Creating Engaging Escape Rooms with Xerte
29 May 2025
This blog is written by Punsisi Somaratne from the Learning and Teaching Academy’s Digital Education team.
Playful learning and game-based learning are hot topics in an education context where digital escape rooms are becoming popular among students to engage in challenges while acquiring knowledge [1]. Students can compete in these games to improve their critical thinking while working collaboratively. It gives an authentic learning experience to the students, allowing them to become active in their learning journey compared to traditional learning.
Compared to escape rooms designed in physical spaces, digital escape rooms require less resources to design and deliver them. If the right digital tool is identified for designing the game, it can be cost-effective and available anytime. Regarding accessibility and inclusivity, students can have more opportunities to participate than those designed in the physical environment [2]. Google Forms, Microsoft OneNote, Microsoft Forms, Microsoft Sway and Xerte are digital tools that can be used to design digital escape rooms. In this blog, I share a simple example of a digital escape room designed in Xerte.
Xerte has a collection of interactive content that supports the creation of escape rooms. The example used for this blog illustrates how interactive content can be used to design the game. As long as you have a storyline and quizzes/puzzles planned out, it is not difficult.
To design the game, I used the following simple steps [3].
- Weave an interesting storyline – Write an interesting storyline that captures participants’ attention.
- Bring your story to life with graphics – Design suitable graphics that match the theme of the storyline. My secret weapon was ‘Microsoft Copilot’ (a generative AI chatbot), so I didn’t want to worry about copyright or not being an artist.
- Create your quizzes and clues – Use a variety of question types to create questions that will help the students achieve the activity aims.
- Test the waters – Get feedback from critical friends. Let them test your game and see whether it functions as expected!
- Polish and refine – Revise the content and functions based on the comments. Also, I recommend using the Xerte Online Tool theme (XOT) to improve the layout. The XOT is currently accessible only to Cardiff University (CU) staff, but it will soon be available to external users.
Engaging in escape room-based activities fosters teamwork, problem-solving, and critical thinking. The game can be applied to any subject or context. If you are interested in exploring more on this topic and looking at how it can be used in your context, contact Punsisi Somaratne or interested in XOT themes, contact Nan Zhang: ltacademy@cardiff.ac.uk. We are happy to help!
Our Support and Resources
- Building interactive learning resources in Xerte
- Escape room downable package
- The Learning and Teaching Academy’s CPD offer for Cardiff University staff, including “Introduction to playful learning and teaching” and “Creating interactive resources in Xerte” workshops.
- Join our fun and games in learning and teaching community, which provides opportunities for Cardiff University staff to share practice, develop ideas and articulate the arguments for playful approaches.