Students at Texas Tech University (TTU) have been participating in a 20-minute escape room challenge based in the university’s library.

The escape room was created and hosted by associate librarian Shelley Barba and digital services librarian Heidi Winkler. The duo based the room on a script provided by the University of Essex in England, which originally devised the idea and acted as a liaison with TTU.

The room is designed to teach its players about Open Access – the right to use free, online research in a digital environment.

Barba said, “I really like to have games and puzzles here at the library for students to have fun, and so it’s not always an intimidating place.”

The challenge revolves around two separate paths named gold and green. The players must decide which path to take with different consequences and different storylines for each one.

The gold path’s storyline represented an embargo, where time had to be stopped before the group could carry on with their journey. The green path’s storyline represented an article processing charge, where the group had to come up with the money to pay the Queen before continuing.

After completing their chosen path, the players had to look for clues, solve puzzles, open locks and find data in order to complete their ultimate goal of putting an end to the Queen of Knowledge’s evil reign.