In this special episode, we look back on some key moments from Season 4 of REPOD. Season 4 was notable for several reasons—every guest was from a different country, and all our guests were from the escape room world… yes, we do consider Boda Borg to be an escape room (well, perhaps a distant cousin).
Our editor, Steve Ewing, put together a selection of some of his favorite moments from Season 4. In most cases, he didn’t go for the most obvious “meatiest” parts of a guest’s interview. Rather, he chose a few side stories in hopes of intriguing new listeners to check out our past episodes.
These stories include cooking pizzas in an escape room, buying and transporting a giant 80-foot pirate ship from Florida to an escape room in Montreal, uncovering massive financial fraud from business partners, intermissions and bathrooms in 3-hour escape rooms, and even running an escape room in the middle of a war with air alarms blaring.
This is a great episode to start with if you aren’t already a listener. And if you are, hopefully you’ll enjoy revisiting some of these key moments.
Thank you for listening, and stay tuned for Season 5 of REPOD, booting up again in April 2023.
PS. Did you notice our new theme music? It was created by Ryan Elder!
Thank You to Our Sponsors
We are in between seasons right now, but we are thrilled to announce that Morty App will be back as a sponsor for the upcoming Season 5. We truly appreciate your support of our mission to promote and improve the immersive gaming community.
Morty
Morty is a free app for discovering, planning, tracking, and reviewing your escape rooms and other immersive social outings.
Special Badge for REPOD listeners:
You can learn more at MortyApp.com/REPOD to sign up and get a special badge for our listeners (works for existing users also).
Topics Discussed in this Episode
- [0:55] REPOD S4E2 – Paradox Project, Greece: Dimitris Varelas and the Three Hour Escape Room: Dimitri talks about the special considerations he implemented for his epic 3-hour game, including things like an immersive cold start and intermissions. He also shares a funny story about how having a working bathroom inside the escape room can go wrong.
- [8:00] REPOD S4E6 – Blacklights and Blindsides: Dino Paulo, Survivor South Africa and owner of Hinthunt Africa: Dino talks about uncovering massive financial fraud from one of his escape room business partners and how it was similar to playing Survivor. He also gives advice on how to avoid this scenario in your own business.
- [13:48] REPOD S4E4 – Holistic Game Design: Alexander Gierholz, creator of Amsterdam Catacombs, Netherlands: Alexander discusses theories in gamification, what it is, and how his philosophy of it has changed over the years.
- [20:48] REPOD S4E7 – Fandoms & Foodies: Prolific Escape Room Designer Gai Bosco, Israel: Gai tells us about a unique escape room trend in Israel: the “culinary escape room.” As you play the room, you discover ingredients and a recipe for making all kinds of food including pizzas, cupcakes, and even cocktails.
- [25:35] REPOD S4E5 – Epic Proportions: Jonathan Driscoll and Sacha St.Denis, owners of Escaparium, Canada: Jonathan and Sacha tell us the story of buying and transporting an epic 80-foot-long pirate ship for their game The Lost Island of the Voodoo Queen.
- [30:35] REPOD S4E9 – Ukrainian Resilience: Tasha Tarkhanova, creator of Project Avatar, Ukraine: Tasha talks to us about some of the practicalities of running an escape room in the midst of a war, and how they handle air alarms going off in the middle of a game.
- [37:42] REPOD S4E11 – The Struggle for Greatness: Lukas Rauscher of Crime Runners, Austria: Lukas very candidly shares some of his struggles in building a top ranked escape room.
- [45:35] REPOD S4E10 – Digging for a Pony: David Spigner, CEO of Boda Borg, Sweden(ish): David Spigner describes his vision for the future of Boda Borg and his views on immersive gaming as a concept.
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