Your First Puzzle — Combination Lock

A puzzle in EscapeMaker is a mini-game overlay. It is not placed directly on the scene canvas like a sprite — instead, it lives in the Puzzle Panel and is summoned at runtime by an event. When the player triggers the event, the puzzle appears on top of the current scene in a modal overlay. The rest of the game is dimmed and frozen until the puzzle is dismissed or solved.

This separation — puzzle configuration in the Puzzle Panel, puzzle triggering via events — means the same puzzle could theoretically be opened from multiple different objects. It also means that creating a puzzle doesn't automatically put it in your game: you always need a trigger object and an event to make the puzzle reachable.

The Puzzle Panel

The Puzzle Panel is the tab labeled Puzzles in the right panel. It lists every puzzle in your game, regardless of which scene you're currently editing. A puzzle is a game-wide resource, not tied to any single scene.

1. Click the Puzzles tab in the right panel.
2. Click Add Puzzle.
3. A dropdown appears listing all 9 Puzzle Types. Choose Combination Lock.
4. A new entry appears in the puzzle list with a default name like "Puzzle 1".
5. Click the name field and rename it to something descriptive — for this tutorial use SafeCode.

Click the gear icon on the "SafeCode" entry (or click the entry itself) to open its configuration panel. You'll see the following settings:

Style

Controls how the lock looks and how the player interacts with it. Four options:

For this tutorial, leave it on Dial.

Digits

How many characters make up the code. Range 1–8, default 3. Each additional digit increases difficulty significantly. Set this to 3.

Solution

The correct answer the player must enter. Type 742. This is case-sensitive for Alpha style. For Dial/Keypad/Buttons the engine only uses the numeric characters.

Show Clue

Optional text shown above the lock in the overlay. This is a hint to the player — for example: The year on the painting… Leave it blank for now, or add a clue if you have one.

Reset on Wrong

If checked, all dials/digits reset to zero whenever the player submits an incorrect code. This increases tension but can frustrate players on longer codes. Leave it unchecked for your first puzzle.

Image

Optional background image for the puzzle overlay — useful to place the lock visually inside a safe door, a padlock, or a custom frame. Leave blank for now to use the default overlay style.

The puzzle needs something for the player to click. This is the trigger object — a sprite placed on your scene that represents the physical object the player examines to reach the puzzle. The puzzle and the trigger object are separate things: the puzzle is a game-wide overlay, the trigger is a scene-specific sprite.

1. Navigate to the scene where you want to place the safe.
2. Use Insert → Sprite and upload or choose a safe image from your asset library. Place it somewhere visible on the canvas.
3. With the sprite selected, look at the Property Panel (right panel, Properties tab).
4. Set the Name field to safe.
5. Make sure Interactive is toggled ON. (This is on by default for sprites, but worth double-checking — only interactive objects can receive click events.)

With the safe sprite selected on the canvas, open the Event tab in the right panel. Click Add Event.

Configure the Event

Click Save.

Now you need to decide what happens when the player enters the correct code. In EscapeMaker, a solved puzzle fires the Puzzle Solved trigger — you hook your reward logic into that trigger.

First, prepare the reward: place a key sprite somewhere on your scene, name it reward_key, and in the Property Panel set its Visibility to Hidden. The key is on the scene but invisible until the safe is opened.

Now, with the safe sprite still selected, click Add Event in the Event tab again. (You can also click an empty area of the canvas first to deselect, then add a scene-level event — both approaches work for a Puzzle Solved trigger.)

Configure the Solved Event

Optionally add more actions in sequence — for example, play a sound effect (Play Sound) or show a brief message (Show Dialogue with no speaker, just the text "The safe clicks open!"). Actions run top-to-bottom in the order listed.

Click Save.

Click the Test button in the toolbar (or press F5). Your game opens in a new browser tab using the built-in player.

1. Navigate to the scene containing your safe sprite.
2. Click the safe — the Combination Lock overlay should appear over the dimmed scene.
3. Enter a wrong code. The dials should stay in position (since "Reset on wrong" is unchecked).
4. Enter the correct code 742 and confirm. The overlay closes and the reward key sprite should appear on the scene.

Close the test tab to return to the editor. If something didn't work as expected, check these common issues: