Context
Starting in 2019, I designed and developed the complete technical ecosystem equipping several commercial escape game rooms - from electronics and firmware to the administration interface for the game master.
The Challenge
Escape games operate in a tough commercial environment: dozens of players a day, 7 days a week, with no on-site technical staff. Every failure means a refund and a bad review. The system had to be robust enough to run indefinitely without intervention, yet flexible enough to meet the creative needs of the room designers.
Beyond reliability, the project had to be delivered on a tight budget - custom electronics were necessary precisely because off-the-shelf solutions were either too expensive or too inflexible.
The Solution
I built the system in layers:
Hardware - Designed and manufactured 15+ types of PCBs for various custom customers covering game logic, motor control and player interaction - Prototyping, testing and assembly of all boards in-house
prototypes of control boards deployed in room](/static/images/pcb-escape1.jpg) Prototypes of control boards deployed in a commercial room
Firmware - Development of all embedded firmware in C++ (mainly RaspberryPi, Atmel) - Board communication via Ethernet with REST API
HMI (player side) - Development of several player touch interfaces in Qt (C++) - Designed for zero-maintenance, zero-update operation
prototype PCB + Raspberry Pi](/static/images/pcb-escape2.jpg) Rapid prototype combining custom PCB, Raspberry Pi and display
Administration - Centralized web interface for game master: room status monitoring, event triggering and diagnostics
Impact
- Zero breakdowns, zero bugs in all rooms deployed over several years of commercial operation
- Several rooms in daily operation until 2025
- Non-technical staff able to operate and manage the rooms autonomously via the administration interface
Technical stack
C++, Qt, STM32, Atmel, Raspberry Pi, KiCad, Python, PHP, JavaScript