Learning That Pops: StoryMaps Escape Room
10/4 Edit: Looking for an example Escape Room StoryMap? Check out the one I put together for GIS Day 2023 available here.
I feel into a GIS career in an extremely random way and most of my GIS skills are self-taught. While I found the blogs and tutorials helpful, for me the best way to learn the various tools was to just jump in and play. I would come up with some hairbrained challenge or idea and then strive to make it happen using the GIS tools and methodologies at my disposal. While the results themselves were silly and unpractical, the skills and knowledge I gained by creating them were not.
I then took that idea to the next level, and adopted a strategy of ‘tricking people into GIS’ at the large government agency I worked at. I had an internal blog that taught GIS skills and concepts in nontraditional ways, such as a Choose Your Own Zombie Adventure. Now that I’m at Esri I continue my ridiculousness. I have a reputation for turning in some well put together, but utterly absurd final projects in our internal training courses.
My number one recommendation for learning GIS tools is to get in there and play with them, but I have found that that concept can be hard for folks to grasp. The lack of direction can be hard for some, and others may struggle thinking about these tools in an unconventional manner. In this blog series, I am going to outline some of my favorite learning projects. Use these to inspire your own learning or teaching adventures.
StoryMap Escape Room
Way back when the “new” StoryMaps was a big change from StoryMaps Classic and I wanted a chance to learn how the new StoryMaps worked. I just needed a subject.
I wonder if I can make a StoryMap escape room?
I immediately fell in love with the idea and had to make it a reality. To date this one is still my favorite StoryMaps. Sadly, it no longer exists. 😭
Theme/Story
Real world escape rooms have a strong theme to really sucks escapees into the story. Your StoryMap escape room should be the same. Come up with a short story to explain the situation your viewers have gotten themselves into. Don’t be afraid to be super corny. Once you have your theme and story use these tips to help carry your theme throughout the StoryMap.
Use the StoryMap theme builder to incorporate colors and fonts that go with your theme.
Decorative images are another way to help sell your theme. I like to find free images at Unsplash or Pexels and then use a design tool like Canva to apply a filter to the images, so they all have a cohesive look.
Incorporate your theme colors EVERYWHERE. The StoryMap, maps, decorative images, and clues should all draw from your theme colors. This helps tie everything together.
Puzzles
Code breaking is an escape room staple that can easily be incorporated into a StoryMap. Caesar ciphers, substitution ciphers, and transposition ciphers are good options. You can also incorporate steganography, such as including a poem where certain words are italicized or capitalized. These words then spell out a hidden message.
Of course we need some interactive puzzles too. I created a map with thousands of points. Out of all those points, three contained secret messages hidden in their pop-ups. You can use Arcade to sneak in messages for only specific features.
Use clues in your StoryMap to help point your users to the correct points. For example, one of my hidden points was at the Pyramids of Giza. My StoryMap included images of postcards with messages. One of these postcards featured an image of the pyramids.
Another option is to make your map the key to decoding a message.
To set this up I created an empty hosted feature layer with a single letter field. I then edited the layer in the webmap and just randomly dropped points around the map. Each point got a letter of the alphabet. Next, I symbolized by unique symbols and choose my letter field. I gave each letter a random symbol. Hint: Play with the rotation to get more mileage per symbol option. Then I turned pop-ups off and saved the map. Then I Saved As to create a duplicate copy of my map. I turned on labels for this version and moved the label to 'center center'. Then I made the layer completely transparent. These two maps were added to a swipe block and voilà.
I then grabbed a screenshot of the symbols in the style panel and used Paint to create a message ‘ransom note style’ for my users to decode.
Clues
Due to the nature of StoryMaps, text or image based clues will work best. Though if you want to be extra fancy you can incorporate video and audio clues too. Journal entries, postcards, posters on a wall, and a book exert with handwritten notes on the margins, are all handy places to hide your clues. Remember, you don't need to display all your clues at once, your clues can instead lead to other clues.
GIS Skills Used
Escape Room Creator
- StoryMaps
- StoryMaps Theme Builder
- Design
- WebMaps
- Configuring Pop-Ups
- Arcade
- Symbolization & Labels
- Swipe Apps
- Publishing & Editing Data
- Creative Thinking
Escape Room Player
- Exposure to StoryMaps
- Navigating a WebMap and Exploring Pop-Ups
- Using a Swipe App
- Extracting Meaning from Map Symbology
- Problem Solving
Go forth and build some awesome StoryMap escape rooms! Also, I love puzzles and escape rooms, so please throw a link to your StoryMap Escape Rooms in the comments so I can check them out.
Shameless plug for my other blog series: Dashboards That Pop