Photo by Scott Sobocinski Kenley Guetter, Elloray Eichten and Samara Smith search for clues inside an ice fishing house at the Wabasso Public Library’s escape room event this week.

WABASSO — While it wasn’t actually on a lake, the portable ice fishing house set up in the Wabasso Public Library had plenty of realistic details.

Inside there was a sleeping bag, a folding table and plenty of fishing gear. What made the scene different was that it was also full of hidden clues and puzzles.

This week, the Wabasso library held a very Minnesotan escape room challenge in the fish house as an after-school activity. Groups of kids worked together to “Escape From the Fish House” within a 45-minute time limit.

Library Director Scott Sobocinski said this is the second time the Wabasso library has held an escape room challenge. The first one they organized was back in October.

“We were amazed at how much of a hit it was,” he said.

Escape room games are usually set in a themed location. The fall escape room had a Halloween theme, and this time they went with an ice fishing theme, Sobocinski said.

Community members contributed the ice fishing house and the props inside, Sobocinski said.

“Pretty much all of the things they can interact with, we asked for things from people,” he said. “The fishing poles, they’re mine.”

The backstory for the winter escape room was that players were locked in the fish house, and the ice was starting to crack underneath them, Sobocinski said. The players needed to solve the puzzles in the room in order to escape in time.

“We had one team solve it in about 25 minutes, so that’s the record this time,” he said.

It can be a challenge to plan out all the different clues for the escape room, Sobocinski said. Organizers tried to make sure the puzzles linked together, so they had to be done in order to escape the room. The puzzles also needed to be accessible for kids of different age levels.

“We like to get creative,” Sobocinski said of the clues. For example, players could find a bunch of cardboard cutouts of fish inside the ice house.

“On the back of the fish were words that were possible combinations to a locked cooler,” he said.

Another puzzle involved opening a wooden box held together with screws. Players had to find a screwdriver hidden inside a container of fish batter in order to open the box, Sobocinski said.

The fish house escape room went over well with kids, Sobocinski said.

“They love it,” he said. “We’ve had some ask when we’re going to do this again.”