Room Escape Artist has a pair of original founders, but the team that makes all of this happen is much larger.
Whether they are producing content or the Reality Escape Convention, so many people contribute to the escape room and immersive gaming community through Room Escape Artist.
Co-Founders
David Spira
President
Co-Founder of Room Escape Artist & Co-Host of Reality Escape Pod
David conceived of Room Escape Artist because he saw the potential of this new entertainment medium back in 2014. From the start, he applied his professional skills as a digital experience designer to the burgeoning industry of escape rooms. David is full of ideas: from in-depth research pieces to new content types… like cute animals solving puzzles. He is always pushing REA to try new things, take risks, and be something more.
Lisa Spira
Editor-In-Chief
Co-Founder of Room Escape Artist
Whether she is editing REA’s content, leading the Hivemind, or wrangling the logistics for RECON or the Escape, Immerse, Explore Tours, Lisa is the reason that everything runs like clockwork. As a linguist and data expert, Lisa also leads our Industry Data efforts and is responsible for our annual Industry Reports. Lisa is the heart of REA and also bakes all of our escakes.
Contributors
In alphabetical order
Andrew Reynolds
Hivemind Wrangler & Escape Room Reviewer
By day, Andrew is a history and special education teacher. By night…and weekends…and afternoons if he can swing it, he is an avid escape room player. Since playing his first room in 2017, he has expanded his range of interests to include immersive theater and just about any puzzle he can get his hands on.
He loves games that include elements of spectacle to create memorable experiences. Mechanically, in both board games and escape rooms, Andrew looks forward to cooperation. He especially enjoys when an escape room splits the team into different spaces and demands clear communication to advance.
When he’s not puzzling, he can be found talking to his cat or staring at his oven waiting for something delicious to finish baking.
Brendan Lutz
Hivemind Infrastructure & Occasional Musings
RECON Team, Technology & Infrastructure
Brendan has been an escape room player since 2014, and is a former Great Gotham Challenge Champion & Runner Up. He loves the thrill of a good search-and-discovery escape room. He also loves being a part of growing companies, events, communities… and is a bit of a startup junkie.
Brett Kuehner
Hivemind Writer
Brett “That Guy With The Puzzles” Kuehner has designed puzzles and control system technology for escape rooms across the US and even a few in the UK, including puzzles for Netflix promotions and the tech for Risa Puno’s Privilege of Escape (REA Reaction). He also collects mechanical puzzles. A lot of mechanical puzzles. Puzzle boxes are his favorite but don’t tell the other puzzles; they might get jealous. He plays escape rooms wherever and whenever he can, and encourages new designers by teaching classes on escape room design and puzzle creation.
He maintains a collection of links to articles on all aspects of escape room development, from narrative to puzzles to tech, at http://www.thatguywiththepuzzles.com. If you meet him in person, he’ll probably try to show you a puzzle.
Chuck Kaplan-Smith
Hivemind Writer
Chuck is a lifelong escapee with notable highlights including the womb, a career in Marketing, and 200+ escape rooms (65 of those with a sub-two-year-old). Professionally, he strives to apply escape room magic to high school English by adding whimsy with Wizard Wednesday, creating joy with banana puns (very appealing), and even creating a Shakespeare escape room in which he is possessed by the Bard himself. Personally, he is a father & husband, drummer & rapper, board gamer & role player, and a Morty Meetup Manager & ampersand enthusiast.
Christina Rohlf
Tabletop Reviewer
Christina grew up playing a wide assortment of point-and-click puzzle games. Her absolute favorites were the Nancy Drew computer games: she has played all 34 and counting! In 2014, Christina got to step into Nancy Drew’s shoes and experience her own puzzle adventure in real life at her first escape room. Christina enjoys any puzzles she can get her hands on: computer games, escape rooms, tabletop puzzle games, you name it! During the times she is not puzzling, Christina designs veterinary orthopedic implants, teaches engineering classes at Johns Hopkins, and fosters litters of neonatal kittens.
Cindi Saiewitz
RECON Team & Escape Room Reviewer
If you’ve ever emailed the RECON inbox, you’ve probably talked to Cindi. She’s been with REA since the first RECON, answering attendee questions, wrangling speakers, and now coordinating sponsorships for RECON Remote 23. Cindi’s also a reviewer for REA. She’s played half as many escape rooms as Lisa & David, but is trying her best to catch up! #EscapeRoomGoals
Cindi looks for unique themes and detailed, immersive scenery that make players feel in the experience. She also appreciates intelligent puzzles that lead to those wonderful a-ha! moments. When not travelling to play another escape room, Cindi loves puzzle-y tabletop games and has a huge stack to catch up on. But that doesn’t stop her from looking for the next Kickstarter to add to her collection.
Eva Radding
Editor
Eva grew up in a family where editing was the family sport, and she is happy to share that passion with Room Escape Artist. Her career as a librarian and archivist is the perfect place to geek out on attention to detail. Eva has known Lisa longer than anyone else has, and is thrilled that Lisa introduced her to both escape rooms and David.
Fro
Escape Room Reviewer
Lindsay “Fro” Froelich has played more than 450 escape rooms in 14 countries across 5 continents. 2024 marks Fro’s tenth year of escaping, and she continues to be in awe of the incredible, talented, creative, kind and wonderful people she’s had the pleasure to meet over the years. When she isn’t playing rooms, she can be found traveling the globe solo, going to concerts, watching the sun set on the beach and enjoying Buffalo wings with cheap beer.
Heather Burns
Marketing & Social Media Coordinator
Heather is an organizer, planner, mom, First Responder, small town treasurer, member of the RECON team, as well as an experienced escape room player. She is often heard saying “I just want to play fun rooms” when her husband gets too far in the weeds discussing escape rooms with his nerd “friends.” She brings her special ability to worry too much about every little thing to the RECON team.
“Eat well and travel often” is her motto. Taking trips to Las Vegas and attending rock concerts are some of her favorite activities.
Jacky Chang
Policy Researcher & Hivemind Writer
Jacky Chang is an escape room enthusiast, aspiring artist, cat lover, and avid scuba diver. For her day job, she works at the intersection of politics, government, and technology, which has fed her obsessions with how big, distributed systems do and don’t work and helping people understand how government impacts their lives. She loves learning about weird and esoteric things, new experiences, and overcommitting too many things at the same time.
Jayna (Jay) Shea
Hivemind Writer
Jayna (who goes by either Jayna or Jay) played her first escape room and was immediately hooked, booking a marathon day just a few weeks later.
While immersion and puzzle quality are both important, what she looks for most is good flow. Some of her favorite experiences have hinged not on a particular aspect of a room but the opportunity for joy and movement, and she believes experiences are what you make of them (banana mode anyone?).
When she isn’t playing escape rooms or working one of her other 3 jobs (technology consultant, yoga teacher, and Renaissance festival worker), you can find her playing trivia or, more likely, cuddling her cats.
Joel Smileypeacefun
Hivemind Writer
Joel a.k.a. Smileypeacefun is an escape room enthusiast, former gamemaster, blogger, and room designer from Switzerland. He describes himself as queer, with crazy hair colors and creative ideas. Being a volunteer at a local organization, he played his first room in 2014 as a team activity, and he was hooked ever since. He even wrote his bachelor’s thesis about escape rooms. He was over the moon to meet David and Lisa in 2018. Fast forward to now: he is a hivemind reviewer who focuses heavily on puzzle design.
Kate Wastl
RECON Team
A project manager by day, Kate is the RECON Event Manager and a writer for Room Escape Artist. She is an escape room addict from Western New York whose favorite hobby is hopping flights to marathon rooms with the REA team and other enthusiasts.
Kate appreciates immersion and set design in an experience, and she values puzzle-y, non-linear design. When she is not playing, planning, or writing about escape rooms, Kate volunteers as an EMT and adores playing euchre.
Kurtis Rohlf
Escape Room & Tabletop Reviewer
In May of 2014, Kurtis was dragged to an escape room with his future wife and in-laws. He was unsure because they had failed their first room and Kurtis does not like to lose. Much to his surprise, they CRUSHED the room record. That moment of triumph was when Kurtis knew escape rooms were his jam. Outside of escape rooms, Kurtis is solving the puzzle of financial independence working at a fully remote financial planning and tax preparation firm. Kurtis is also into a bunch of other nerdy stuff, so if you ever bump into him at an event he’s always happy to chat about them.
Lyra
Hivemind Writer
Lyra is an international performer and producer of immersive experiences that lower barriers to empathy (Undersigned, 13th Floor’s Finnegan’s Wake). Her favorite stages help participants find agency in a blend of fantasy and reality (Palace Games, Enemies of Time, Sonic Sphere, Epic Immersive), where she uses her diverse backgrounds in circus, interactive 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.
Mark Larson
RECON Team
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, The Shop of Theseus, and B.L.O.T., all designed for RECON.
Matthew Stein
Escape Room Reviewer
In addition to being an Escape Room Reviewer and Hivemind writer for REA, Matthew Stein is also a puzzle designer, violinist, composer, printmaker, and software engineer. With his company Enigmida, he has created puzzle hunts, alternative reality games, escape rooms, and treasure hunts for an eclectic range of clients, including an art journal, an electro-pop DJ, a Michelin 3-star restaurant, and a music festival.
As an escape room player, Matthew especially values innovative puzzle design, off-beat theming, and nuanced storytelling and character development. You can follow along with Matthew’s puzzles and writings on Instagram @enigmida, his Patreon, and his website.
Melissa Miller
Directory Co-Manager
Melissa Miller and her husband Darren caught the puzzling and escaping bug back in May 2015, and they have been hooked ever since. Melissa also enjoys trying to find as many escape rooms across the country as possible so that others can experience the thrill of puzzling games. She has been happy to help contribute to REA’s directory over the past few years.
Peih-Gee Law
Reality Escape Pod Co-Host
Peih-Gee is most well known for being a fan favorite contestant on the reality show Survivor, where she played first in Survivor China in 2007, and again in a returning All-Star season Survivor Second Chance.
She is the co-host of Reality Escape Pod, a podcast exploring escape rooms and immersive gaming and hosts live on stage at RECON. Peih-Gee is also the host and puzzle writer for PG’s Playhouse, a fun podcast filled with trivia and brain teasers.
When not podcasting, Peih-Gee is crafting missions and narrative for Neotropolis, a 5 day immersive cyberpunk festival.
Richard Burns
RECON Team & Industry Correspondent
Richard is a player enthusiast from Wisconsin. He is a writer for Room Escape Artist, a member of the RECON team, and a bit of an escape room philosopher. For him, reading, writing, talking and thinking about escape rooms and what they can be is just as interesting as playing them. Always on the lookout for innovation and advances in the industry, Richard appreciates the business of escape rooms as much as the games themselves. He values story, character, and creativity over pure puzzling. He sees a bright future for the industry as it evolves into a more mature storytelling medium.
Ryan Brady
RECON Team
Ryan is an expat living in Japan who enjoys working escape rooms and immersive content into his travels around the world. By day he is a quantum scientist with a long history of convention staffing which brought him to the REA and RECON team.
Sarah Mendez
Escape Room Reviewer
Even though Sarah has been puzzling since Monkey Island, her escape room obsession didn’t fully materialize until she started playing them with her husband in 2019. They found escape rooms to be a way to appreciate each others’ strengths, stretch communication skills, and share adventure. Together, they explore IRL rooms, tabletop games, online offerings, and even creating their own experiences. Meanwhile, Sarah’s two kids help her evaluate games from a family perspective and are eager to follow in her footsteps. In her regular life, Sarah spends her time parenting, road-tripping, writing, and making plans.
Sarah Willson
Product & Escape Room Reviewer
Sarah is a writer, editor, game designer, and founder of the daily puzzle creation challenge EnigMarch. Enchanted from a young age by games like Myst and The 7th Guest, she wished very hard that escape rooms existed until they finally did and her life was complete.
Scott Olson
Hivemind Writer & Quip-Master
Scott is an escape room enthusiast based in Northern California whose first room he booked supposedly as a surprise for his wife’s birthday in 2016, but it was really for him.
When not puzzling, he enjoys travel, obscure wine varietals, and sports that can be played while holding a drink.
Steve Ewing
Reality Escape Pod Editor
Steve is passionate about all things audio-visual. A childhood King’s Quest compulsion became a zeal for escape rooms. An NPR habit evolved into a podcast addiction. A lifelong love for PBS science shows became a career filming and editing for National Geographic-Lindblad Expeditions.
He is thrilled to lend his talents as an audio editor for Reality Escape Pod and video shooter & editor for RECON and many immersive creators like Club Drosselmeyer and Constructed Adventures.
Steve loves to be surprised by an escape room. Rumor is, he once jumped through a refrigerator into a fake ball pit.
Tammy McLeod
Escape Room Reviewer
Tammy does any and all of the puzzle things. She loves escape rooms, jigsaw contests, and puzzle hunts. Her first escape room was in 2014 and ten years later, she has played over 550 real-life games, almost 200 remote games, and has lost count of boxed games played. Tammy was on the US team at both Red Bull World Escape Championships (2017 and 2019) and holds the Guinness World Record for the fastest time to complete the Hasbro puzzle. See more of her puzzle pursuits.
The Lone Puzzler
Hivemind Writer
The Lone Puzzler is a veteran nomadic puzzler who has spent time travelling around the country in search of a good game or two. Originally schooled on puzzling from location-based puzzle hunts like Ravenchase, Shinteki, The Game, and BAPHL, The Lone Puzzler has been to many games in many out-of-the way places. Never one to shy away from a challenge, he will play solo or with any random group of puzzlers. Once we get done with this pandemic thing, watch out for him coming to a town near you!
Theresa Piazza
Reality Escape Pod Producer & Escape Room Reviewer
Theresa has been an avid escape room (probably, over-) enthusiast since 2015. She’s played over 300 rooms, and has been known to hop flights just to escape. She enjoys puzzle hunts, collaborative board games, crosswords, jigsaw puzzles, and most other immersive entertainment. In addition to writing for REA and producing REPOD, she’s also COO at The Great Gotham Challenge.
While not puzzling, Theresa can be found outside soaking up the sunshine, SCUBA diving, birding, paddle boarding, rollerblading or listening to podcasts.
Theresa W
RECON Team & Escape Room Reviewer
Theresa is a chaotic neutral goblin from Washington, DC, who has trusted strangers to lock her in rooms way too many times. She loves having as much fun as utterly possible. Any hat or anything that can be worn on the head she will immediately put on and run around causing chaos.
Escape rooms with strong puzzles that fit into the narrative are her favorite. The weirder the theme, the better! When she isn’t on another Escape Room adventure, Theresa can be found playing Warhammer, video games, board games, Magic the Gathering, or looking up videos of Mariachi bands playing for beluga whales.
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