Reality Escape Pod - Escape Rooms & Immersive Games

"Everything is in service to the audience" You slip behind your mask and step into a world of decadence and mystery. As you're led through a lavish world inspired by The Phantom of the Opera, Broadway stars are singing their hearts out mere feet away, and iconic scenes unfold all around you. This is Masquerade. Masquerade is a blockbuster immersive theater production in New York City that filled t...

"You need both frustration and happiness together to make a great game." Escape rooms may have originated in Japan, but the format has since spread around the world, evolving in fascinating ways along the way. Cultural preferences, design traditions, and local puzzle communities have all shaped what an escape room looks and feels like from country to country. Japanese puzzle designer and immersive...

"Maker of Unusual Things" "If you've ever met him, he has probably handed you an unusual puzzle or curious object out of his Mary Poppins bag of puzzles." Brett Kuehner is THAT guy with the puzzles. Simply look for the large gathering of people all playing with what's collectively known as "cool stuff." You'll find Brett smack dab in the middle, dispensing puzzles and curios like Johnny Appleseed...

This is also the first time we've released a podcast in full video. So even if you're typically an audio podcast listener, we highly recommend you watch the full video on Youtube (click the link above). Let us know if you enjoyed our live show, and if you'd like to attend one in the future. "Don't override your players' experience with your version of the story." Emotional, hilarious, and... sexy?...

In this unhinged bonus episode, David and Peih-Gee were joined by REPOD episode guests Errol and Manda. Together they laughed their way through conversations covering stories from the Cryptex Hunt to David's memory of playing his first escape room with Errol. They also talked about a variety of topics including voice acting and interesting things that people say to content creators. Also, we final...

At the end of every season, Editor Steve Ewing assembles an episode built from his favorite moments from each episode.  Whether you have listened to the all of the episodes or just want to get a taste of Season 11, we hope that you enjoy this trip through the past 12 episodes of Reality Escape Pod.   Full Show Notes   Episode Sponsors We are immensely grateful to our sponsors this season: REA Patr...

In this episode, David and Peih-Gee were joined by Nick Moran to talk about his first escape room, the iconic Lance of Longinus by Time Run. This game opened in 2014 and made a truly modern escape room masterpiece back in the days of padlocks and unhinged puzzle design. David, Nick, and Peih-Gee explore the flow of the game as well as its context, influence, and demise. Be warned... the last few m...

This one is not safe for work. David made his improv comedy debut earlier this year on Good Morning From Hell, playing the roll of Jigsaw.  He spent a whole weekend preparing, and absolutely wrecked his voice for this one, and loved every second of the experience. Check out Good Morning From Hell , it's a hilarious show. 

 "Pick an immersive subgenre, and I think that it can be made better by the escape room model." For the Season 11 finale of Reality Escape Pod, we’re turning the spotlight inward. After years of writing reviews, producing podcasts, running RECON, hosting Tours, and building a community around immersive experiences, we asked our audience a simple question "What do you think?" Hundreds of you respon...

"The connection between the solver and the setter is really important." If you're a daily puzzle lover, your morning might start something like mine: pouring a cup of coffee and jumpstarting the brain with my favorite snack-sized games. Chief among those are the snappy games at LinkedIn, such as Queens, Zip, Tango, and Patches. The man behind this collection of puzzles powering LinkedIn's Games se...

" There are three defining characteristics of a Sauve Qui Peut game: an unusual underlying concept, commitment to the bit, and beautifully painted murals." They do things a little differently around here. That's been Steven Keller's personal design philosophy ever since he started making his first escape rooms at his company, Sauve Qui Peut, located in Saint-Jean-sur-Richelieu in Quebec, Canada. I...

“We really wanted to make a game that would encourage creators to make more weird stuff.” Low budgets, tight spaces, and a DIY mentality. As it turns out, indie filmmaking and creating escape rooms have a lot in common. James Hamer-Morton & Charlie Bond of Deadlocked Escape Rooms in Reading, UK, know this better than anyone. They joined us on REPOD to talk about creating their quirky, puzzle-d...

"We don't fear spoilers because a good room has more to offer than just the set that you saw in a photo. It must be something that you feel also." When most people think of an escape room, they think of puzzles, padlocks, with maybe a light narrative slapped on top. When Rémy Strobbe and the team at Live Cinema created Zone 51, however, they thought: okay, but what if instead of solving puzzles, y...

"We take your favorite games from TV, but we put our own twist on it." Sound design is the most underused tool in escape room design. It's not just for ambiance; it's a feedback system. It tells players what they did, redirects them when they're wrong, and stops them from doing the same wrong thing over and over. Sound design plays a huge role at The Escape Game and Great Big Game Show. Troy Armst...

Answer our 2026 Audience Census! "I wasn't an Imagineer because of the dollar. It's because I wanted to do something marvelous for people to enjoy." Captain Eo. Ghostbusters. Men in Black. Team America. Star Tours. The Muppet Movie. If you’ve ever fallen in love with puppeted characters that felt impossibly alive, there’s a good chance Terri Hardin worked on them. A master puppeteer, creature buil...

Answer our 2026 Audience Census! "I want to make things big and explosive." You've just been thrown in jail, locked up inside a massive prison complex in the Netherlands. Along with 125 other prisoners, you must scheme, bribe, blackmail, commit mayhem, and find your way out. This is Prison Escape, an immersive experience structured as a cinematic escape from prison. In 2025, Prison Escape ran 280...

Answer our 2026 Audience Census! "Try to find the delight in puzzles." Amanda and Errol have been fixtures in the escape room community for years, so of course we had to get the OG escape room podcasters on REPOD. This episode is basically a love letter to everything weird and wonderful about playing escape rooms, designing immersive games, and the incredible community we found along the way. From...

Answer our 2026 Audience Census! " A big mistake [is saying] 'look at our thing', instead of 'How do I empower and serve my customer?'" What is the future of storytelling? If you ask Charlie Melcher, the answer lies in "living stories," stories where the audience has a role and participates. Indeed, the subtitle of his new book, The Future of Storytelling is "How Immersive Experiences Are Transfor...

Answer our 2026 Audience Census! " There's lots of places in the world you can gamify." Emma Rochon and Melissa Eapen were young game masters working at a local escape room company over 12 years ago. They loved this "new" genre of entertainment, and asked the owners how they could get more involved in growing the business or designing new rooms. The owners replied with "There's no growth in [escap...

Answer our 2026 Audience Census! "One of the highlights of the Finnish larp is heavy, hard emotions. Crying is very much associated with Nordic style and Finnish style larping." Have you ever wanted to trauma bond with a hundred strangers aboard a spaceship while fleeing an alien threat? Do you want to be emotionally devastated while making hard choices about love, sacrifice, and humanity? Then Fi...

In the first half of this episode, David and Peih-Gee were joined by episode guest Will Shortz. Together they discussed the proliferation of daily puzzles, talked about global trends in puzzling, and did an ideation session with WIll on how to add puzzles to the park that he is creating in Indiana.  In the second half of the episode David and Peih-Gee were joined by Editor Steve. They gush about h...

Neil Patrick Harris & Chris Waters - The Capital One Neil Patrick Harris Murder Mystery: Paradise Lost (2025) In this episode, Neil Patrick Harris and Chris Waters of Constructed Adventures joined David and Peih-Gee to spoil the  second Capital One Murder Mystery, this one on a private island.    Want to listen to the rest of the episode? Support us on Patreon. When you support Room Escape Art...

Disney, Trivia Contests, Escape Rooms, Stephen Sondheim, Crosswords, and Puzzles Eagerly awaiting the next season of Reality Escape Pod? Great news! Season 11 is just around the corner. While you wait, enjoy a special compilation from Season 10. Our editor Steve Ewing, has chosen a memorable clip from every episode. It's the ideal way for new listeners to get acquainted with the podcast, and the p...

Nineteen teams of six players each descend on the streets of New York City. The entry fee is $42,000 per team, and the only prize is bragging rights. For twelve puzzle-packed hours, the teams must navigate New York City, all the way from the furthest reaches of Coney Island to the heart of Manhattan. This is Midnight Madness, New York City's most exclusive puzzle hunt. When you support Room Escape...

This is a special one.  Last month Zach Brittle, host of Marriage Therapy Radio reached out because he was curious what escape rooms could teach couples.  After looking into his show and realizing that it's phenomenal, we decided to sit down for a conversation with him. What ensued was really special for both David and Lisa.