Are You Planning to Build Your First Escape Room?

You’re in the right place.

Maybe you already have the story in mind, the mysterious theme, the puzzles, the props, and how players will move from one clue to the next. You can almost see it come alive in your imagination.
But then reality hits: how do you make it all actually work, how to automate an escape room?

How do you make lights react to a solved puzzle?
How do you trigger sounds, videos, or unlock a door automatically?

That’s where most first-time builders hit the same wall, you suddenly need programming, electronics, and wiring. And if you’re not into those things, your dream room can quickly feel out of reach.

Why Many People Struggle at This Point

A lot of new escape room owners try home automation systems or hire a programmer. It seems like the logical step, until you realize it’s not really built for your kind of puzzles.
You end up with workarounds, limited features, and soon depend on someone else for every change. It’s expensive, time-consuming, and not flexible at all.

There should be an easier way.
And there is.

Realix ERC – The Escape Room Platform

The Realix Escape Room Controller (ERC) was built for exactly this purpose: to make escape room technology simple, visual, and fun to work with.

It’s not just software it’s a complete platform that includes:

• Server – the heart of the system, connecting everything together.
• Designer – the creative tool where you build the logic of your puzzles, sequences, and effects.
• Game Host – the control center during the game, where you monitor progress and assist players.
• Media Box – plays your sound and video effects on dedicated screens or devices.

You can install all of these on a PC with no Realix license required. You can run in Demo Mode, which has only one limitation: after starting the game, the room stops and resets after 10 minutes. There are no other restrictions in any way. A license is only needed when you are ready to test your full escape room and, of course, when you are ready to invite players.

Your First Steps

Once you’ve installed the Realix software, open the Designer.

In the Designer, best to create a new room based on the Realix Showcase . Then you have a pre-build project and can evaluate the different views.

It is not important to understand everything in detail just get the concept. You will find different tabs on which you can see how a room is build in different levels of definition.

• Main view contains basic definitions for your room and you add media files you want to work with.
• Room Setup – Defining devices. See here several devices already added. As you will mention the hardware is not found but is in first stage absolutely not necessary to have.
• Room Setup – Defining objects. In this stage you just start to define objects from your escape room such as lights, locks, sensors, buttons, RFID readers etc.
• Game Flow. In the Logic stage, you define the puzzle and effect flow within your escape room. Essentially, this is where you set the conditions that determine how the experience progresses from one puzzle to the next, and specify the sequences of effects that occur when certain events, such as a puzzle being completed, take place.

Note that it is possible to create scripts for more complex puzzles, although in most cases the standard tools are sufficient to control the flow and trigger effects, without the need for any scripting.

As an example, on the Game Flow page, select Intro Power Fail. This is what we call an experience, a short episode where the players simply watch something happen, with no new puzzles enabled. On the right side, select the On Activate box. At the bottom, you can see the sequence of effects that play: a rain video and a thunder sound. This experience ends with a thunder clap, a power failure, and all lights going out except for a small blue light.

Now select the Electric Cabinet Puzzle. On the right side, click the Game host Information tab. This is a great feature in the Game Host application. This information is shown when the puzzle is active, right when it is needed.

Next, select the Solved conditions tab. This puzzle requires four wires to be connected. The condition is defined here, easily built by choosing your objects from a list and selecting a condition, no scripting needed.

The last tab is Ready conditions. Here you define the state a door or puzzle should be in after room preparation. The Game Host will display an error message on startup if a ready condition is not fulfilled.

Lighting the Room – Hue and DMX

Lighting plays a huge role in the atmosphere of an escape room, and Realix supports both Philips Hue and DMX lighting systems.

For basic lighting — such as general room illumination, ambient color changes, or simple fades — Hue is ideal. It works through a standard Hue Bridge, and you can design smooth color transitions and patterns directly in the Designer.

If you want faster, more dynamic lighting effects, like flashing, strobing, or synchronized color changes with puzzles, then DMX is the better choice. DMX lighting connects through the SBUS/DMX Box, which is part of the Realix hardware family.

Using both Hue and DMX, you can easily combine cozy ambient scenes with dramatic puzzle effects, all within the same system.

When You’re Ready for Hardware

If you want to go one step further and connect real devices, that’s where the Realix hardware comes in.

The system uses the SBUS, a daisy-chain connection that carries both power and communication. That means no complicated wiring, just link your devices one after another.

You can start experimenting with the SBUS/DMX Box, which lets you test both SBUS communication and DMX lighting control.
Then, if you like to try more, you can add SBUS Pods:

• IO Pod to connect switches, sensors, or LEDs
• Control Pod great for driving locks or mechanisms
• RFID Pod to detect objects with RFID tags, perfect for interactive puzzles

A Small Step, A Big Beginning

Building your first escape room doesn’t have to start with cables or code.
It can start with imagination and a few clicks.

Realix ERC gives you a practical way to turn your ideas into something real, interactive, and fun to build.

Start simple. Learn by doing. And see how your story becomes an experience.