Why the reset is the most expensive thing you cannot see
An escape room earns per session. How many sessions fit in a day depends on the play time plus the turnaround. The play time is fixed, so turnaround is the only thing you can actually change.
With a manual reset you lose ten to fifteen minutes: lap around the room, locks back, drawers shut, props in place, clock to zero. With an automatic reset it is one press and a quick check.
At four groups a day that yields an extra sellable session. That is the sum by which the technology pays for itself.
What can return automatically
Anything that switches electrically. Magnetic locks release and fall back to the starting position. Electric bolts shoot closed. Drawers with a pull magnet close themselves.
Anything that has a state. Light returns to the opening look, sound to the opening atmosphere, screens to the start screen, the clock to zero.
And everything in software: solved puzzles become unsolved again, hints reset, the log closed and written away so you can see later how the group did.
What cannot return automatically
Anything a human physically moved. A key taken out of a drawer is now somewhere else. A puzzle piece that had to be laid out is laid out. A book pulled off the shelf does not climb back.
There are two things you can do about that. You can solve it mechanically, and that is almost always possible, but it costs money and makes the room more complex. Or you put it as a short list on the game master screen.
We decide that deliberately per prop. Sometimes one action by the game master is cheaper and more reliable than the mechanism that would take it over. What counts is that the list is short and complete, so nothing gets forgotten.
How we build it
It starts with a home state that has been written down: for every driven component there is a record of how it should sit when the room is empty. That sounds obvious and is the part most often missing in existing rooms.
After that the reset is a sequence. First the things that have to be safe, then the locks, then the set, then light and sound. Not everything at once, because twenty relays switching at the same moment is a peak your power supply does not enjoy.
And there is a check on it: after the reset the system verifies that each component really is in the home state. If not, the screen says what is still outstanding instead of showing green while the drawer hangs open.
The reset as an emergency brake
The same button is also the answer to what the crew should do when something goes wrong mid-session. Room back to the home state, group restarts or moves on, done.
So there should also be a variant that does not end the session: reset the technology without resetting the clock. A group stuck on a jamming prop should not lose half an hour.
And after a power cut
The same thing should happen without anyone pressing anything. The system starts up, goes to the home state and reports on the screen that it is ready.
That is exactly the difference with a PC under the counter where someone has to launch a program by hand. We build systems that come back on their own after a power cut, because the outage rarely happens at a convenient moment.
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