“ I appreciated your janitor’s slow decline into madness.”

BLOT needs our help! The Bureau of Legitimate and Otherworldly Troubles has suffered a breach in their laboratory, and they need someone to clean up the mess. In the lab, there’s a chalkboard to the left,  a table with beakers and test tubes to the right and a small computer desk. The room is covered with a strange, gunky substance all over the walls and floor. What would you like to do?

BLOT was the official game for RECON Remote 25, available to play for all Community, Pro, and Champion ticket holders who opted in. It was created and run by Mark Larson, who was a guest on REPOD S5E11. On this episode, Yannick Trapman-O’Brien and Lyra Levin join us to play BLOT.

Lyra was a featured speaker for RECON Remote 25 with her talk, Make Stuff Fast: Rapid Prototyping for Interactive Experiences, now available on YouTube. Yannick originally appeared on REPOD S8E7 to talk about his incredible show for one, Undersigned. They joined us on REPOD for an actual play of BLOT. Lyra and Yannick are both experienced improvisers, and I’d never laughed so hard watching a play-through. Scroll down to the timestamps to follow along with game images.

If you missed playing this game during RECON Remote 25, or if you want to relive your glory moments, join us for this final play-through of BLOT.

Thank You to Our Sponsors

We are immensely grateful to our sponsors this season: REA Patreon Backers, PG’s Playhouse, Buzzshot, and COGS. We truly appreciate your support of our mission to promote and improve the immersive gaming community.

Game Timestamps

• 00:00 Sponsor Break: Buzzshot, Escape Room Marketing Software
• 09:27 The Game Begins…
• 11:40 Science Lab

• 13:10 Lab Table

• 13:19 Lab note

• 15: 42 Keypad

• 16:15 Keypad 2

• 17:01 Keypad 3

• 17:43 Keypad 4

• 17:57 The Anvil and the Splotches
• 18:12 Closet Note

• 20:14 Chalkboard with Black Gunk

• 28:37 Sponsor Break: Room Escape Artist Patreon – Bonus Episodes, Spoilers Club & More
• 29:48 The Lab Computer
• 32:53 The Broken Chalkboard

• 33:56 The New Room
• 34:25 Computer Note

• 38:03 Sponsor Break: PG’s Playhouse – Puzzles, Pals, and Trivia
• 40:01 Outside

• 42:07 Create Note

• 01:04:58 Sponsor Break: Cogs By Clockwork Dog, Interactive Show Controls
• 01:06:43 The Creature Appears

• 1:07:04 The Creature

• 01:32:57 Credits

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About Mark Larson

Mark Larson is a designer of interactive experiences, puzzles, escape rooms, and tabletop games. His work focuses on combining narrative storytelling, engaging gameplay, thought-provoking puzzles, and a healthy dose of fun. He’s best known for his series of Audio Escape Adventures, including Escape from Escape Island for RECON Remote 21 and The Shop of Theseus for RECON Remote 23. You can view a sample of his work at mrklrsn.com.

About Lyra Levin

Lyra Levin is a performer and producer of immersive experiences that lower barriers to empathy. In her work, participants find agency in a blend of fantasy and reality. Whether she’s bridging between entertainment and civic engagement (Democracy & Dragons, Civic Salon), cultivating creative ecosystems where hundreds of artists find their voices (Enemies of Time, Dovetail), or building architectural marvels for international audiences (Sonic Sphere, Megabots), Lyra uses her diverse backgrounds in circus, immersive theatre, and mechanical engineering to execute ambitious visions. Worlds with consequences are ones in which our actions matter; Lyra invites others to those worlds, in every medium and language. lyralev.in

About  Yannick Trapman-O’Brien

Instagram: @lil.janjohn

Yannick is a Performer, Theatermaker, and Creative Hand for Hire. His practice centers on exploring the exchanges and spaces we are willing to make with strangers, and the exploration of unorthodox applications for performance. He is the creator of a series of critically acclaimed immersive experiences, including the award-winning and long-running telephone experience The Telelibrary. His works have been official selections at La Jolla Playhouse’s Without Walls Festival, as well as the Denver, True/False, and Overlook Film Festivals, and cited as a “North Star” in the industry for creating responsive and deeply personal encounters for audiences of one at a time.

People pay him to act, which he has done in Shakespeare, devised work, performance actions and immersive works, as well as amphitheaters, basements, historical mansions, forests and one time on a bike. Yannick received his BA in Theater from NYU Abu Dhabi, training at The Experimental Theater Wing in New York, The Studies in Shakespeare program at RADA in London, and The International Theater Workshop in Amsterdam. The process was needlessly complicated and overly optimistic, as are most things he ascribes to and enjoys.

As a consultant, he helps organizations shape engagement and think critically about the exchanges they make with their constituents, from single events to workshops to BFA programs. He is a Project Specialist at Monument Lab, recently serving as Programming Coordinator for the Pulling Together Exhibition, part of the Beyond Granite initiative on the National Mall.

Past credits include include training and work with Theater Mitu, Witness Relocation and the Interactive Playlab, collaborations with Al-Bustan, Guerilla Science and NYU Open Arts, and consulting with The Temple of the Stranger, along with appearances at The Walnut Street Theater, The American Czech Theater, New Light Theater, the Franklin Institute, and Morris Jumel Mansion, and collaborations with Public Movement (2016) and Amalia Pica (2017) at the Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum.

Occasionally, he sleeps. yannickto.com

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