Room Escape Artist

 ”It’s this combination of arcade, escape room, and strategic missile command.”

You and your group rush into the locker room, locate your labeled jumpsuits (Hello Skidmark!) and descend the elevator into the bunker. You’re greeted with a massive screen, low-res graphics, and a blaring countdown until worldwide annihilation. Together, you must figure out the very complicated missile launch interface to ensure the enemy bombs are intercepted, and perhaps, to wreck some havoc of your own so that destruction is mutually assured.

Back in the early days of the blossoming escape room scene, puzzle designer Sandy Weisz launched The Last Defender at a theater company. This hybrid of hybrid of immersive theater, escape room, and puzzle hunt ran with sixteen players all at once.

Set in a fictional nuclear missile bunker of the Cold War era, the game paired 80s retro tech styling with puzzle hunt levels of difficulty, all in a highly immersive environment. In this Spoilers Club, Sandy talks about how the puzzles were designed, why the room needed a crowd to solve it, and his proudest moments and biggest regrets. It’s a look back at one of the more ambitious and short-lived experiments from the early escape room era.

To hear more from Sandy and learn about his other work including his daily word game Raddle, listen to our previous interview with him for REPOD (S8E10). Make sure to also check out the review for The Last Defender.

How to Listen

When you support Room Escape Artist on Patreon at $15 per month (or above), you get access to the Spoilers Club, our exclusive podcast where hosts David Spira and Peih-Gee Law chat in depth with creators about iconic escape rooms… spoilers and all!