Exploring Communication and Collaboration in Distributed AR Escape Rooms: Design Opportunities to Support Social Play

Escape rooms are traditionally in-person activities that foster collaboration. Augmented reality (AR) enables these experiences to extend into distributed (all participants separated) and hybrid settings (both co-located and remote) while retaining embodied, physically grounded play. This study examines how players communicate and collaborate in an AR escape room across different spatial configurations, and how design choices affect situation awareness, engagement, and social connection. We developed an AR application for distributed escape room play and evaluated it with 19 participants in eight groups. Findings show how participants dynamically appropriated multimodal communication channels and leveraged embodied interactions for coordination. However, they also faced challenges with maintaining situation awareness across spaces, balancing enforced collaboration with individual engagement, and ensuring equitable participation, particularly for remote or information-giving players. With these insights, we discuss design implications for creating more engaging and socially connected distributed and hybrid AR experiences through multimodal communication support, flexible embodied interaction, and equitable collaborative mechanisms.