The Editor is where you build a game. Everything that makes one escape room work — its objectives and hints, the screens players see, the props and locks in the room, the logic that drives the puzzles, and the media that sets the mood — is configured here, one game at a time.
This is the design side of ARC. You build a game in the Editor, then you run it on the control page. The Editor is for owners, managers, and builders setting a room up; it is not the day-to-day screen staff use while a game is running.
Game settings vs. business-wide settings
The Editor configures one game. Things that belong to your whole location — lobby lighting, opening and closing schedules, the hardware connections your gear rides on, and the shared media library — live in System instead. Several features (devices, automations, scenes, media) exist in both places; each page explains the difference and links to its counterpart.
Creating a game
Open the Editor from the top navigation. To start a new room from scratch:
- Select New Game.
- Enter a name in the Create Game dialog — the name shown wherever this game appears.
- Confirm with Create Game. The new game opens on its General tab, ready to configure.
From there you work through the tabs, setting the game’s basics, adding objectives, and building out the rest of the room.
Build in Testing
Set a new game’s status to Testing while you work. Runs in Testing behave exactly like real games but are not recorded, so you can rehearse freely. Switch to Active when you are ready for real groups.
Importing a game
You can also start from an existing game shared as a .arc file — a portable backup of a complete game.
Choose Import Game and pick the .arc archive. ARC previews what is inside and flags any conflicts (a game with the same name, media files, or connections that already exist). You decide whether to overwrite or keep what you have, and you resolve any connection and media dependencies the imported game relies on. This is how you copy a room between machines or restore one from a backup.
The Editor tabs
A game is configured across a row of tabs. Each has its own page in this section.
| Tab | What it does |
|---|---|
| General | Name, duration, status, accent color, control image, hint behavior, audio defaults, and speech. |
| Objectives | The puzzles and tasks players solve, their saved hints, groups, and auto-complete. |
| Displays | The screens players see — countdown, hints, and media — and how they bind to hardware. |
| Devices | The props, locks, and sensors inside this room, and their reset behavior. |
| Panels | Named control-page panels that group device states for a puzzle area. |
| Automations and Scenes | In-room logic that reacts to objectives, timers, and devices — plus on-demand scenes and the Quick Action buttons that run them. |
| Variables and Constants | The game’s memory — values automations can read, compute, and change. |
| Cameras | Camera views assigned to the game and its objectives (Vision add-on). |
Game status
Every game has a status that decides how it behaves and whether it appears for staff. You set it on the General tab.
| Status | What it means |
|---|---|
| Active | The game is live. Sessions run normally and are recorded to your history and Insights. |
| Testing | The game runs normally, but nothing is saved. Use it while building or rehearsing. |
| Retired | The game is hidden from the control page and Dashboard. Its configuration is kept, but staff can’t run it. |
Retire rather than delete
When a room goes out of rotation, set it to Retired rather than deleting it. The build is preserved, so you can bring it back — or export it — later.
Exporting and importing
A game can be saved out to a .arc archive and brought back in elsewhere. This is how you move a room between machines, share a build, or keep a backup.
- Export game writes a
.arcarchive containing the game’s configuration and its game media. You can optionally include the shared media and connections the game depends on, so the archive is self-contained. - Import game reads a
.arcarchive, previews conflicts, and lets you overwrite or keep existing items and resolve dependencies (see Importing a game above).
Where to go next
- General — set the game’s name, duration, status, and core behavior.
- Objectives — build the puzzles and their hints.
- Displays — the screens players see.
- The control page — run the game you’ve built.