The Divas discuss their trips to Montreal and they also debate which has the greater rooms: Montreal, Toronto, or Ottawa? Contentious topics!
Mike and Ruby at Escaparium!
76 - A Thousand Escape Rooms with Sera and Sharan
Over a thousand escape rooms, wow! The Divas chat with Sera Dodd and Sharan Gill, also known as S2, about escape rooms enthusiasm, game and puzzle design, and ERIC, an escape room conference in the UK.
And Manda got a chance to meet up with them!!
75 - 13 Rules For Escape Room Puzzle Design
The Divas get together to discuss Errol’s post 13 Rules for Escape Room Puzzle Design.
You may want to read the document first, because we reference it a lot!
74 - Room Escape Artist and their Amazing Friends
Errol was in Los Angeles and he had a wonderful time. In this episode, he meets up with a number of escape room enthusiasts and interviews as many as he can. He also gets distracted a lot.
Here is a list of people interviewed:
David and Lisa Spira of Room Escape Artist
Amanda Harris
Brian and Cam
Belle
Photo taken at Stash House
73 - Escape Room Software with David Hernly of M3
In this episode, Errol gets into a nerd competition with David Hernly. They also talk about escape room software and David's own Mythric Mystery Master, a software platform for running escape rooms!
72 - The Escape Room Industry in Asia with Yolanda Chiu
Escape Rooms pretty much started in Asia, and their market has matured over the years. The Divas have a great chat with Yolanda Chiu of Asia Escape Game. She's from Taiwan and has been doing research on the escape room industry in Asia. Manda first met her when Yolanda gave a talk about at Up The Game 2018.
71 - Errol Visits Boston Escape Rooms!
Errol and his family went to Boston! There, they met up with some other enthusiasts (Lisa and David Spira, James Cobalt), checked out Make Way for Ducklings statues, and also did eight escape rooms. It was an expensive trip but fun! Listen in as Errol talks and talks and talks about his experiences with Boston Escape Rooms.
You may not know, or care, but Errol has a daily webcomic about his life. He's quite the narcissist.
70 - Russell Leasure on being an Excellent Game Master
In this podcast, all the Divas chat with Russell Leasure, who will be holding a seminar at Transworld's Escape Room Conference called How to Unlock Your Game Master's Potential.
Listen in as we discuss hiring good game masters, being a good game master, and ghosting.
Next time, we'll get a cool picture of Russell doing actual game mastering. :D
69 - Escape Rooms in Conventions with Delaney Anderson
Delaney Anderson and her crew of Portable Escapes run escape rooms at different comic conventions! Listen in as Manda and Errol discuss with her the ins and outs of running an escape room for the geeky masses.
68 - Escape Rooms in Schools and Libraries with Steph Frey
Stephanie Frey hosts the Games in Schools & Libraries podcast here on Inverse Genius, and we got the chance to talk about her work creating escape rooms in libraries, doing an escape room camp, and using escape rooms to help educate children!
67 - The Future of Escape Room Narrative
Manpans got a chance to attend a lot of seminars at Up the Game in the Netherlands. She attended Jasper Wille's seminar on "Meaningful Choice" and immediately decided to have him as a guest on our podcast.
Jasper Wille is a narrative designer and has been active in the world of Real Life Experiences since the early arrival of Escape Rooms in Western-Europe.
Listen in as they discuss the future of escape room narrative.
66 - Musings on the Escape Room Industry
Having finished her whirlwind tour of the Netherlands, Manpans rounds up her thoughts on the Up the Game conference she attended. And Errol went to visit his parents in Calgary and did seven rooms over the long weekend.
Listen in as they ruminate on narrative, puzzle difficulty, and Manda's drinking habits.
65 - Attending Up The Game
Manda Whitney was just in the Netherlands attending the escape room conference Up The Game! She got a chance to talk to a whole host of people, and for your reference, we've included a timeline for the very first time. We should be doing this for all of our podcasts.
0:00:25 - DAY 1
0:06:40 - Juliana, Ariel, and Mike of Escape Room in a Box
0:13:58 - James Cobalt and Salem
0:23:18 - DAY 2
0:26:51 - Bill Sunderland of Escape This Podcast
0:28:57 - Lisa Spira of Room Escape Artist
0:30:44 - Jake Walling of Escape Maze
0:34:16 - Watson by Sherlocked
0:39:41 - Time Quest Lab
0:41:44 - Lina of Exit Ventures
0:43:00 - Loco - Urban Escape Games Platform
0:44:17 - Lauren Scott of Evolo Room Escape
0:47:00 - Sebastian Bayer of Tabtracks
0:49:23 - Yolanda Chiu of Asia Escape Game
0:54:33 - DAY 3
0:58:50 - Benito Suppa of Durham Escape Rooms and Jake Wall of Escape Maze
1:02:10 - Ethan Rodriguez-Torrent of Escape Industries
1:04:28 - Dani Siller of Escape This Podcast
1:09:11 - Nicole soon to be owner
1:11:03 - Nick Moran of Time Run
1:13:51 - Bill and Dani of Escape This Podcast
1:16:13 - Ralph of Kosmos Games, producer of the Exit games
1:17:57 - Toon of De Kelder in Ghent, Belgium
So much fun!
64 - The Trust Spectrum and Escape Rooms (Playing with Strangers)
In response to the controversial topic of public games and playing with strangers, Scott Nicholson shared this wonderful post on the FB Enthusiast group called The Trust Spectrum by Raph Koster, game designer, and author of A Theory of Fun for Game Design.
Manda and Errol discuss the Trust Spectrum and see how it applies to escape rooms!
63 - Are Escape Rooms Good for Team Building?
Are escape rooms good for team building? Surprisingly, not really. In this two hour special, Listen in as the Divas interview Dr. Linda Carson, a professor of Fine Arts at the University of Waterloo. She has a Ph.D. in Psychology (Behavioural and Cognitive Neuroscience) and teaches teamwork, creativity, design thinking, and interdisciplinary collaboration.
62 - Hint Giving in Escape Rooms
All the Divas are back to talk about Hint Giving in Escape Rooms!
People asking for hints during the #CryptexHunt!
61 - Cryptex Hunt Behind the Scenes
Huzzah! In our latest episode, David Spira of Room Escape Artist guest interviews the crew of the Cryptex Hunt, an epic puzzle hunt presented by Justin Nevins of the the Cryptex® Security Box.
David interviews six people in total: Justin Nevins, Errol Elumir, Darren Miller, Dan Egnor, David Lewis, and Manda Whitney.
There are going to be all sorts of spoilers in this podcast, so if you have not done the Cryptex Hunt, or you WANT to hear spoilers for the Cryptex Hunt, be forewarned.
And the parody song is from an old band Errol used to be part of called Debs & Errol. It seemed appropriate at this point.
As a text game enthusiast, I love this picture. Hah!
60- Chatting with E4G's Codegreen (aka Leader)
Errol and Manda are off running the Cryptex Hunt, so Mike and Ruby chat with Leader (aka E4G's CodeGreen) about life with escape rooms, travelling and how things have changed for them in Toronto.
No song again. Sadness. Hopefully we will be less busy soon!
59 - Escape Room Design Course with Scott Nicholson
Huzzah! If you don't know Scott Nicholson, he is a Professor of Game Design and Development at Wilfrid Laurier University in Brantford, Ontario and the director of the Brantford Game Network game lab (BGNlab).
And he ran a Escape Room Design course! How awesome is that?! ^_^ Listen in as we talk about the course, and the final escape event they created!
Oooh! Intrigue!
58 - The Cryptex Puzzle Hunt
The Divas interview Justin Nevins and Errol Elumir about their upcoming puzzle hunt, the Cryptex Hunt! It will start on Feb 24th, and features such prizes as a custom cryptex®!
In the interview, we talk about puzzle hunts and Justin speaks on what it's like working with Errol, which is as you expect. Justin also does his best not to give any spoilers.
