----“See extra content on our Show Notes here! http://www.spicepantrypodcast.com/episodes/season-1-episode-2-the-pieces-of-an-escape-room/“ ---- As a special treat in this 2nd podcast, especially for those of you who are still skeptical about how fun this whole thing is, you will be hearing the real audio of our friends going through their very first Escape Room...! And what’s even cooler is that it’s an escape room that we created! As those of you close to us already probably know, on the 4th and 5th of December of this year, we had a beautiful engagement ceremony in Kansas City, and the month beforehand, when we were planning it, we wanted to let our close friends and family in Chile know that it would be coming up in a unique and special way. So we decided to put into practice everything that we had been experiencing and learning about Escape Rooms in the past 6 months and created our own so they could escape and discover our special news! In this episode, we are going to ***dive into what makes up a good escape room-*** What gets your adrenaline pumping, the art, craft, immersion, etc - basically the different factors we had to think about when putting ours together for our family and friends. 1) A solid, enveloping story- the more it allows you to leave the world behind and enter a new reality, the better! (Think of how you feel when you enter a movie theatre- you are no longer you- you are James Bond, Hans Solo, Katniss Everdeen...) In our case, (which for lack of time was a pretty simple story) we explained to them about why they were all there and what they were trying to find out. 2) Clues that flow together/continue the story/feel cohesive -When putting together our own room, first we started with the puzzles, as this is the essence of what people are actually solving- you need enough of these to not be too easy, but not be impossibly difficult so as to not have any chance of finishing within the hour. Then we worked backwards from there to try to figure out how they would come up with the elements needed to solve those puzzles. In our case, since the escape room was going to lead up to announcing our engagement, a lot of the theme of the clues were things related to us, inside jokes that only those who knew us well would understand, and memories that we had with those who were going to be in the room. Id like to mention here that one of the common problems with escape rooms is replayability and changing out rooms. Happily, we seemed to have done this seamlessly by the way we structured our second puzzle. We simply changed out he images and answers and made sure it led to the same numbers at he end to open the lock. 3) A mission you need to accomplish, that everything leads up to Normally when you enter the escape room, the very first thing you are immersed into, along with the story, is the “reason” why you are there.. It may be to save the world, to stop a nuclear bomb from exploding, to rob a bank and steal the diamonds, or in our case (a rather weak “mission” due to the lack of time to put it together), to generically “figure out what happened to us”. In my opinion, the best escape rooms are those that have very compelling reasons to finish correctly and FAST— and the theming of the room all comes together for this. For example, in an escape room where you need to rob the diamonds from the bank, you might hear sirens in the background get closer and closer as the police gain on you. Or in one where you need to disarm a bomb, you might hear it ticking and see a clock on the wall counting down the minutes until it blows up. These types of details really add to the immersive experience! 4) Challenging obstacles that require teamwork, quick thinking, and often times going completely outside the box Many of the escape rooms we have gone to have some sort of puzzle that is impossible for 1 person to do on their own. For example, one person might be in a totally different room with their h...
----“See extra content on our Show Notes here! http://www.spicepantrypodcast.com/episodes/season-1-episode-2-the-pieces-of-an-escape-room/“ ---- As a special treat in this 2nd podcast, especially for those of you who are still skeptical about how fun this whole thing is, you will be hearing the real audio of our friends going through their very first Escape Room...! And what’s even cooler is that it’s an escape room that we created! As those of you close to us already probably know, on the 4th and 5th of December of this year, we had a beautiful engagement ceremony in Kansas City, and the month beforehand, when we were planning it, we wanted to let our close friends and family in Chile know that it would be coming up in a unique and special way. So we decided to put into practice everything that we had been experiencing and learning about Escape Rooms in the past 6 months and created our own so they could escape and discover our special news! In this episode, we are going to ***dive into what makes up a good escape room-*** What gets your adrenaline pumping, the art, craft, immersion, etc - basically the different factors we had to think about when putting ours together for our family and friends. 1) A solid, enveloping story- the more it allows you to leave the world behind and enter a new reality, the better! (Think of how you feel when you enter a movie theatre- you are no longer you- you are James Bond, Hans Solo, Katniss Everdeen...) In our case, (which for lack of time was a pretty simple story) we explained to them about why they were all there and what they were trying to find out. 2) Clues that flow together/continue the story/feel cohesive -When putting together our own room, first we started with the puzzles, as this is the essence of what people are actually solving- you need enough of these to not be too easy, but not be impossibly difficult so as to not have any chance of finishing within the hour. Then we worked backwards from there to try to figure out how they would come up with the elements needed to solve those puzzles. In our case, since the escape room was going to lead up to announcing our engagement, a lot of the theme of the clues were things related to us, inside jokes that only those who knew us well would understand, and memories that we had with those who were going to be in the room. Id like to mention here that one of the common problems with escape rooms is replayability and changing out rooms. Happily, we seemed to have done this seamlessly by the way we structured our second puzzle. We simply changed out he images and answers and made sure it led to the same numbers at he end to open the lock. 3) A mission you need to accomplish, that everything leads up to Normally when you enter the escape room, the very first thing you are immersed into, along with the story, is the “reason” why you are there.. It may be to save the world, to stop a nuclear bomb from exploding, to rob a bank and steal the diamonds, or in our case (a rather weak “mission” due to the lack of time to put it together), to generically “figure out what happened to us”. In my opinion, the best escape rooms are those that have very compelling reasons to finish correctly and FAST— and the theming of the room all comes together for this. For example, in an escape room where you need to rob the diamonds from the bank, you might hear sirens in the background get closer and closer as the police gain on you. Or in one where you need to disarm a bomb, you might hear it ticking and see a clock on the wall counting down the minutes until it blows up. These types of details really add to the immersive experience! 4) Challenging obstacles that require teamwork, quick thinking, and often times going completely outside the box Many of the escape rooms we have gone to have some sort of puzzle that is impossible for 1 person to do on their own. For example, one person might be in a totally different room with their hands in a dark box, unable to see anything, and on an opposite side, their friend needs to shout them the clues. In our case, in our escape room, we tried to do this by making our 2nd lock based on pictures that some people would know the answers to some of them, and some would know the others. That way they had to work together to come up with the final word! …so, how did it go? In the beginning our friends and family were a bit skeptical- they had no idea what they were getting into, or really about the mechanics of how it worked. The great thing about escape rooms, is that you don’t NEED TO KNOW! As soon as the timer started ticking down, everyone sprang into action starting to look for clues and put the pieces together. And there was a complete sense of euphoria when they finished the entire thing and found our surprise news. In our opinion, as enjoyable as something like mini golf or laser tag is, you usually just don’t talk about it for days to come. With escape rooms, every single time that we have gone with friends or family, and even in our own, it is almost like a mini de-briefing session takes place afterwards. Everyone comes down from this place of extreme adrenaline and brain power, to want to put the pieces all back together in a coherent way and remember how the full succession of events came together and how it led them all the way to their successful mission’s end. So here it is... Episode 2! We hope you enjoy listening to it as much as we enjoyed making our own escape room and thinking through all the elements necessary to break it down for you in this podcast. :) In our next episode, we will be diving a bit into the science of why this happens. What is happening deep inside our BRAINS when we go through an escape room? Why does it light up different centers that even traditional forms of entertainment that have been around for decades and centuries can’t? Why do we truly feel that this is the next huge revolution since moving pictures??? Stay tuned…!