Transcribe to Survive

Transcribe to Survive

Educational Tabletop Escape Room

Year: 2025

Role: Industrial Designer

Type: Contract Project for Genome British Columbia's Geneskool Program

Designed in collaboration with Genome BC, this project designed and fabricated a tabletop escape room to teach high school students the complex mechanics of DNA transcription and translation through immersive play, accommodating diverse learning styles and fostering peer-to-peer engagement. By utilizing 3D printing and laser-cut joinery, the components remain easily replicable and repairable within any local makerspace, removing the logistical barriers of traditional educational hardware.

DESIGN QUESTION

How might we design a lightweight, portable, and interactive tabletop escape room to educate a group of 3-6 grade 10 students in the DNA transcription process through an interactive tabletop escape room?

Initial concept by Geneskool for a tabletop escape room.

The project started with an initial prototype pinned to the board above. This concept of a tabletop escape room went through several iterations of development throughout six months. It was proposed that most components be digitally fabricated through 3D printing and CNC laser cutting in order to ensure the entire kit can be easily replicated and produced on demand.

Flow diagram of game assets based on game walkthrough.

Alternative Board Types

(For better engagement and tactility)

Different options for how the clue board might operate include the 3 options:

1. Pop-up Board

Pro: This type of board has 3D pop-up elements to create a more immersive environment aligned with the narrative.

Con: It needs more custom fabrication; cannot be easily sourced out.

2. Pop-up Book

Pro: Creates a more immersive storytelling with 3D pop-up elements similar to the first concept. Unlike the former, however, this option allows for multiple environments to be accessed as the players move from one location to another in the narrative.

Con: It needs more custom fabrication; cannot be easily sourced out.

3. Dual Layer Board

Pro: Allows for 2 layers to be laminated together to create spaces where game assets may be fitted/removed as part of the actions involved in the game. It can be sourced from local game board fabricators.

Con: It is limited in its upper dimensions limit sizing and not being foldable which may present concerns with transport and storage.

Overall, the Dual Layer Board was selected due to its addition in tactile interactability with both 2D and 3D game elements.

Clue Board options

Typography

While the initial ideas around using Eurostile and Orbitron as the type to be used was indeed reminiscent of that in science fiction media, it did not scream modern biology and more of space and technology. BioSans was then used to highlight a more modern sans serif.

Colours

The following colour theme was used throughout the tabletop escape room and its assets.

For any multicoloured components (Couloured Vials and DNA Helix Tubes), colours from the rainbow ROYGB were used, where the mentioned order is also intentionally used for the sequencing of the couloured vials with shapes.

Clue Board

This is a dual-layer board that is made from laser-cut chipboard. The graphic print mimics the top view of the evil scientist's desk to which the players are looking over. On the desk, they can find different clues to help them escape the room the evil scientist had locked them in with poison circulating inside.

Puzzle Boxes

The first puzzle box contains the smaller second box and keychain inside. To unlock the box, players can use the code sequence from the vials of the clue board either top-down or reversed.

DNA/RNA Sequences

This holds the DNA/RNA sequences used to decode the final stages of the game. It helps to swap out DNA slides with RNA slides, depending on the need of the workshop facilitator. The sliding mechanism, unexpectedly also helped in visual alignment for players to not get lost amidst the sea of letters when finding the code, as was evidenced in the playtesting with the internal team.

Its appearance is based off a flow cell in a genome sequencer machine from lab photos used as reference.

A fully 3D-printed version using multicolour printing was then subsequently developed in order to produce two more classroom kits comprising of a total of 12 tabletop escape room sets.