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escape clock
The whole class is locked in one room. Every student has to answer a question correctly to earn a piece of the way out. Miss one and you get another. Nobody leaves until everybody does.
Questions are shuffled, so order does not matter. Misses use up extra questions, so load more questions than students. For a class of 21, aim for about 35.
In Google Sheets use File, then Share, then Publish to the web, and choose CSV.
Copy your rows out of a spreadsheet, click the first cell below, and press Ctrl+V.
| Question? | Answer? | Image? | Topic? |
|---|
When a student misses, you choose: a new question for the same student right away, or Back of the line so a random draw skips them until the others have gone. The question they missed goes back in the pile for someone else, and nobody gets the same question twice. If the answer was shown on screen before the miss, that question is retired instead, since the whole room has seen it.
The door animation always plays first. If the video file cannot be found, the game simply skips it. A video chosen with the file picker cannot be saved into your setup file, so type the filename instead if you want it remembered.
One file holds everything you have set up on this screen: your questions, the class list and who is here, the locks, the help rule, the escape clock, the timer, the sound and video settings, and the text sizes. Build it at home, bring the one file in, and there is nothing to set up again.
There is also a Save all button in the top bar once you are playing, for saving part way through a lesson. Reopening that file puts every escaped student back outside.
Any AI tool can write these for you. Three steps.
You are writing a question set for a classroom escape room review game.
The whole class is locked in one room. Each student must answer one question
correctly to earn a piece of the way out. A student who misses gets a
different question, so the set must hold more questions than there are
students.
OUTPUT
Give me exactly one CSV code block and nothing else. No commentary above or
below it. The first line must be this header, unchanged:
question,answer,image,topic
COLUMNS
question What students see.
answer The correct answer, shown to the teacher to check.
image A web address of a picture, or blank. Usually blank.
topic Optional short label. Blank is fine.
HOW MANY
About one and a half times the number of students. For a class of 21, write
35. Ask me how many students there are if I have not said.
DIFFICULTY
Every student has to get one right before the class escapes, including the
ones who find the topic hard. Make most questions solidly on-level and
answerable in under a minute, with a handful of easier ones mixed in. Avoid
long multi-step problems. Questions are shuffled, so order does not matter.
Every question must stand on its own. No question may depend on another, and
no two questions should be so similar that hearing one answered gives away
another, because missed questions are handed to other students later.
CSV RULES THAT MATTER
Wrap any field containing a comma in double quotes.
Write a double quote inside a quoted field as two double quotes.
Do not add extra columns or reorder them.
MATH
Math is rendered by KaTeX. Write LaTeX between dollar signs, with SINGLE
backslashes. CSV needs no escaping of backslashes.
Inline: Simplify: $8 + 3 \times 4$ answer: $20$
Centered: Add: $$\frac{1}{3} + \frac{1}{4}$$ answer: $$\frac{7}{12}$$
Escape a literal dollar sign as \$ and a percent sign as \%, for example
$\$42$ and $35\%$.
Stick to \frac \times \div \le \ge \ne \pm \pi \approx \sqrt{} \text{} and
superscripts and subscripts. No align environments, no \newcommand.
EXAMPLE OF THE EXPECTED SHAPE
question,answer,image,topic
Simplify: $8 + 3 \times 4$,$20$,,Order of operations
Add: $$\frac{1}{3} + \frac{1}{4}$$,$$\frac{7}{12}$$,,Fractions
What is $25\%$ of $84$?,$21$,,Percent
"A $\$60$ jacket is marked down $30\%$. Find the sale price.",$\$42$,,Percent
Wait for my next message before writing anything.
The builder tab shows a live preview of the math, so you can check it before class.
| CSV columns | question, answer, image, topic. Only question and answer are required. This is the same file Four in a Row, Sink the Ship, and Summit Climb use. |
| Other files | Ladder files load too, with the wrong-answer columns ignored. Quiz Show files are flattened into one list, with the category as the topic. |
| How many | More than your class size. Every miss uses up a question, so about one and a half times the number of students is comfortable. For 21 students, about 35. |
| Order | Does not matter. Questions are shuffled into a pile at the start of each run. |
| Difficulty | Everyone has to get one right before the class escapes, so keep most questions answerable in under a minute. |
$ ... $ | Inline math. Simplify $3 + 4 \times 5$ |
$$ ... $$ | Math on its own centered line, good for fractions. |
| Backslashes | Write them singly. The game works out which style a file uses, so do not mix single and doubled backslashes in one file. |
| Picking a student | Press Draw a name for a random pick, or tap any name in the class list. Then press Open a question. |
| Correct | The student is out. Their piece drops into the lock the class is working on, and their name moves to the Out list. |
| Missed it | You choose. New question, same student keeps them up with a fresh question. Back of the line sits them down, and Draw a name skips them until everyone else still inside has gone. |
| The missed question | Goes back in the pile for someone else. Nobody sees the same question twice. If you showed the answer before marking the miss, that question is retired instead. |
| Help from a classmate | Appears once a student has missed as many as the setting allows. A classmate can talk it through, but the answer has to come from the student. |
| Let them through | Your override, after a miss. Gives the student their piece without a correct answer. It always asks first. |
| Misses stay private | The room screen only ever shows who is still inside and who is out. Miss counts are kept in the save file for you, never on screen. |
| The locks | The students here are split across the locks. Each lock opens when its last piece goes in. The door is always last, and it opens when the final student is out. |
| Escape clock | Starts when the first question opens. Pause it for interruptions, or add a minute. It also pauses while Setup is open. |
| Time running out | For show, the clock turns red and counts the time over. Fails at zero, the room stays locked, with a Keep going anyway button so the review can still finish. |
| The video | Put escape.mp4 in the same folder as this file. It plays after the door opens. If it is missing, the door animation plays on its own. |
| Save all | Downloads one file with your questions, the class list, who is out, the pile, the clock, and every setting. Drop it on the same spot you would drop a question file and it restores the lot. |
| Reusing between classes | Open the file, fix who is here, then press New run. Everyone goes back inside and the pile is reshuffled. |
| + - | Resize whatever is on screen. There are sliders for the room, the class list, and the question. |
| D | Draw a name |
| Space | On the room, open a question for the picked student. On a question, show the answer. |
| P | Pause or restart the escape clock |
| T | Start or stop the question timer, which also starts and stops the music |
| M | Start or stop the music by hand |
| F | Full screen on or off |
| Esc | Cancel the question with nothing spent. It goes back on top of the pile. |