129 - Room Escape Artist: Year End Reflections

The Divas chat with Lisa and David Spira about 2020 in escape rooms, and what's in store for Room Escape Artist in 2021!

This was recorded in front of a live audience! Huzzah! And you will be able to hear some of those people near the end as we all question REA about the escape room industry. So it’s unedited and given to you raw!

Also, there are minor spoilers in this podcast for Errol’s game Present Quest, so if you intend on playing it, you should do so first!

One last thing, even though we mentioned video, it didn’t record as we wanted, so this podcast is audio only. Here, however, is a wonderful screenshot of REA’s webpage when you search for eggs:

2020REA.png


Posted on January 2, 2021 .

128 - The Infinite Escape Room Podcast!

Now, before you listen to our podcast, you should check out The Infinite Escape Room Podcast which we reference all through the episode! We have a wonderful time with Mike and Ben.

Escape the Cat Cafe, featuring the Room Escape Divas

Then, come and listen to our podcast! Mike and Ruby and their baby join us as well! Huzzah for a full complement of hosts! And Mike and Ben of TIER are brilliant! ^_^

At the moment, we do not have a youtube video ready, but one is recorded, so if you are interested, you can come back later to see them all in their glory!

Posted on December 18, 2020 .

127 - Escape Rooms on Mobile

In today's episode, we talk about escape games you can play on your phone with Tammy Dorn and Andrew Ow. They both work at the indie-game company Haiku Games and discuss their design philosphy when creating escape rooms for the mobile phone.

Posted on December 11, 2020 .

03 - Designer Spotlight Video: Scarlet Envelope

Hello! We released two videos this week! Our latest designer spotlight is with Scarlet Envelope, and we chat to Lisa Levina & Anna Lysova about their subscription take home puzzle game!

We had a lot of fun with Lisa and Anna, because they’re hilarious!

Learn also about Clue Cards, their holiday themed Postcard and Greeting card series which has reached it’s funding goal on Kickstarter!

Posted on November 20, 2020 .

02 - Designer Spotlight Video: An Escape Room in 18 Cards

Allo, enthusiasts! Here’s our second video as we focus on designers.

Today, we have Jonathan Chaffer who has create an escape room in only 18 cards with Grand Gamers Guild. The game is called The Kringle Caper and is only available on the Grand Gamers Guild website.

Listen in as we talk to Jonathan and Marc Specter (of Grand Gamers Guild) about the challenges of making an escape room card game with only a few cards.

Posted on November 18, 2020 .

125 - A Critical Look at Online Escape Rooms

Manda and Errol are joined by Lee Ballan, designer of The Pyramid, and they talk about all the things they like and don’t like about online escape rooms. If we were going to do a click-baity title, we would have named this “EVERYTHING WRONG WITH ONLINE ESCAPE ROOMS", but then we would have needed to put it in list form with motion graphics, and we didn’t have time for that! :D

Posted on November 13, 2020 .

01 - Designer Spotlight Video: Nick Moran of "Spectre & Vox"

We have something new we’re starting, enthusiasts! We are going to do youtube Designer Spotlights focusing on specific games!

Our first one is with Nick Moran of Spectre & Vox. Their kickstarter was funded in three hours, and they are well into their stretch goals!

If you want to hear the ins and outs about this game, tune in! Or tube in. I have no idea what young people say when they want others to watch their youtube vids.

Posted on November 6, 2020 .

124 - Survivor and Escape Rooms with Peih-Gee Law

In our latest episode, Manpans and Errol chat to Peih-Gee Law about Survivor (which Errol knows nothing about) and escape rooms (which Errol knows too much about.)

Peih-Gee Law is most well known for being a fan favourite contestant on the reality show Survivor, where she played first in Survivor China in 2007, and then again in a returning All Star season Survivor Second Chance. She calls Survivor “the greatest immersive game in the world”.In her professional life as a private jeweler, Peih-Gee has extensive experience with organizing and exhibiting at trade shows, as well as hosting, producing and facilitating large corporate events.She has also recently launched PeihGeePlays– an online community where she hosts live stream Survivor Game Nights on Twitch featuring different reality stars as well as organizes events and games for fans in the community. Peih-Gee is an ardent fan of escape rooms and immersive entertainment. She writes reviews for Room Escape Artist’s Hivemind collective and loves being an ambassador for the escape room community.

Social media is @peihgee on Instagram and Twitter.

Posted on October 30, 2020 .

123 - Escape Jams with Jeb Havens

Manpans and Errol talk to Jeb Havens (jebhavensgames@gmail.com) about Room Escape Jams! Listen in to learn about creating an escape room in a day.

Also, if you’d like to watch us talk, we’re also on youtube with very minimal production effort:


Jeb Havens is a game & interactive designer living in Los Angeles. He has been professionally designing games and software since 2003, working for companies such as Google, Electronic Arts, and YouTube. He has worked across a wide range of platforms, including mobile phones, gaming consoles, and Facebook. And he has designed games for big brands such as Disney, Marvel, Samantha Bee, SimCity, DoorDash, Spore, and Playboy.

Jeb has over 10 years of experience leading game design workshops for conferences and private companies, for groups as large as 200 participants, and he has given a variety of lectures about game design and cognitive science.

Jeb is also a multi-award-winning board game designer, a professionally-published puzzle writer, an international recording artist, and an Off-Broadway playwright. He has a love of travel and other cultures, and has backpacked through 50 different countries around the world.


Talked about in this episode:

This Sunday, October 19th, Spooky Virtual Escape Jam Event Link:
https://roomescapeartist.com/virtual-escape-jam/

Escape Jam Facebook Group:
https://www.facebook.com/groups/2043198462627016/

Jeb Haven Games:
www.jebhavensgames.com

Jeb Haven’s Newest Crowd-Funded Party Game:
www.YouDontKnowMyLife.com

Posted on October 16, 2020 .

121 - Cultural Bias in Escape Rooms

Huzzah! Manda and Errol interview Shannon McDowell, a researcher at the Brantford Games Network Lab, about her latest paper on Cultural Bias in Escape Rooms.

Furthermore, she is collecting more data from enthusiasts now about online games! If you are reading this now and have done a lot of online escape rooms, fill out the survey!

And in our latest effort to make our podcasts also visual, here is the above podcast on YouTube!


Posted on September 4, 2020 .

119 - The ASPMC: An Interview with Kellian Pletcher

All of the Divas are present as we interview Kellian Pletcher of Green Door Labs about her latest successfully funded Kickstarter that was just made available: The American Society for the Protection of Magical Creatures.

Listen in as we talk about puzzle hunts, world building, Club Drosselmeyer, and designing online puzzle games.

And for the first time, we have our podcast on YouTube! We were all in different places, so we did a Zoom recording of everyone!


Posted on July 24, 2020 .