The Whale Paradox

An escape room about the life of Robert Reginald Whale!

Promo art made with MidjourneyAI. This is purely placeholder art for the sake of the assignment.

About

Players: 2-4 Players
Game Type: Escape Room
Status: Finished - Never Implemented
Date: January 2024

Players have been invited to assist in preparing for the reveal of the museum’s new Robert R. Whale exhibit. Unfortunately, just before the exhibit, the curator realizes that their intern has lost some of the important artifacts from Robert’s life! Luckily, there is a time machine in another exhibit that can be used to send players back in time to retrieve them from the moments in time they originated from. They will have 60 minutes to collect as many artifacts as they can and set up before the exhibit opens to the public.

Players have 15 minutes in each of the four periods from Robert’s life to recover what artifacts they can before they must jump to a new time period. Players will be given a list of the artifacts to collect at each location. There will be at least one primary artifact available in each area, and occasionally bonus or supplementary items.

Game Process

The Whale Paradox is a game I created in collaboration with my fellow game designers: Lily Boughton, Dawn Sej, and Micah Visser. The four of us were tasked with creating an escape room for a local museum to promote a learning outcome of their choosing.

Our team created The Whale Paradox in collaboration with the Glenhyrst Museum in Brantford to celebrate the life and legacy of famous Canadian painter Robert Reginald Whale.

I was tasked with the creation of the second room, the studio. This room celebrates the creation of Robert Whale's art studio in Brantford, Ontario. Below is the design document for my room, as well as photos of my physical prototype.

On Mobile? Read Here!