Printable escape room · 7 puzzles · A4 and US Letter
The Midnight Carnival: a Halloween escape room you print.
The carnival that vanished in 1927 is back for one hour. The Ringmaster's ghosts are hunting for the iron striker of the Midnight Bell, and when the bell rings at midnight the gate closes on everyone inside for another ninety-nine years. The carnival's own ledgers, logs and receipts point to where the striker is hidden. Find it first and carry it out through the gate.
7.99 EUR
Instant download · A4 and US Letter PDFs · personal use only
The case has 7 puzzles in 3 acts, solved in order. You rebuild the gatekeeper's check-in ledger, seat six carved figures on the carousel, put a torn programme back in running order and work out which way the seized rings of a clockwork witness were facing. Then you match performers to the parcels they signed for and find which cabinet door each fortune sat behind. The seventh puzzle turns the answers to the first six into the place where the striker is hidden.
You need a printer, pencils and an eraser. Nothing gets cut, glued, folded or put in an envelope, and nothing needs the internet. Players write each answer on the Answer Tracker as they go, because the last puzzle needs all of them. The pages get written on, so print a fresh set for each new group. One purchase covers as many games as you like.
One person hosts. A big group can split into teams, each with its own printed set and Answer Tracker. The Host Guide covers printing, setting up and running the game. There is no built-in timer, so you can set a deadline or play without one. Hints come in three tiers for each puzzle, from a first nudge to a near solution, and the host reads out only as much as a stuck team needs. The Solutions pages explain every deduction and are worth reading aloud once the case is closed.
A free companion page for phones can take over part of the host's job. It tells the story of each exhibit, checks answers, reveals hints one at a time and saves your progress in the browser. The Host Guide has the link. Everything the game needs is printed in the kit, so you can also leave phones out of it.
A solver program checked every puzzle, and each one has exactly one answer that fits all of its clues.
What you download
Eight files, in both paper sizes.
- The game, 9 pages, for the players
- The Answer Tracker, a single page
- Hints, one page per puzzle
- Solutions, one page per puzzle
- The Lockmaster Key, all seven answers on one page
- The Host Guide, 2 pages
- Extras: invitations with lines to fill in, a door sign and a sign for the group photo
- Illustrated extras: the same pages on painted backgrounds, with the invitations as postcards, four to a sheet
The whole set comes twice, once sized for A4 and once for US Letter, so it prints without scaling wherever you are.
Is this the right one?
- You are hosting a Halloween party or a family game night and want something the whole table can do together.
- Your group would rather crack word puzzles and logic grids than sit through jump scares.
- Everyone playing reads English comfortably. The puzzles are built on English words.
If you would rather solve alone, the Halloween nonogram book has 50 picture puzzles in the same spirit.