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Morse Code Escape Room

You wake in an old coastal radio station with the tide rising. Five locked doors stand between you and the lifeboat, and each opens only when you read the Morse behind it: a radio, a signal lamp, a notebook, knocks through a wall and a keypad. Every game is generated fresh, so there is always a new station to escape.

The silent signal station

You wake in an old coastal radio station as the tide rises. SOS became the international distress signal in 1908, and this station kept watch for it for decades. Five locked doors stand between you and the lifeboat. Read the Morse behind each one.

Every game is new. Hints are there when you need them, but each one adds 30 seconds.

How to play

  • The radio room: a word, heard. Play it again, or slower.
  • The lamp room: a word flashed on a small signal lamp. If your system asks for reduced motion, it is drawn as a timed strip instead: the same flashes, to scale.
  • The operator's desk: a word in pencil with some of the gaps between letters smudged away, so it can be split more than one way. Any real word that fits the signal opens the door.
  • The locked store: someone knocks through the wall. A light tap is a dot, a heavy thud is a dash.
  • The last door: the code is on a note, but the keypad's keys are labelled only in Morse, in a shuffled order.
  • Stuck? Each room has two hints, but each one adds 30 seconds to your time. The code chart is free. Your best time is kept on this device.

The history in the story

The station's story is fiction, but its facts are real. SOS was agreed as the international distress signal at the Berlin radiotelegraph convention of 1906 and came into force in 1908. Ships called for help in Morse on 500 kHz. On the night of 14 to 15 April 1912, Titanic's wireless operators sent CQD, the older Marconi distress call, and later SOS. Morse distress watch at sea ended on 1 February 1999, when the Global Maritime Distress and Safety System came fully into force.