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 It's Always Sunny in Philadelphia, "The Gang Escapes". 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: Jamie Gibbs, Mairi Nolan

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

The Witching Hour is upon us in this Halloween special, it's time to pull up a rickety, mouldy stool at the near-empty pub, the Brush, Nose and Bone. In this episode, we're joined by a master of horror, Keith Dozois of USB Escape to discuss all things horror in escape rooms. How does horror affect puzzles? What are our best (and worst) experiences with horror? And how do you make horror good in an escape room?

As always, here are your recommendations for this month.

Jamie - Ice Nine Kills (band), a metalcore whose recent output has been centred around iconic horror films, and was a big inspiration for Jamie's episode this arc.

Mairi - Strange Jigsaws (game by fleb), a short digital puzzle game about solving 50 or so rather strange jigsaws. The prequel (20 Small Mazes) is free, if you want to see what sort of thing you're getting yourself into.

Jon - Never Let Me Go (novel by Kazuo Ishiguro), a slow gentle book about a trio of young folks in the British countryside but they attend a very unusual school and are on an unusual life trajectory.

Keith - Scarlet Envelope for their fantastic puzzle games (yay), and Curios' Albrecht Manor Letters, an epistolary horror experience through writing letters. Two fantastic Canada-based game creators.

Hosts: Mairi Nolan, Jon Saunders, Jamie Gibbs

Special Guest: Keith Dozois

Editor: Jamie Gibbs

All links to our social media profiles and our Patreon programme over at https://linktr.ee/theinfiniteescaperoom

TLDR: The final episode in the VHS Nightmare arc has the four hosts chatting about all things horror game, and puzzle game design at a spooky pub.

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.

Safely returned from their doorless room, with a hairbrush in hand, the team are left with only one VHS tape, adorned with images of graves. It sends them to a London Garden Park, with a curious statue guarding the gate, it's amazing what they call Art these days...

• Puzzle Maestro: Jon Saunders

• Solvers: Jamie Gibbs, Mairi Nolan

• Special Guest: Keith Dozois of USB Escape

• Episode Art: Dom Jordan -Dom Jordan Illustration

• Editor: Jon Saunders

All links to our social media profiles and our Patreon programme over at https://linktr.ee/theinfiniteescaperoom

TLDR: The third episode in the VHS Nightmare arc follows the team and special guest Keith Dozois in an escape room set in a London graveyard.

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.