How to use Heat-Reactive Pens in your Next Adventure
This month's gambit is one that I have used in a couple of adventures now. It's Elemental Heat Reactive pens, otherwise known as Frixion pens!
Frixion pens are erasable pens (they have fine tipped markers too!), which is the key behind this special effect.
It's a little known fact, but erasable ink isn't actually erasable. It's heat reactive, which means that it disappears when exposed to heat. The reason we use it in erasable pens is because the friction from using the eraser generates enough heat to make the ink disappear! To make this effect work, you only need to expose your message written in erasable ink to a heat source (I've seen everything including candles, lighters, ovens and even hair dryers!) to make the ink disappear.
There are a couple of ways to use these pens in your adventures. You can make a puzzle where you use heat to make the ink DISAPPEAR, OR you can you make the ink REAPPEAR! Just expose your invisible message to a cold source (like putting it in a freezer) and the message will reappear like magic!
Here are a couple of ways to use disappearing ink:
You can camouflage a secret message by writing the message with regular pen and then covering it with the Frixion pens. When you instruct the players to use the heat source, it will disappear and leave the actual message, like in the example above.
You can also write your message in regular pen, and then surround it with irrelevant text in the Frixion pen ink. Once you instruct the player to use the heat source, the Frixion ink disappears and the actual important information is left. I did this in a recent adventure where the actual information was a simple chemical equation the player needed to solve the final puzzle. I surrounded the real equation with other chemical information to make it look like they had to solve a crazy complicated equation! In the text, I wrote "… if you use the right tools on the formulas, it may help to clear your head…" This puzzle came with a lighter (along with some vials), and the puzzle’s clue told them they needed to use it on the paper to make the nonsensical stuff disappear!
Here are some ways to use reappearing ink:
You can write a critical message needed to complete the game using the Frixion pens, then use a heat source to make it disappear. Give the players the paper at the beginning of the game, and tell them to put it in the freezer. Then if your adventure/escape room is around an hour long, near the end of the adventure, clue to them that they need to retrieve the message from the freezer and the message will have appeared! Your message will need about 1 hour to reappear, so plan your adventure accordingly!
You can write your message in the Frixion pens, then use a heat source to make the message disappear. Give the players the page with the message on it and give them a can of cooling spray (in the gif above, I used compressed dusting spray, but the cooling spray should work the same and will be safer!) EDITORS NOTE: Be aware that “canned air” is flammable. Just make sure you’re doing this in a safe area and keeping the air away from flame. When they spray the message, it will reappear as if by magic! If you don’t wan’t to use the spray, you can always put the paper in the freezer for a few minutes.
I hope that I’ve helped you learn a thing or two about Heat Reactive pens! Let us know if you've used this "Wow! Moment" before or how you would use it in your own adventures! We'd love to hear all about it at r/ConstructedAdventures or in the Discord Channel. Also, if you are on Instagram, tag us @ConstructedAdventures! We'd love to see all the cool things you are doing in your own adventures!
Until next time,
Happy Adventuring!