzzles:
- 6, each one opening the next
- You need:
- This page, a printer, envelopes and pens
The story: midnight at Hollow Hill Manor
Read this aloud to start the game, then start a 45-minute timer.
It's 11:15 on Halloween night. Your team came to Hollow Hill Manor for a costume party, but the host never showed up. The moment the last of you stepped inside, the front door swung shut and locked. On the hall table is a note in curly, old-fashioned handwriting: "Good evening. I am Wren, and this has been my house for a very long time. Every Halloween I lock the door and hide the key behind six puzzles. Solve them all before the clock strikes twelve, and you may go home. Fail, and you stay for the party. It lasts until next Halloween."
The 6 clue cards
Each card is one lock. Hand them out in order: a team only sees the next card after the host hears the right answer.
Card 1: The candle shelf
In the parlor, a cabinet with a two-digit lock. On the mantel above it stand five candlesticks, and a brass plate underneath.
The candle on the far right is worth 1. Every candle is worth double the one to its right. Only lit candles count.
The lock: A two-digit number
Card 2: The library book
The first page of the book is a grid of letters. Below it, Wren has written a list of words and a rule.
S O P A M B B P W N O R A T I L O O T R Y D N O C A P E E M G H O S T R GHOST · BROOM · SPIDER · MOON · CAPE · OWL · BAT
Find the seven words. They run across, down or diagonally. Cross off every letter you use. The six letters left over, read row by row from the top, tell you where to go next.
The lock: A six-letter word
Card 3: The pantry jars
Six jars of colored potion line the shelf, each with a number on its lid. Wren's recipe card is propped against them.
- Pink1
- Orange5
- Gray4
- Purple3
- Brown6
- Green8
Brew them in this order: swamp, sunset, plum. Swamp is blue and yellow. Sunset is red and yellow. Plum is red and blue.
The lock: A three-digit number
Card 4: The housekeeper's list
Sixteen words in the housekeeper's neat handwriting, and a rule card pinned on top.
- RED
- CLIMB
- BOOK
- SEVEN
- TWO
- TO
- MOON
- BLUE
- NINE
- DOOR
- THE
- GOLD
- KETTLE
- PINK
- TOWER
- BELL
1. Cross out every color.2. Cross out every number.3. Cross out every word with a double letter.4. Read what's left, in order.
The lock: A five-letter word, the place it sends you
Card 5: The tower mirror
Letters are painted across the glass of the tower mirror, and a line is scratched into its frame.
TL WLDM GL GSV XVOOZI
Scratched into the frame: In my glass, A is Z and B is Y.
The lock: A six-letter word
Card 6: The cellar door
The front door key hangs behind the cellar door. Wren's last note: "You arrived LOST. Change one letter at a time and leave the way you'd like to go."
LOST Where you started _ _ _ _ The one who throws the party _ _ _ _ It waters the garden _ _ _ _ Where you'd like to be by midnight The lock: A four-letter word
How to run the Halloween escape room
About 15 minutes of setup. The host keeps the envelopes, checks answers and times the teams.
Setup checklist for the office
- Print one set of cards per team. Use the print button. Each card prints on its own page and the answer key prints last, for the host only.
- Number six envelopes per team. Put card 1 in envelope 1, card 2 in envelope 2 and so on. The host holds every envelope except the first.
- Set out pens and scrap paper. The word search and the mirror go faster when two people can work on paper at once.
- Dim the lights and start a spooky playlist. Atmosphere does a lot of work. A few battery candles on each table help too.
- Finish with a real lock if you have one. A word lock or a small padlocked box of candy makes the last card feel like an escape.
On Zoom, Teams or Google Meet
- Save each card as an image. A screenshot per card works. Keep them in order in one folder.
- Split into breakout rooms of 3 to 6. Name one captain per team before the rooms open.
- Send cards by direct message. Send card 1 to every captain in your work chat app, and the captain shares it on screen in the room.
- Take answers the same way. Captains message their answer to the host. A right answer gets the next card.
- Keep the page link to yourself. This page holds the answers, so share cards, not the link, until the game is over.
Host script: the 45-minute run sheet
- 0:00 · 3 min
Read the story. Read Wren's note aloud, start the timer and hand every team envelope 1.
- 0:03 · 5 min
Card 1: The candle shelf. A quick warm-up. Most teams open it in under five minutes.
- 0:08 · 7 min
Card 2: The library book. The longest search. Suggest teams split the word list between two people.
- 0:15 · 6 min
Card 3: The pantry jars. Fast once someone says the word paint. Listen for the decoy jars.
- 0:21 · 7 min
Card 4: The housekeeper's list. Teams that rush cross out TO. Don't correct them until they ask.
- 0:28 · 8 min
Card 5: The tower mirror. The hardest lock. Offer the first hint at the 4-minute mark if a team is stuck.
- 0:36 · 5 min
Card 6: The cellar door. A short sprint to the finish. Note each team's time as it opens the cellar door.
- 0:41 · 4 min
Finale and results. Read the finale, post finish times and hint counts, and crown the winners.
Hint rules to announce at the start:
- Each team gets one free hint per card after 3 minutes stuck.
- Every extra hint adds 2 minutes to that team's finish time.
- If a team is more than 4 minutes behind the run sheet, offer the first hint without being asked.
Hints and answer key
For the host. Each card has two hints, the answer, why it works and the line to read when a team gets it. Spoilers inside.
Card 1: The candle shelf
Hint 1: Work out what each candle is worth before you add anything. Start from the right: 1, then 2.
Hint 2: Left to right, the candles are worth 16, 8, 4, 2 and 1. Add only the lit ones.
Answer: 13. The lit candles are worth 8, 4 and 1, which makes 13. Teams who count the doubling from the left get 22, which is the classic wrong answer.
Read aloud: The cabinet creaks open. Inside is a heavy old book from the library, open to a page of letters with a note from Wren tucked in the spine.
Card 2: The library book
Hint 1: Two words run across, three run down and two run diagonally from top left to bottom right.
Hint 2: SPIDER starts in the top-left corner and runs diagonally. Once all seven words are crossed off, exactly six letters are left.
Answer: PANTRY. GHOST and CAPE run across, BROOM, MOON and BAT run down, SPIDER and OWL run diagonally. The six unused letters, row by row, spell PANTRY.
Read aloud: PANTRY. You follow the smell of cinnamon down the hall to the pantry, where a cupboard with a three-digit lock sits under a shelf of glowing jars.
Card 3: The pantry jars
Hint 1: None of the recipe colors is on the shelf as it is. Mix them like paint: what do blue and yellow make?
Hint 2: Swamp is green, sunset is orange and plum is purple. Read their lids in recipe order.
Answer: 853. Blue and yellow make green (8), red and yellow make orange (5), red and blue make purple (3): 853. Pink, gray and brown are decoys.
Read aloud: The cupboard swings open. There's no key inside, only the housekeeper's list with a rule card pinned on top.
Card 4: The housekeeper's list
Hint 1: Watch for sound-alikes. A word that sounds like a number isn't always a number.
Hint 2: Four words survive all three rules. Together they make a short instruction, and the last word is the answer.
Answer: TOWER. Colors, numbers and double-letter words go. TO survives because it isn't the number TWO. What's left reads CLIMB TO THE TOWER.
Read aloud: TOWER. You climb the narrow tower stairs by candlelight. At the top, an old mirror hangs on the wall with strange writing across the glass.
Card 5: The tower mirror
Hint 1: The alphabet is reflected: A swaps with Z, B with Y, C with X, and so on to M and N.
Hint 2: The first word, TL, reads GO. Decode the last word the same way.
Answer: CELLAR. Each letter swaps with its mirror in the alphabet, so the glass reads GO DOWN TO THE CELLAR.
Read aloud: CELLAR. You hurry down past the kitchen to the cellar door. It has a four-letter word lock, and one last note is pinned beside it.
Card 6: The cellar door
Hint 1: Each word changes exactly one letter of the word above it.
Hint 2: LOST becomes HOST, then HOSE. One more letter to change.
Answer: HOME. LOST, HOST, HOSE, HOME. Each step changes one letter.
Read aloud: The cellar lock clicks open on HOME. Behind the door, on a single hook, hangs a large iron key. You race up the stairs and turn it in the front door just as the hall clock begins to strike twelve. As you step outside, a voice drifts down the staircase: "Well played. Same time next year?"
15 more spooky escape room puzzle ideas
Swap any of these into the room, or chain five of them into a sequel for next year. None of them appears in the room above or in our 34-puzzle list.
- Pet headstones: Years in Roman numerals on a cardboard pet grave. MDCCCLXXX to MDCCCXCVI means the manor cat lived 16 years, and 16 is the code.
- Picture rebus: Pictures and letters that sound out a word. A drawing of a key, then the letters HOLE, reads KEYHOLE.
- Spot the difference: Three pairs of haunted portraits, each pair almost identical. The number of differences in each pair is one digit of a three-digit code.
- Connect the stars: Numbered stars on a night-sky card. Join them in order and the lines draw the next digit or letter.
- The mad scientist's elements: Atomic numbers on test tubes. 5, 8, 8 are boron, oxygen and oxygen: B, O, O spells BOO.
- The organ's sheet music: Notes on a staff spell a word with the letters A to G, like C, A, G, E for CAGE. Print a note-name key nearby.
- Hidden in a sentence: A creature hides across the words of an ordinary line. “Hold the bow lightly” hides OWL.
- Stencil card: A card with holes cut in it. Lay it over a page of random letters and only the message shows through.
- Shadow match: Black silhouettes of a teapot, a key and a lantern. Match each to a lettered object on the shelf and read the letters.
- Tangled webs: Three spiders, three tangled threads. Follow each thread to the number at its end, smallest spider first.
- Keyboard shift: Every letter is typed one key to the right on a keyboard. GPH reads FOG.
- Mini crossword: Five short spooky clues. The letters in the circled squares spell the password.
- Anagram door sign: A sign whose letters rearrange into the instruction. A door marked SILENT is telling players to LISTEN at it.
- The vanishing tray: Show a tray of 12 spooky objects for 30 seconds, cover it and take one away. The missing object is the password.
- Symbol sudoku: A 4 by 4 grid where each row and column holds one bat, cat, ghost and moon. The symbols in the shaded squares translate to the code.
Want the full toolbox? Our escape room puzzle ideas cover ciphers, number locks and logic puzzles, each with a worked example.
4 Halloween escape room themes, spooky but never gory
Want an escape room horror theme your whole office can enjoy? Keep the six puzzles and change the story and props. Each of these works with the same cards.
The haunted office
After the Halloween party, the ghost of the company's very first receptionist locks the floor until the team finishes her to-do list.
Swap in: Desk lamps for candles, the supply closet for the pantry, colored folders for potion jars and a sticky note on a monitor for the mirror.
The mad scientist's lab
An experiment has escaped, the lab has sealed itself, and only the professor's notes can open the doors.
Swap in: Beakers of colored water for the jars, a lab notebook for the library book, and the element puzzle above as a bonus lock.
The witch's library
A witch has borrowed your team for the night and will only let you go once her spellbooks are back in order.
Swap in: A spellbook for the word search, ink bottles for the jars, a crystal ball for the mirror and a broom closet for the cellar.
The monster's dinner party
A very polite monster has invited the team to dinner, and the dining room stays locked until dessert is served.
Swap in: Table candles, sauce bottles for the jars, the dinner menu as the housekeeper's list and a place card for the mirror note.
The room names PANTRY, TOWER and CELLAR are answers, so keep them as rooms in your story, or rebuild the word search and the mirror message with your own. For a different season, browse these escape room themes.
Want someone to run it for your team?
Our virtual escape rooms are hosted live: the host sets the scene on the main call, then sends small teams into breakout rooms to solve linked puzzles, with scoring. They run about an hour on Zoom by default (Teams, Google Meet or Webex on request). The Psychiatrist is a murder mystery escape room, a good fit for October. Book about 2 weeks ahead.
Two hosted escape rooms, with today’s prices.
Rather play right now, alone or with a few people? Try our free online escape room. Filling the rest of October? Pair this room with 35 Halloween games for work and a pumpkin carving contest, and save our Christmas escape room for December. Planning a bigger event? Get a free quote.
