Culture Archives - Room Escape Artist

This Wednesday: David & Peih-Gee Livestream with Trapped Puzzle Rooms on IndieCade’s Beyond Screens

12 April 202123 April 2021 by Lisa Spira, posted in Culture

David Spira and Peih-Gee Law, the hosts of REA’s new podcast the Reality Escape Pod, will be livestreaming on Twitch this Wednesday as part of IndieCade’s weekly show Beyond Screens.

Details

Date: Wednesday, April 14
Time: Noon PST / 3pm EST
Guest: Mark Larson, Trapped Puzzle Rooms

Tune In

This Wednesday’s Livestream

In this episode, David and Peih-Gee will be joined by Mark Larson from Trapped Puzzle Rooms in St. Paul, MN. They will talk about Mark’s approach to blending escape rooms with tabletop roleplaying. This is one of the many creative approaches we’ve seen in escape room online adaptation over the past year.

Mark is a ton of fun, and we hope you stop in for what is sure to be an entertaining chat. Feel free to pop in and out as you need. It’s live, casual, and we welcome your questions.

Monthly Appearances

IndieCade’s new weekly show Beyond Screens has a rotating cast of hosts livestreaming on Twitch on Wednesdays at Noon Pacific / 3pm Eastern.

David and Peih-Gee will host about once a month, sometimes with other guests. They’ll vary the format of their streams. You can expect conversation, games, puzzles, and fun!

About Beyond Screens

Beyond Screens is IndieCade’s new Twitch show exploring work that pushes the boundaries of, or comes entirely off of the screen. Genres covered will include participatory theatre, alternate reality and live-action roleplaying; escape rooms; Big Games; and alternative controllers. Each hour-long episode will feature an in-depth conversation with creators of these genre-defining games.

This show is weekly, every Wednesday at Noon Pacific / 3pm Eastern.

Follow IndieCade on Twitch to stay up to date.

Squirrels Puzzling in an Academic Journal

11 April 202115 April 2021 by David Spira, posted in Animals Solving Puzzles, Culture

Our friend Dan Egnor sent this to me, and I’m sharing it along with my favorite bit of his commentary.

Squirrel standing on a branch intently looking at a question mark.

In July 2017, the academic journal Animal Cognition published a paper titled How to stay perfect: the role of memory and behavioural traits in an experienced problem and a similar problem.

tl;dr: Squirrels have way better memory for puzzles than I do.

“We examined this question by first presenting grey squirrels with a puzzle 22 months after their last experience of it (the recall task). Squirrels were then given the same problem presented in a physically different apparatus (the generalisation task) to test whether they would apply the previously learnt tactics to solve the same problem but in a different apparatus. The mean latency to success in the first trial of the recall task was significantly different from the first exposure but not different from the last exposure of the original task, showing retention of the task.”
Pizza Ka Yee Chow, Stephen E. G. Lea, Natalie Hempel de Ibarra & Théo Robert – 2017

“22 months! I could probably replay an entire escape room after 22 months and not even notice. Though maybe if the escape room dispensed hazelnuts (like this one did) I would remember better? But of course, I can barely remember where I left my keys, much less remember the location of 1,000 randomly cached acorns a season later (which squirrels in the wild apparently do).”
Dan Egnor – 2020

Whether you want to read the full article… or just scroll all the way to the bottom to see a video of adorable squirrels solving puzzles to get their hazelnut fix, either way, check out the original post.

Dan, thanks for seeing cute critters solving puzzling and thinking of me.

Introducing the Spoilers Club!

31 March 20217 April 2021 by Lisa Spira, posted in Patreon

Welcome to our 13 new Patreon backers! Thank you for the support. It’s wonderful to see many of you in the REA secret Discord channel already.

Spoilers Club

With the start of The Reality Escape Pod, we introduced a new Patreon perk: the Spoilers Club.

Each month we select a game that David and Peih-Gee talk about in great detail, with all of the spoilers.

One thing we miss about escape games is the post-game conversation where we’d unpack the experience in great detail over a beer or coffee. In this world of virtual play, as long as we all play the same games, we can still chat about them.

This month, David and Peih-Gee launched the Spoilers Club by playing Locurio’s The Vanishing Act remotely. David and I played and reviewed the real-life version of this game in April of 2016 (yes, 4.5 years ago!) and awarded it a 2016 Golden Lock Award. Peih-Gee has only played it remotely.

This conversation about The Vanishing Act is now available to Patreon backers at the “Search Win!” ($15) level. And we’ve opened up the Spoilers Club channel in Discord to continue the conversation.

In April, David and Peih-Gee will chat about Isolation, created by Thin Reality Experiences for Escape Room Melbourne. You can book the game any time during the next few weeks and be ready for the Spoilers Club.

Thank You

The Reality Escape Pod has been a huge undertaking, and it’s because of you that this is even possible. We hope you’re enjoying the conversations as much as we are!

Amanda Harris
Andrew Sturridge
Angie Meyers
Anne Lukeman
Anonymous
Ben Rosner
Bethany
Bill Chang
Breakout Games
Brett Kuehner
Brian Resler
Brian Vinciguerra
Bronna Butler
Byron Delmonico
C.J. Smith
Cara Mandel
Cesar Grado
Chris Cannon
Chris M. Dickson
Chris White
Crystal Farr
Daniel Egnor
Daniel Kolb
Darren Miller
David Longley
deadpan 1113
Derek Tam
Drew Nelson
Elaine
Emile Wang
Eric Mittler
Farand Pawlak
Greg Marinelli
James Shearer
Jason’s Fitness Consigliere
Jim of PARADOXsquared
Joel Daehler

John Wardrope
Jon Kaufthal
Joseph Allen
Joseph Friesen
Josh Kendrick
Julie Burge
Justin Nevins
Kathryn
Kevin
Kurt Leinbach
Laura E. Hall
Lee-Fay Low
Lonnie
Lori Miller
Marisa Capobianco
Mark Blume
Mark Denine
Matt Beverly
Matt Keyser
Matthew Stein
Michael Andersen
Michael Wolman
Mihir Kedia
Nathan Walton
Neda Delavarpour
Negina Kolesar
Nick Moran
Nick Rose
No Proscenium
Olivia Anderson
Omer Aru
Patrick McLean
Patrick McNamara
Paul Tashima
Paula Swann
Philip Ho
Puzzling Company

Rebecca Horste
Rene Sorette
Rex Miller
Rich Bragg
Richard Burns
Rob Tsuk
Ruud Kool
Ryan Brady
Ryan Hart
S T Cameron
Samantha Koehler
Sara Reed
Scott Olson
Sean McBride
Sendil Krishnan
Seth Wolfson
Stephanie McNeill
Steve Gaddy
Steven Valdez
Stuart Bogaty
Stuart Nafey
Tahlia Kirk
Tammy McLeod
Teo Litto
Terry Pettigrew-Rolapp
The Wild Optimists
Theresa Piazza
Theresa Wagner
Tiffany Schaefer
Todd Geldon
Todd McClary
Tommy
Victor van Doorn
Vivien Ripoll
Wesley James
Will Rutherford
YouEscape

To those of you reading who have the means, we hope you’ll considering joining this wonderful group of supporters. Just click here!

Support Room Escape Artist’s Mission

There are lots of ways to support Room Escape Artist, like buying from Amazon or Etsy 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.

Professor Layton Game – Honest Trailer

19 March 202121 March 2021 by David Spira, posted in Culture, Video Games

Somehow we’ve never written about the anime-puzzle adventure-video game series Professor Layton here on Room Escape Artist.

This prolific series has had 9 different installments since its debut in 2007, all of them intensely puzzley.

This Honest Game Trailer really captures the highs, lows, and quirks of the series. These games really are one of those love-it-or-hate-it scenarios.

The Layton series seems like it was probably an early influence on SCRAP, the first escape room company. I feel like most of the people that I know who adore Layton also love playing SCRAP games.

If you’re interested, the latest in the series was Layton’s Mystery Journey: Katrielle and the Millionaires’ Conspiracy (iOS, Android, Nintendo 3DS, Nintendo Switch)

Support Room Escape Artist’s Mission

There are lots of ways to support Room Escape Artist, like buying from Amazon or Etsy 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.

Tomorrow: David & Peih-Gee Livestream on Puzzle Hunts with IndieCade’s Beyond Screens

9 March 20219 March 2021 by David Spira, posted in Culture

David Spira and Peih-Gee Law, the hosts of REA’s new podcast the Reality Escape Pod, will be livestreaming on Twitch tomorrow as part of IndieCade’s new weekly show Beyond Screens.

Date: Wednesday, March 10
Time: Noon PST / 3pm EST