The Infinite Escape Room

In this new series, we put our professional puzzle design experience to good use and look at escape rooms in film and TV as if they were real escape rooms.

In this podcast we're looking at the escape room episode of Inside No. 9, "CTRL ALT ESCAPE". Follow Mairi, Jamie, and special guest Alex Hylands-White as they put the room through its paces and discuss what improvements they'd make to make it a better escape room.

Alex brings a ...

Pull up a stool in the Northern northern northern Australian outback! At this near-empty Pub the team wrangle over the concept of difficulty in Escape Rooms, what it is, whether it is simply a feature of good or bad design, whether it is changing and, inevitably, what even counts as an Escape Room anymore at all!

As always we come to you with humble recommendations to ease you into Autumn.

Jamie - Thank Goodness You're Here! Cart...

With just twenty two minutes and thirty seconds remaining before our flight from Australia Airport leaves, the team have no choice but to solve Jon's puzzle puzzle at the crossroads. Somewhere off Australia Road (which by the way, is the road in Australia, in case you were wondering), the airport awaits...

But which way?

"Struth Ruth, Bruce is coming babe."

• Puzzle Maestro: Jon Saunders

• Solvers: Mike Collins, Jamie Gibbs

• E...

With the team's outback getaway driver KO-ed outside the toilet, the team find themselves stranded in the outback, 45 minutes before their flight from "Australia Airport" leaves. Time is of the essence, and in this special the solvers will have a shared 45-minutes to solve across both parts of the Outback Odyssey arc.

But before they can get back on the road they'll have to get through dozens and dozens of gnomes... in various stat...

This is the final week of our two-week summer break, where we recharge our puzzle batteries. But we won't leave you empty handed - here's a director's cut edition of a classic episode with new editing, music, SFX and commentary.

This episode initially aired a little later than normal due to some technical gremlins, which meant it didn't get a fair shake before the following week's episode came in and pushed it out of the feed (peop...

This is the start of our two-week summer break, where we recharge our puzzle batteries. But we won't leave you empty handed - here's a director's cut edition of a classic episode with new editing, music, SFX and commentary.

Sometimes, an episode as such an impact on us that we talk about it months or even years later. Groundfarce is one of those episodes. What started out as a simple spatial puzzle quickly devolved into a mud sli...

Does adapting escape rooms to audio make them more accessible … or more exclusive? Join Jamie, Mairi and special guests Dani and Bill from Escape This Podcast as we discuss accessibility in game design and what it means for creating escape rooms of the ears, the eyes, and all the senses.

Why a hotel? Turns out Australia has an interesting drinking culture around hotels, but you'll just have to listen to find out more about that.

As...

In the most long overdue cross-over since Eastenders made a Bastard episode with Neighbours (true story), we finally welcome our natural ancestors from Escape This Podcast and take them... to their own studio. But all is not well, they are locked out, Jon has beaten them to it and is about to takeover the (podcast) world.

Join Mairi, Jamie, special guests Dani and Bill from Escape This Podcast and a very, very special cameo, as the...

In this episode, Jamie joins forces with two very special guests in order to take on a rogue Mike and Jon who are concocting a podcasting takeover of epic proportions. Their target - the enormous Escape This Podcast skyscraper that dominates the Sydney skyline. The date - the Australian national podcasting festival. Expect improv, terrible puns, and a cameo from a man pretending to be the Mayor of Sydney.

In this episode we're join...

Join us in the once watery depths of the former English Channel, now a desertified wasteland! The team discuss whether live actors have a place in Escape Rooms at all, chew over their best and worst experiences of this ever popular feature, and whether the rooms that feature them heavily even count as Escape Rooms at all.

As ever, we come to you with some recommendations for the month ahead.

Bailey - The Tiny Chef Show (Stop moti...

With water (for coolant) and petrol (for fun) secured, the team need only the ice cream van keys to see them on their merry way. Surely the Ice Cream Man will have them, and, oh look, he's just over there...

• Puzzle Maestro: Mairi Nolan

• Solvers: Jamie Gibbs, Jon Saunders, Bailey

• Episode Art: Dom Jordan

• Editor: Jamie Gibbs

All links to our social media profiles and our Patreon programme over at https://linktr.ee/th...

On the hunt for some water to help power our only means of escape: an old ice cream truck, the team take refuge inside a toilet block.

Again..? Yes! Look, we like toilet blocks on this podcast. But this toilet block turns out to be used for something quite unexpected. Get in, get the water, and get out. Just don't, whatever you do, use a black light in here.

• Puzzle Maestro: Jon Saunders

• Solvers: Jamie Gibbs, Mairi Nolan, Ba...

After being a little too successful at getting the sun to rise, Great Britain has turned into a scorching hot warzone of the delicious ice-cream-y kind. As the group head south to the beach, they soon encounter the aftermath of a great fight. Tanks retrofitted to fire lollies litter the street, unexploded cookie sandwich mines lay in wait, and there... Tucked away under a small patch of shade... Is one final ice cream van.

Will we ...

Join us all at The Drunk Druid for a chat on all things Puzzles vs Narrative in game design. For this episode, we're joined by the fantastic Nathan and Marcus who are hosts of the Aurelius Whitlock's Murder Museum podcast, and designers on hugely popular video game, Rise of the Golden Idol.

Enjoy!

As always the team have recommendations for your better enjoyment. This month, they are!

• Jamie Death and other details Mandy Pat...

Having begun the ritual to bring about the rising of the Sun, the team must now complete it. To do this, they step, in pairs, into the most hallowed structure of the ancient Druidic religion, the Portaloo. Maybe leave your UV torches at home, folks.

In this episode, we're joined by Marcus Richardson and Nathan Hicken, the fantastic hosts of the murder mystery podcast Aurelius Whitlock's Murder Museum.

• Puzzle Maestro: Mairi No...

The sun is setting at Stonehenge, and we must bring it back with out wits, a wasp and a jam sandwich!

Part 2 in the Summer Solstice series finds the gaggle of puzzlers at Stonehenge just in time for the sun to rise. The only problem is, if they don't perform the ritual correctly, the sun might not rise at all. In this brain-melting, time travel twisting episode, we'll have to master the past, present, and future if we want to make ...

The gang find themselves on the summer solstice in Wiltshire, at Stonehenge no less! There's a great festival happening to celebrate the longest day, but before they can get there they'll have to enter through the gift shop. Before the night is up, they'll have to perform the ritual to get the sun to rise again. Easier said than done!

In this episode, we're joined by Marcus Richardson and Nathan Hicken, the fantastic hosts of the m...

This week's episode is Part 3 in our special "London Jolley" series. After a weekend of escape rooms, Mike gave us the challenge of each designing an improvised 10 minute escape room on the spot, and hosting it for the other three solvers. The location? A legally distinct, formerly independent coffee chain in the heart of London. The doors are chained shut, but will we be able to escape..?

• Puzzle maestros (in order): Jon Saun...

In the second episode of our special, in-person London series, we took a quick break for a drink at the Dirty Dicks - yes, that really is it's name, and it's great!

In this episode we do Two Truths and a Lie, discuss Cold vs Hot openings in escape rooms, and give our recommendations for this month.

This month's recommendations are:

Jamie - The Code Book by Simon Lehna Singh Jon - Notes From an Execution by Danya Kukafka Mairi - T...