We’re giving The Shop of Theseus a final send-off, and we invited the hilarious crew from the Hey Riddle Riddle Podcast to test their wits in this audio escape room co-created and run by Mark Larson, who was a guest on REPOD Season 5, Episode 11.

If you missed playing this game during RECON Remote 23, or if you want to relive your glory moments, join us for this final playthrough of The Shop of Theseus. JPC, Adal, and Erin are some of Chicago’s top improvisers, and they had me roaring with laughter through the entire game. I highly recommend checking out their podcast Hey Riddle Riddle if you like improv comedy and riddles. Start with the episode guest-starring our very own Peih-Gee Law.

Thank You to Our Sponsors

We are immensely grateful to our sponsors this season: Morty App, Buzzshot, and COGS. We truly appreciate your support of our mission to promote and improve the immersive gaming community.

Topics Discussed in this Episode

• [4:21] Mark introduces the game, The Shop of Theseus and describes how it works. Our intrepid players find themselves in a messy escape room lobby. After exploring the room, they discover an interesting vending machine. 

• [19:25] The Hey Riddle Riddle gang decides to try out the different items from the vending machine and discovers the items have some mythical properties.

• [26:06] After utilizing the items in the vending machine, Adal, Erin, and JPC manage to fish a stylus from the aquarium and turn on the tablet to access the escape room waiver. However, they’re soon stymied by the empty password field.
• [29:09] The security question nudges the players to check out The Shop of Theseus, and they quickly manage to solve the puzzle which signs them into the waiver. Upon completing the waiver, they are welcomed by the same booming voice and head into a dark room.
• [33:53] They find themselves in an escape room lobby very similar to the first one, but it feels like they’ve somehow gone back in time a few decades. Instead of an e-tablet with a waiver system, they find a guest book. There is also a machine with hydra heads pictured on it.

• [40:30] The players decide to check out the rest of the room, discovering a strange pattern on the aquarium glass, and a rock with an indent. They also find an antiquated computer.
• [44:01] After exploring the room, they return to the Hydra machine and figure out that they need “steam,” which gives them a boot disk for the computer. 
• [48:21] The players realize they need to use the flashlight inside the aquarium. It sends them back to The Shop of Theseus merch store to solve another puzzle.
• [55:16] After they enter the password into the computer, the players must now answer a short quiz, which gives them access to the waiver. After signing the waiver, Adal, Erin, and JPC find themselves, once again, in a dark escape room lobby.
• [58:39] The players explore the room, where they find a spooky mirror hanging on the wall with some interesting reflections. After figuring out which outfits go together from the leaderboard, the team gets access to the next room, which is eerily similar.

• [1:04:42] In this room, Adal, Erin, and JPC find a massive rock with 2 googly eyes. The gamemaster is thrilled they found the RECON mascot, Rocky, and implores the team to get Rocky back onto his display stand. As they nudge the boulder back onto its pedestal, the sign falls, revealing another sign behind it that says “The Game of Sisyphus.”
• [1:07:31] The team discovers Pandora’s Box which allows them to make one change to reality, and Adal, Erin, and JPC decide to unleash a massive flock of flying pigs.
• [1:10:45] David calls out a couple things from the playthrough including the identity of “Upside-down Tommy,” and that drinking 3 energy drinks triggered flying pigs, which was a change added by a previous team. 
• [1:17:41] The Hey Riddle Riddle gang tells a bonus story about the time Adal got stuck in a ball pit in an escape room.

Leave us a voicemail

Got a question or thought for the podcast? You can submit a voice recording by calling the Room Escape Artist not-so-hotline that always goes straight to voicemail (551-227-7273).

Resources Mentioned in this Episode

• The Shop of Theseus Merch Store
• Reality Escape Con Los Angeles Website
• Hey Riddle Riddle Podcast
• Hello from the Magic Tavern Podcast
• Sitcom D&D Podcast
• Mark Larson Website

About Adal Rifai

Twitter: @adalrifai & @heyriddleriddle

Instagram: @adalrifai & @heyriddleriddle

Adal Rifai is an improviser, podcaster, producer and writer in Chicago. He is an adjunct lecturer at University of Illinois at Chicago where he teaches the improv curriculum he created for their theater department. He has taught improv at The School at Steppenwolf program.

As a podcaster Adal is the creator and host of Hey Riddle Riddle, Siblings Peculiar, The Monster Line, The Word Association, hosts the podcast Tell Me About It and plays Chunt on the podcast Hello From the Magic Tavern; he has also guested on hundreds of other podcasts including Comedy Bang Bang, Welcome To Night Vale, Hollywood Handbook, Off-Book, The J.V. Club, Avatar: Braving The Elements, If I Were You, Improv 4 Humans, The Teachers Lounge, High & Mighty, The Flophouse, Mission To Zyxx, How Did This Get Played, Voyage To The Stars, Dungeons & Daddies, Star Wars Minute, Good Morning From Hell, MEGA, Rude Tales of Magic, Random Number Generator Horror Podcast No.9 and The McElroy Brothers Will Be in Trolls: World Tour.

In addition to podcasting he also is the host of the JackBox game Guesspionage. He has studied and performed improv for almost two decades and has created and lead improv workshops on three continents for hundreds of clients including Apple, Google, Delta, Facebook, Mercedes-Benz and Boeing.

About Erin Keif

Instagram: @Erinkeif10

Erin is originally from Massachusetts and now lives in Los Angeles where she does live performance and podcasting. She has two podcasts on the Headgum network–Hey Riddle Riddle, a comedy podcast, and SitcomD&D, a Dungeons and Dragons podcast. She is also a regular on Hello From the Magic Tavern as Momo the Mouse and has made several appearances on Comedy Bang Bang. She’s worked in animation, voice over, commercials, and was a performer at the iO and CiC theater.

About John Patrick Coan (JPC)

Instagram: @sharkbarkman

JPC is a happily married vegetarian living in Chicago.

About Mark Larson

Twitter: @mrklrsn

Mark Larson is an interactive experiences and puzzle designer from Minneapolis. His work focuses on combining narrative storytelling, engaging and thought-provoking puzzles and gameplay, and a healthy dose of fun. He’s best known for his series of Audio Escape Adventures created in 2020 and 2021, including Escape from Escape Island, commissioned for RECON 21, and The Shop of Theseus, commissioned for RECON 23.

Support REPOD

• Subscribe to Patreon for bonus content.
• Please rate and review our podcast!

Thanks for listening!

Support Room Escape Artist’s Mission

There are lots of ways to support Room Escape Artist, like buying from Amazon, Etsy, or Art of Play after clicking into the links included in this post or backing us on Patreon.

The money that we make from these helps us to grow the site and continue to add more value to the community that we love so much.