In this new series, we put our professional puzzle design experience to good use and look at escape rooms in film and TV as if they were real escape rooms.
In this podcast we're looking at the escape room episode of Inside No. 9, "CTRL ALT ESCAPE". Follow Mairi, Jamie, and special guest Alex Hylands-White as they put the room through its paces and discuss what improvements they'd make to make it a better escape room.
Alex brings a wealth of escape room experience through his work as a designer at Clockwork Dog and Marketing Director at COGS. COGS is a show control software and hardware platform used to create and manage interactive live experiences like escape rooms, haunted houses, and immersive theater. It allows operators to easily design automated puzzles, control effects such as lights and sounds, and manage hardware like sensors and locks through a user-friendly interface, all without requiring complex programming skills.
Hosts: Mairi Nolan, Jamie Gibbs
Special Guest: Alex Hylands-White, Marketing Director of Clockwork Dog and COGS
Editor: Jamie Gibbs
All links to our social media profiles and our Patreon programme over at https://linktr.ee/theinfiniteescaperoom

Pull up a stool in the Northern northern northern Australian outback! At this near-empty Pub the team wrangle over the concept of difficulty in Escape Rooms, what it is, whether it is simply a feature of good or bad design, whether it is changing and, inevitably, what even counts as an Escape Room anymore at all!
 
As always we come to you with humble recommendations to ease you into Autumn.
Jamie - Thank Goodness You're Here! Cartoon style Steam game set in Northern England in which you help out the locals entirely by slapping things.
Mike - Dungeon Crawler Carl books. Unapologetically trope-ridden fast food adventure books for when you'd like to read, but not to think.
Jon - I Who Have Never Known Men. Utterly bleak dystopian sci fi novel, translated from French, that follows the first hand account of a young woman trapped in a cage with 39 other women for reasons none of them understand. You will be sad, but also know more.
Jon (AGAIN) - Superliminal. Incredibly straightforward yet shockingly mind bending puzzle game that is all about changing your perspective. Think Stanley Parable if it looked better and were more optimistic. Genuinely moving and uplifting.
 
Hosts: Jon Saunders, Jamie Gibbs, Mike Collins
Editor: Jon Saunders
All links to our social media profiles and our Patreon programme over at https://linktr.ee/theinfiniteescaperoom

With just twenty two minutes and thirty seconds remaining before our flight from Australia Airport leaves, the team have no choice but to solve Jon's puzzle puzzle at the crossroads. Somewhere off Australia Road (which by the way, is the road in Australia, in case you were wondering), the airport awaits...
But which way?
"Struth Ruth, Bruce is coming babe."
Puzzle Maestro: Jon Saunders
Solvers: Mike Collins, Jamie Gibbs
Episode Art: Dom Jordan
Editor: Jamie Gibbs
Visual handouts to play along
Tin Horses
All links to our social media profiles and our Patreon programme over at https://linktr.ee/theinfiniteescaperoom
TLDR: The second escape room in the Outback Odyssey arc centres on a postman called Bruce, the Tin Horse Highway, and many letters without addresses.The Infinite Escape Room is a comedy escape room podcast where a group of friends make and solve audio escape rooms for one another. It's one part tabletop RPG, one part escape room with a bit of Monkey Island humour sprinkled over the top.

With the team's outback getaway driver KO-ed outside the toilet, the team find themselves stranded in the outback, 45 minutes before their flight from "Australia Airport" leaves. Time is of the essence, and in this special the solvers will have a shared 45-minutes to solve across both parts of the Outback Odyssey arc.
But before they can get back on the road they'll have to get through dozens and dozens of gnomes... in various state of undress (Jamie's exact words, not mine). Somewhere among these gnomes the key to escape lies. It's time to lock in and-
"Gnome more Mr. Nice Guy".
Puzzle Maestro: Jamie Gibbs
Solvers: Mike Collins, Jon Saunders
Episode Art: Dom Jordan
Editor: Mike Collins
All links to our social media profiles and our Patreon programme over at https://linktr.ee/theinfiniteescaperoom
TLDR: The first episode in the Outback Odyssey arc takes place in a field of gnomes in the Australian outback, featuring anagrams, rude gnome gestures, and a locked toilet.
The Infinite Escape Room is a comedy escape room podcast where a group of friends make and solve audio escape rooms for one another. It's one part tabletop RPG, one part escape room with a bit of Monkey Island humour sprinkled over the top.

This is the final week of our two-week summer break, where we recharge our puzzle batteries. But we won't leave you empty handed - here's a director's cut edition of a classic episode with new editing, music, SFX and commentary.
This episode initially aired a little later than normal due to some technical gremlins, which meant it didn't get a fair shake before the following week's episode came in and pushed it out of the feed (people love that fresh content, yo).
And it's a particularly fiendish puzzle from Mike that also uses a hefty amount of learning theory. Mike pulled a sneaky on us and had us doing a team building exercise (le gasp!).
The original recording was 2 hours long. So as a special treat, here's a re-edited version along with the puzzle debrief and additional commentary from me (Jamie).
Grab a glass of warm urine and join us as we attempt to escape the desert with a surprisingly Northern sounding Bear Grylls. Will we select the correct five items to enable our escape? And what's with that Morse Code, anyway?
Special thanks to Patreon supporters Rachel, Howlfin and Will for making this episode possible.
Puzzle Maestro: Mike Collins
Solvers: Jon Saunders, Jamie Gibbs, Dom Jordan, Annekos
Editor: Jamie Gibbs
If you want to listen to the original episodes, you can find them here:
Puzzle episode
Pubisode
 
All links to our social media profiles and our Patreon programme over at https://linktr.ee/theinfiniteescaperoom
 
The Infinite Escape Room is a comedy escape room podcast where a group of friends make and solve audio escape rooms for one another. It's one part tabletop RPG, one part escape room with a bit of Monkey Island humour sprinkled over the top.

This is the start of our two-week summer break, where we recharge our puzzle batteries. But we won't leave you empty handed - here's a director's cut edition of a classic episode with new editing, music, SFX and commentary.
Sometimes, an episode as such an impact on us that we talk about it months or even years later. Groundfarce is one of those episodes. What started out as a simple spatial puzzle quickly devolved into a mud slinging match with zingers such as "Left isn't a cardinal direction!" and "I've left the shed and my eyes appear to have stopped working".
We cut a fair amount from the episode in the original airing because things got a little heated. But as a special treat, here's the whole thing with additional commentary from me (Jamie).
Grab your trowel and bring a map as Jon takes us through a surprisingly complex English garden puzzle.
Special thanks to Patreon supporters Brett, Bettina and Matthew for making this episode possible.
Puzzle Maestro: Jon Saunders
Solvers: Mike Collins, Jamie Gibbs, Dom Jordan
Editor: Jamie Gibbs
If you want to listen to the original episodes, you can find them here:
Puzzle episode
Pubisode
All links to our social media profiles and our Patreon programme over at https://linktr.ee/theinfiniteescaperoom
 
The Infinite Escape Room is a comedy escape room podcast where a group of friends make and solve audio escape rooms for one another. It's one part tabletop RPG, one part escape room with a bit of Monkey Island humour sprinkled over the top.

Does adapting escape rooms to audio make them more accessible … or more exclusive? Join Jamie, Mairi and special guests Dani and Bill from Escape This Podcast as we discuss accessibility in game design and what it means for creating escape rooms of the ears, the eyes, and all the senses.
Why a hotel? Turns out Australia has an interesting drinking culture around hotels, but you'll just have to listen to find out more about that.
As always, we come to you with some recommendations for the month ahead. They are:
Mairi - Signing up to vote in this year's TERPECAs. Or just using the site to find some cool escape rooms near you.
Bill - Novelty Automation in London, UK. A museum collection of satirical, home-made arcade machines.
Dani - Clair Obscur: Expedition 33, and in particular pay attention to it's clever feeding of information in character dialogue.
Jamie - Another podcast: Today in History! Which does exactly what it says on the tin. Short, snappy episodes about what happened on that day in history.
 
Hosts: Jamie Gibbs, Mairi Nolan
Guests: Bill and Dani of Escape This Podcast
Editor: Jamie Gibbs
All links to our social media profiles and our Patreon programme over at https://linktr.ee/theinfiniteescaperoom

In the most long overdue cross-over since Eastenders made a Bastard episode with Neighbours (true story), we finally welcome our natural ancestors from Escape This Podcast and take them... to their own studio. But all is not well, they are locked out, Jon has beaten them to it and is about to takeover the (podcast) world.
Join Mairi, Jamie, special guests Dani and Bill from Escape This Podcast and a very, very special cameo, as they try to take down the plummy giant, Lilliput style.
Puzzle Maestro: Jamie Gibbs
Solvers: Mairi Nolan, Dani Siller, Bill Sunderland
Episode Art: Dom Jordan
Editor (and self impersonator): Jon Saunders
Visual handouts to play along
Mixing desk
Poster
Notepad
All links to our social media profiles and our Patreon programme over at https://linktr.ee/theinfiniteescaperoom
Check out Escape This Podcast on their website, or wherever you get your podcasts usually!