Escape room tools split roughly into two families: full game builders with rooms, inventories and scenes, and lock-first tools that add a digital challenge to a physical room. Lock Challenge is firmly the second kind, and that is the first thing to decide.
We do not publish EscapeMaker's prices or feature matrix here, because we cannot keep them accurate and getting them wrong would be worse than not saying anything. Use the right-hand column as a checklist on their own site.
| Criterion | Lock Challenge | What to check on EscapeMaker |
|---|---|---|
| Lock formats | 15, all free, including a real GPS position check, a generated sudoku and a Wordle | How many mechanics, and whether any of them verify a physical location |
| Build before signing up | Yes. Build, test and preview with no account; the draft stays on your device | Whether you can reach a working preview without registering |
| Player accounts | Never required | Whether players are asked to register or install anything |
| Free tier metering | Players and attempts are unlimited; the free tier is bounded by what you build (3 basic locks, single or multi-step, of up to 3 steps each), and a basic lock never expires | Whether the free tier counts players, attempts, experiences or days |
| What happens at the limit | On the free plan, the limit only stops new creation, and every basic lock stays open to players for good. After a paid plan lapses, the premium locks it styled close to players until you renew it; nothing is deleted | Whether links break, content is deleted, or the experience simply stops |
| Paid options | Two ways to pay: the Event Pass, paid once for one event, at $7.90 for 15 days or $9.90 for 30 days, or Pro at $14.90 per month, cancellable at any time | Whether pricing is per event, per seat, per month, or one time |
| Commercial use | Included with Pro | Whether the licence permits paid events and client work |
| Reveal formats | Text, a link or a download, action button, image, audio, YouTube video, sanitised HTML, next clue, or several at once | Whether files, audio and video are supported, and at which tier |
| Languages | English, French, Spanish, Catalan and Portuguese, player interface included, in the language the creator picks | Whether the player interface is translated, not just the marketing site |
| Answer security | bcrypt hashes, server-side verification, per-IP rate limiting, noindex player pages | Whether the answer appears anywhere in the page source |
| Chains | Ordered multi-step trails with per-step briefs, hints and error messages | Whether multi-step routes exist and what they cost |
| Team features | Not yet. Studio is announced and deliberately not on sale until it is built | Whether team seats and workspaces exist today or are on a roadmap |
One QR code per prop, glued where a padlock would have gone. The player scans, works with the props in front of them, and the challenge resets itself between groups. You keep your set and swap the puzzle whenever you want.
Chain locks into a route where each solve reveals the next clue, give every step its own brief, hint and failure message, add a countdown, and turn on competition mode so teams sign a leaderboard when they finish.
Sessions, solves, success rate, attempts and average solve time per experience, plus, on Pro, a recent-session list showing attempts and hints used. That is usually enough to find the step that actually stopped people.
Players are unlimited on every plan. Pro at $14.90 per month covers commercial use across as many rooms as you run, rather than a charge per player or per run.
If you want a full virtual escape room with scenes, an inventory system and a rendered environment that players explore on screen, a dedicated game builder will serve you better. Lock Challenge builds the locks, not the room.
