Alien is an icon of the sci-fi horror genre and it owes its status to the legendary design work of H. R. Giger. He was responsible for the very original xenomorph and much of the set design throughout franchise. Alien and its sequels have a distinct visual aesthetic that inspired Wired_Workshop to build this escape room puzzle.

Wired_Workshop attended the Maker Alliance Summer Camp event in Kentucky and was tasked with contributing a puzzle to that event’s ’80s-themed escape room. Being a massive Alien fan, Wired_Workshop chose to borrow the design aesthetic and some of the effects from that franchise. The puzzle itself takes sequences from the films and even has a Predator Easter egg, since both franchises exist within the same cinematic universe.

This project required several different fabrication techniques, including 3D printing, CNC routing, and welding. An Arduino Mega 2560 board controls LEDs and monitors user input through a keypad, a huge switch lever, and glowing canisters that the player must lift. There’s also a fog machine to produce a smoke effect, driven by an Arduino Nano. Because this is a puzzle, the player has to complete those in the right order by following the available clues. And because this is just one part of an escape room, solving this puzzle provides a clue for the next puzzle developed by another attendee.

Be sure to watch Wired_Workshop’s full video on this project to learn about all the details and to see the various Alien references. Eagle-eyed viewers should be able to spot some homages to specific scenes and props from the films.