Room Escape Divas - Inverse Genius
154 episodes - English - Latest episode: about 2 years ago - ★★★★ - 19 ratingsWe discuss the industry of escape rooms and escape room design
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Episodes
148 - Farewell and Thanks
April 29, 2022 13:37 - 57.7 MBHello, friends. We have a somewhat sad announcement to make. This week will mark the final episode of the REDivas podcast. You may have noticed Mike, Ruby, and Errol haven’t been around the last year, as their lives have gotten busy. Although I have continued in the meantime and could continue the podcast alone, my own life has been getting busier and I felt it was time to finally retire it. And so for one last episode, we’ve gotten the old gang back together and returned to our very chaot...
147 - Escape IF with Scott Nicholson
April 15, 2022 16:52 - 46 MBThis week I am joined once again by the esteemed Doctor Scott Nicholson to talk about his latest project with mEducation Alliance, EscapeIF! It’s a storytelling game system designed to create games for low resource classrooms. See the links below to find out more and try some out in your own classrooms! EscapeIF: http://escapeif.com mEducation Alliance: https://meducationalliance.org/ Global Proficiency Framework: https://www.edu-links.org/resources/global-proficiency-framework-reading-an...
146 - Book of Dreams with Lee Ballan
March 25, 2022 14:02 - 36.9 MBThis week I discuss The Book of Dreams, an anthology puzzle book, headed up by Lee Ballan and including entries from an all star puzzle design team! As of this posting, you can still support their Indiegogo campaign, with all profits going to Doctors Without Borders! Don’t miss your chance to get a great puzzle book and support doctors around the world!
145 - Adventuron w/Chris Ainsley
March 15, 2022 13:44 - 44.5 MBThis week we get nostalgic about text adventures with Chris Ainsley, creator of Adventuron and a guest star appearance from Errol! If you are interested in creating text adventures, check out Adventuron’s site which also has info on an upcoming game jam!
144 - Ciphers and Treasure Hunts with Mike Augustine
March 07, 2022 02:22 - 56.7 MBThis week I am joined by Mike “Auggie” Augustine to discuss the world of ciphers and many tangents on treasure hunts and ARGs! Much fun ensues.
143 - Planning Your Escape with Laura E Hall
February 18, 2022 13:50 - 46.9 MBThis week I am joined by Laura E Hall! We discuss her book, Planning Your Escape, which both teaches the history of escape rooms (going alllllll the way back), and everything you need to know to become the ultimate enthusiast! We also go on this podcast’s most epic tangent yet. There is mystery! There is intrigue! There is even romance! You can find info about Laura, including her book, at her website.
142 - Wild Optimists
January 28, 2022 02:53 - 48.4 MBThis week I am joined by the powerhouse that is The Wild Optimists! Ariel Rubin and Juliana Moreno Patel discuss their experience designing Time Drifters, a take home escape that can be played in separate households! Also discussed is their murder mystery series, Crimes & Capers, as well as tangents on the murder mystery genre, beta testing during COVID, and many…many 90’s references.
141 - Year in Review with Reality Escape Pod
January 16, 2022 05:43 - 57.8 MBI am joined this week by the brilliant David Spira and Peih Gee Law of Reality Escape Podcast to reflect on 2021 and go down as many tangents as possible. Hope your 2022 is full of escaping fun so far! Check out Reality Escape Pod through Room Escape Artist’s site! https://roomescapeartist.com/reality-escape-pod/
140 - Constructed Adventures
December 31, 2021 15:44 - 47.5 MBFor the last episode of 2021, I am joined by Chris Waters, the creator of Constructed Adventures! We talk about his epic adventure creating business, the importance of community, and just how much metaphorical duck tape it takes to create a seemingly perfect experience. If you are curious about his experiences, do check out his website at https://www.constructedadventures.com/
139 - Props with Haley Moore
December 03, 2021 19:02 - 42.5 MBHow can props help enhance an experience? What stories can they tell? And how awesome are animatronics? This week Haley Moore shares her passion for prop making! If you’d like to see some of the other amazing creations she has been involved in, check out her website at toenolla.com!
138 - Mechanics with Next Level Escapes
November 19, 2021 22:00 - 59.8 MBThis week I am joined by Leanne Yong and Aaron Hooper of Next Level Escapes to discuss our non-escape room inspirations when creating designs! There are…many tangents in this one.
137 - Redesigning Your Game with Diorama's Ruud Kool
October 12, 2021 14:23 - 42.5 MBApologies for the delay! This week I talk with Ruud Kool of Diorama Games! We talk about the experience of translating and redesigning his first game, The Vandermist Dossier (originally the Boekanier Dossier), and how the design process is never truly done. This game is currently on Kickstarter, so don’t miss your chance to get your copy! DISCLAIMER: I was involved with some of the narrative development of this game. Visit Kickstarter to back this project. Visit Diorama Games to see thei...
136 - VR with James Cobalt
September 23, 2021 03:23 - 64.2 MBThis week Manda is joined by James Cobalt to discuss the wonders of VR and their impact on puzzle games and escape rooms. Manda might talk about Beatsaber too much. Follow James to keep up to date about his new escape room facility (yet another reason to go to RECON next year).
135- Rita Orlov and Non-linear Game Design
September 10, 2021 02:10 - 42.2 MBManda is back and kicking off the REDiva season with the ever so talented Rita Orlov to talk about nonlinear game design and her upcoming Kickstarter for her latest project: Light in the Mist. Visit postcurious.com to keep up to date on the Kickstarter campaign and to check out some awesome content!
134 - Forensic Accounting and Escape Rooms with Leah Wietholter
April 24, 2021 19:52 - 26.4 MBManpans and Errol talk to Leah Weitholter, a fraud investigator who made an escape room inspired game to help teach forensic accounting and fraud investigation! Errol has a difficult time containing himself with this shorter podcast. Find out about her work, her podcast, and the game at https://www.workmanforensics.com/.
133 - Rants about Online Immersive Escape Rooms
March 26, 2021 15:32 - 46.4 MBSorry, it’s been a long time since the last update! Manda and Errol are joined by Lee-Fay and rant about a particular immersive adventure. Totally living up to their diva nature.
132 - REDivas Discuss Online Horror Escape Rooms
February 12, 2021 14:14 - 41.6 MBManda, Ruby, Mike, and Errol are back together! At least while the baby sleeps. We talk about how escape rooms can help prepare for parenting, horror rooms, and all the tangents in between!
07 - Designer Spotlight Video: The Enigma Emporium
February 05, 2021 14:52 - 50.1 MBIn this designer spotlight, we only have Errol because he left it until the last minute and no one else could make the time he booked! However he has a grand time chatting to Logan Giannini of The Enigma Emporium about design! They cover board games, puzzle games, escape room games, and running kickstarters! We also learn all this new stuff about Logan! It was so exciting!
131 - Matthew Stein on Empathy-driven Puzzles
January 29, 2021 14:09 - 48 MBManpans and Errol talk with professional puzzle designer Matthew Stein about empathy-driven puzzles and puzzle design in general. Huzzah! This is a pretty deep talk! Matthew Stein (he/him) is a San Francisco-based puzzle designer, fiddler, composer, letterboxer, printmaker, origamist, and software engineer. With his company Enigmida, Matthew creates intricate puzzle hunts, alternate reality games, and puzzle-driven immersive experiences which aim to bring wonder to the mundane. To learn mor...
06 - Designer Spotlight Video: Society of Curiosities
January 22, 2021 15:35 - 48.3 MBManda and Errol have a wonderful chat with Michelle and Yacine of Society of Curiosities! Listen in as they tell us about pivoting from an Escape Room business to an online mail-order puzzle game company! And there are chickens.
130 - Escape Rooms and Art with Tommy Honton
January 15, 2021 19:03 - 52.6 MBManpans and Errol talk to Tommy Honton! Originally, it was going to focus on Stash House and his creations but then we started talking about art! So now that's the title!
05 - Designer Spotlight Video: Miss Jezebel
January 08, 2021 14:06 - 56.1 MBThe Divas interview Brian Corbitt, who designed Miss Jezebel of 60out Escape Rooms. Miss Jezebel is rated as one of the top three online escape rooms by the 2020 TERPECAs, for good reason, and in this video, we get behind the scenes with its creator! Also, we will endeavour to make all the videos as audio only as well, so it loads up into your podcast feed. Sorry about that!
129 - Room Escape Artist: Year End Reflections
January 02, 2021 17:45 - 53.2 MBThe 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 th...
128 - The Infinite Escape Room Podcast!
December 18, 2020 20:17 - 43.8 MBNow, 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 int...
127 - Escape Rooms on Mobile
December 11, 2020 20:15 - 62 MBIn 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.
04 - Designer Spotlight Video: Agent November
December 04, 2020 14:16Manpans and Errol have a fun chat with Nathan Glover of Agent November! We go into all sorts of behind the scenes details and discuss the design of games for the online escape room audience. And if you are interested in the mentioned event at the end of the video, check out Mystery at the Museum with Steve Backshall!
126 - DASH: Different Area, Same Hunt with Debbie Goldstein
November 27, 2020 19:37 - 41.6 MBIn our 126th episode, Manpans and Errol have a fun time chatting to the founder of DASH, Debbie Goldstein! Listen in to learn all the secrets of starting a puzzle hunt that occurs in multiple cities!
03 - Designer Spotlight Video: Scarlet Envelope
November 20, 2020 16:38Hello! 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!
02 - Designer Spotlight Video: An Escape Room in 18 Cards
November 18, 2020 16:46Allo, 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.
125 - A Critical Look at Online Escape Rooms
November 13, 2020 14:48 - 57.4 MBManda 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
01 - Designer Spotlight Video: Nick Moran of "Spectre & Vox"
November 06, 2020 15:24We 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.
124 - Survivor and Escape Rooms with Peih-Gee Law
October 30, 2020 13:03 - 53.8 MBIn 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, Pe...
123 - Escape Jams with Jeb Havens
October 16, 2020 15:40 - 45.4 MBManpans and Errol talk to Jeb Havens ([email protected]) 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,...
122 - The World of ARGs with Michael Andersen
October 02, 2020 14:53 - 92.2 MBToday’s podcast is all about ARGs! The Divas talk with Michael Andersen of ARGn.com. A great intro to the world of Alternate Reality Gaming.
Room Escape Divas Play - Escape the Eldritch Garden
October 02, 2020 13:53Allo, everyone! This isn’t a podcast, but a video of us playing an audio escape game. The game itself was first featured on Escape This Podcast, and Jen McTeague, the creator of the game, offered to run it for us! Listen in as we don't do a good job solving her game.
121 - Cultural Bias in Escape Rooms
September 04, 2020 17:53 - 38.5 MBHuzzah! 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!
120 - RECON: Running an Online Escape Room Conference on Discord
August 07, 2020 19:47 - 38.7 MBManda and Errol talk to Theresa Piazza about the Escape Room conference Reality Escape Con. They discuss being an exhibitor and a sponsor, as well as the challenges of pivoting a conference to only being online in Discord. And if you are interested, you can also watch this online! Huzzah!
119 - The ASPMC: An Interview with Kellian Pletcher
July 24, 2020 14:09 - 42.8 MBAll 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!
118 - Chicagoland Survey of Escape Room Players
July 10, 2020 18:53 - 43.8 MBManda and Errol talk to Vincent Rubino of Fox in a Box - Chicago and Maren Rosenberg of Escape Artistry about their Chicagoland Escape Room survey and reopening escape rooms in a pandemic. For more information about escape rooms and the pandemic, please refer to this informative article from Room Escape Artist, Approaches for Reopening Escape Rooms in a Pandemic.
117 - Scooby-Doo!™: Escape from the Haunted Mansion - An interview with Sen-Foong Lim and Jay Cormier
June 26, 2020 14:54 - 51.5 MBOh boy, that’s a long title. Manda and Errol talk to Jay Cormier and Sen-Foong Lim about the newest escape room board game, Scooby-Doo!™: Escape from the Haunted Mansion. In this episode, they talk about design decisions, challenges, and upcoming games with the Coded Chronicles™ series from The OP.
116 - A Casual Chat with Nick Moran about Escape Rooms
June 12, 2020 14:20 - 73.2 MBManda and Errol get together again to talk to Nick Moran, best known for creating Time Run and the BBC’s Sherlock Escape Room The Game Is Now. There is a lot of talk about escape rooms, but probably more talk about how we have no analytics.
115 - Manpans Rants About Online Escape Rooms
May 29, 2020 15:00 - 35.9 MBIn this short episode, Manpans has rants! So she rants, and the rest of the Divas interrupt her. It was amazing!
114 - Game Design with PostCurious
May 15, 2020 15:37 - 43.6 MBManda and Errol talk with Rita Orlov of Post Curious about her latest Kickstarter The Emerald Flame! Listen in as we chat about game design, take home games, narrative puzzle adventures, and other topics Errol tangents on.
113 - Online Escape Room Taxonomy with Brett Kuehner
April 17, 2020 13:12 - 48.9 MBWith all the online escape rooms available, a number of lists have been created to collate them all. However, soon there were a lot of lists to keep track of. So Manda and Errol talk to Brett Kuehner about the meta list of lists he compiled. You can find the list on his website: That Guy With the Puzzles With a meta list of online escape rooms and also escape room design links. We also talk about the taxonomy developed by Dan Egnor to categorize the different types of online escape rooms....
112 - The Isolation Episode with Room Escape Artist
March 20, 2020 14:17 - 48 MBManda and Errol meet up with Lisa and David Spira Room Escape Artist who are in self-isolation after returning from Europe.
111 - Discussing Escape Room Puzzle Tropes
March 06, 2020 18:53 - 69.8 MBRuby, Manda, and Mike get together and discuss 101 Best Escape Room Puzzle Ideas as published by Now Escape in 2016. It’s four years later, how do these puzzle ideas stack up now?
110 - Cryptex Hunt 2020: Behind the Scenes
February 21, 2020 16:47 - 39.9 MBMike learns about this year’s Cryptex Hunt! Manda and Mike question Errol about what it’s like writing a novel, writing a puzzle hunt, and dealing with server issues. Yes, people this year have to read a novel.
109 - Would This Mechanic Work in an Escape Room?
February 07, 2020 21:22 - 60.2 MBThe Divas are all here! And in this episode, we discuss different mechanics and practices that may or may not work in a room. For example, saboteur mechanics, multiple paths, and other topics. Errol’s also pretty loopy.
108 - 2019 Escape Room Enthusiast Survey with Lee-Fay Low
January 24, 2020 20:32 - 42.9 MBHuzzah! We talk to Lee-Fay Low, an Associate Professor at the University of Sydney and an avid enthusiast of escape rooms, about the 2019 Escape Room Enthusiast Survey! Listen in on her insights and what it was like putting together a survey translated into 14 different languages.
107 - Top Escape Rooms with Rich Bragg
January 10, 2020 17:17 - 48.5 MBThe 2019 Top Escape Rooms Project Enthusiasts’ Choice Awards was released! This year, 50 top English speaking escape rooms have been identified. In this episode, Manpans and Errol talk with Rich Bragg (co-founder of ClueKeeper and a Guiness Record holder for most escape rooms done in 24 hours), to discuss TERPECA, or the “Braggs” as we like to call them.