Help Our Escape Room Urban Legends Investigation

5 July 2022

1–2 minutes

Update 12/26/23: If you enjoyed this article, we hope you’ll check out our interview with A.J. Jacobs and his Chief Puzzle Officer Greg Pliska about their new podcast, The Puzzler, on The Reality Escape Pod.

While researching for his book The Puzzler, author A.J. Jacobs happened upon a story of escape rooms being popular among naturalists (or nudists… I’m really not clear on appropriate terminology). I hadn’t heard this before… but I have heard other recurring escape room urban legends.

I’ve long wanted to get to the bottom of these tales and see what truth exists in them.

Sculpture of Apollo fated by Cupid's arrow, embracing Daphne

So, when AJ signed my copy of The Puzzler with a challenge to get to the truth… and then reissued the challenge in our Patreon Bonus Episode, I promptly made this very short survey seeking leads and information:

ERban Legends Survey

Whether you’re a player or owner, please fill it out and share it around. I’m on a very sincere mission into the unknown and I’d appreciate your help.

And if you haven’t listened to AJ Jacobs on the Reality Escape Pod, check out the episode, he was an absolute delight of a guest.

One response to “Help Our Escape Room Urban Legends Investigation”

David L.

July 5, 2022 at 12:37 pm

I find this hard to believe beyond one small group playing “au naturale” one time in the early days before cameras. Otherwise, it would be on Facebook (with blurred faces) somewhere without identifying features of the actual location.

Since you are doing surveys perhaps you could ask how many “record holders” will admit to setting the room record after playing the room previously or having intel on the puzzles. Other topics include; fisticuffs, proposals, injuries, property damage/theft, abnormally high repeated play, groups with the least amount of solved puzzles, blatant copycats that later claim originality, etc. After 1000 rooms and interaction with thousands of people in the industry there has to be a book with Spira’s “Believe it or Not” actual stories.

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🖋️ Author

Written by

David Spira

Co-Founder of Room Escape Artist & Co-Host of Reality Escape Pod. David conceived of Room Escape Artist because he saw the potential of this new entertainment medium back in 2014. From the start, he applied his professional skills as a digital experience designer to the burgeoning industry of escape rooms. David is full of ideas: from in-depth research pieces to new content types… like cute animals solving puzzles. He is always pushing REA to try new things, take risks, and be something more.