Mystery, Puzzles, Trivia, Oh My! 4 Podcasts for Escape Game Fans

Photo: Casey Fiesler (CC BY 2.0)

It’s no secret that if you’re a fan of escape games, you have wide and varied tastes. How else are you going to learn all that trivia?!

However, there are a few topics we’re pretty sure every escape game fan is into. Mystery? Check. Puzzles? Check. Creepy going-ons? Check.

In the magical era of the podcast, you can be sure someone out there is making a show about a subject you want to plug into. Here we list four of podcasts that really satisfy our escape room brains.

Serial

OK, so this is one of the biggest podcasts since, well … ever. But if you haven’t listened to NPR’s Serial yet, we’re telling you, now is the time. Each season is one single intriguing story of true crime told masterfully by host Sarah Koening over several episodes. Spine tingling.

Check out Serial here: https://serialpodcast.org/

Pints and Puzzles

You like conspiracy theories? Then this is the podcast for you! TJ Counihan discusses strange unsolved events, from little green men to unexplained explosions, and throws in some tasting notes on various beers for good measure. Both a strange and fun time!

Catch Pints and Puzzles here: http://pintsandpuzzles.libsyn.com/

Good Job, Brain!

If you like to stuff your brain full of random useless facts—and who among us escape room fans doesn't—then do let the four hosts of Good Job, Brain! fill your grey matter up to the brim. As they put it, this podcast is “part quiz show, part offbeat news, and all awesome.”

You can get factual here: http://www.goodjobbrain.com/

Welcome to Night Vale

Something else all escape gamers share is a vivid imagination and a love of immersing themselves in story. Have you ever heard of the town of Night Vale? No? Well, that’s because it doesn’t exist, but in Welcome to the Night Vale it does, and this twice monthly podcast enlightens us about all that happens there. Sure, there are a few weather updates, but Night Vale is “a town in the desert where all conspiracy theories are real,” so you can expect things are going to get strange on a regular basis.

Visit Night Vale here: http://www.welcometonightvale.com/

Immerse yourself in your own trivia, mystery, and puzzle filled fun by booking a go in one of our escape games here: http://bookeo.com/krakit.

Escape This: 6 Zombie Apocalypse Survival Skills That Apply to Real Life

When it comes to surviving the end times, we normally think of things like machete-wielding skills or the ability to hotwire a semi-truck. But it’s not just practical skills you’ll need out there. Humans’ main advantage in the natural world is our big brains, and that’s what’ll get you through the zombie apocalypse in one piece. (Maybe that’s why the undead want to eat them so bad …). 

Not coincidentally, they’re also the same sorts of skills you’ll use to lead yourself to victory in Krakit’s Zombie Apocalypse escape room.

1. Ingenuity

Rather than stocking up on tinned foods and honing your knife skills, you know what’s really going to help you in the Zombie Apocalypse? Being creative and insightful. If you don’t know how to jerry-rig a tank, then at least your ability for inventive thinking will help you think up a plan and help you learn new skills along the way.

2. Flexibility

Along with ingenuity, flexible thinking is key. You can only use what you have at hand. How are you going to MacGyver your way out of this situation? Unfortunately, your original plan has gone out the window—better think of something else quick. When one thing doesn’t work, immediately switching to a new gear will help you get through the Zombie Apocalypse, escape games, and life in general.

3. Quick thinking

When you’re living on the run, often you don’t have a lot of time to come up with the perfect plan. Developing quick thinking by challenging yourself with rapid-fire puzzles and logic problems is a surefire way to make sure you stay one step ahead of the undead and also your coworkers.

4. Long-term thinking

At the same time as quick thinking is an essential skill, so is long-term thinking. Being able to do both means you’ll be able to escape immediate danger but also figure out how you’re going to secure safety for you and your crew in the long run. In an escape room, this comes into play when you solve the smaller puzzles that lead to the bigger victory—winning the entire escape game.

5. Reading people

If you want to survive in the cut-throat world of the Zombie Apocalypse, you’ll have to keep a close eye on the people you’re with. As much as we want to trust everyone, you must stay vigilant. Being able to read people accurately is key to figuring out if what they’re saying matches what they’re thinking. This skill applies everywhere, from zombie survival to the dating scene to the workplace.

6. Teamwork

Though you need to stay on your toes, you wouldn’t survive any sort of apocalypse without the help of your friends or even strangers. Learning how to meld your strengths with someone else’s is the only way to forge ahead, when it comes to zombies and when it comes to life.

Band together with a group of up to seven of your friends to defeat Krakit’s horde of zombies in our Zombie Apocalypse escape room. Book now.

Becoming Sherlock: How to Think Like a Detective (and Win Your Escape Game)

Playing an escape game is half immersion in a fantasy world and half logic puzzle marathon. If you want to come out victorious at your next escape room, you need to get your deerstalker-style thinking hat on.

Here’s how.

Observe, observe, observe

The most important step to thinking like a detective is paying attention—very, very close attention. Observing everything that’s around you, whether it seems important or not, is the foundation of detective work.

Be methodical

Except for bona fide geniuses like Sherlock, detectives never ever rely on memory alone to keep track of all the information they’ve gathered. Take notes, make drawings, keep a log of your thoughts. All of this is needed in the quest for a solution to whatever riddle you face, be it escape game or a real-life whodunit.

Give in to intuition

While considered and methodical observation is key, so is listening to your gut. Our brains work in mysterious ways, often making connections that we’re not consciously aware of until we have what’s known as a “eureka moment.” If something is sticking out, there’s probably a reason—even if you have no idea why just yet.

Get logical

Once you’ve got a balance of observation and intuition that even Sherlock himself would approve of, you can apply your cold, hard logical brain to the information you’ve gathered. Thinking through a situation step-by-step and coming up with a conclusion based on all the facts at hand is the name of the detective game.

Get feedback on your ideas

Even the most brilliant mind needs a sounding board, which for Sherlock Holmes comes in the form of Dr. Watson. It’s simple: if there’s no one there to pick holes in your theories, you’ll never be able to find them.

Challenge yourself

Constantly put your detective powers to the test by engaging your brain in riddles and logic puzzles. The more you use your brain, and especially skills you don’t get to use on a daily basis, the stronger the neural pathways you’ve taken the time to set up will become.

Stay curious

Learn as much as you can about everything that you can. The more you know, the more you will see connections between the various clues and puzzle pieces you encounter. Plus, you’ll just be a more interesting person. He may be a weirdo, but no one can call Sherlock boring, right?

Have you turned yourself into a regular deduction powerhouse? Test out your detective skills in one of our four themed Vancouver escape games by booking now.

Puzzling Logic: 9 Ways to Step-up Your Escape Room Game

A puzzle is something that needs to be solved, but that doesn’t have an obvious, predetermined set of steps you can take in order to solve it. This practically sounds like a puzzle in and of itself—which is why it’s a smart move to brush-up on your puzzle-solving skills before tackling your next escape game.

1. Remember the first two rules of puzzle solving. Written by puzzle experts Gianni Sarcone and Marie Waeber, they go: 1) Nothing is as difficult as it looks. 2) Nothing is as easy as it looks.

2. Do the straightforward tasks first. Is there a math problem to solve? A word to unjumble? A cultural reference to nail? Figure that out, and only then start thinking about how it fits into the grand scheme.

3. Remember the rules. Your escape game master will tell you the dos and don’ts of your escape game. Not paying attention to the introductory spiel can spell disaster for even the cleverest of clue solvers.

4. Jot down notes. With all that’s thrown at you with puzzles—especially when there’s multiple ones to deal with, like in an escape room—you need a good way to organize your thoughts. An old-school pen and paper set usually does the trick (especially since we take your smartphones away!).

5. Watch out for double entendres and puns. Humans are usually willing to take things at face value, so plays on words and visual puns can be hard to spot at first. But keep your eyes and ears peeled for anything with the potential for two or more meanings.

6. Keep an eye out for oddities. If something seems out of place, it almost certainly requires some sleuthing. In other words, what appears to be an intentional error might as well have giant neon arrows pointing at it that scream, “Scrutinize me!!”

7. See what’s hidden in plain sight. Sometimes something that seems entirely irrelevant or mundane is actually the key to it all.

8. Let it simmer. If you can’t figure it out but you know something is there (see point 5 above), give the task a rest and turn your attention to something else. Things often fall into place once your brain is given some breathing room—otherwise known as a “eureka moment.”

9. Use your hints. It’s not a “cheat” to use a hint—it’s part of the game!

Put your escape game skills to the test in one of Krakit’s four themed escape rooms. You can book your next sleuthing experience here: http://bookeo.com/krakit.                                                              

Bring Out the Big Brains: Code-Breakers and Logicians

Alan Turing, owner of a big, big brain

As far as code-breakers go, there is none more famous these days than Alan Turing. The man who finally broke the unbreakable WWII code, Enigma, in secrecy at Bletchley Park waited a long time for his due props. The code-breaking operation wasn’t declassified until the 1970s—two decades after Turing’s tragic death.

Turing’s powers of logic and brilliant mathematical mind now rightfully sits in history as one of the most impressive the world has ever seen. But he isn’t the only logician to have wowed the rest of us with their humongous brain. Below are three others who sit in good—although incredibly rare—company with Turing.

Akṣapāda Gautama

Gautama, who lived in the 2nd century CE, was such a fan of logic that he just, y’know, founded logical philosophy in Indian. He wrote the Nyāya Sūtras, the founding text of this branch of philosophy, which sets out the steps to achieving “valid knowledge” through logical tests.

In a nutshell, Gautama created a path to spiritual enlightenment through cleverness. Not bad for a life’s work.

George Dantzig

This may sound like a familiar story: Dantzig, running late for class one day, enters the lecture theatre and sees two problems on the board. He copies them down for homework, and—after turning them in late—learns he just solved two “unsolvable” problems in statistics.

Matt Damon and Ben Affleck later nabbed Dantzig’s story for Good Will Hunting. But in reality Dantzig was indeed a student (a PhD at that), not a janitor.

Lewis Carroll

Yep—that Lewis Carroll: the one who wrote Alice in Wonderland. While there are many theories about the children’s book being a metaphor for a psychotropic drug trip, it isn’t a stretch to say that maybe Carroll just had one weird brain.

Though remembered as an author, Carroll was also a mathematics professor at Oxford whose pastimes included devising logic puzzles and riddles. He included one in Alice, which became one of the most famous unanswerable riddles of all time: “Why is a raven like a writing desk?”

Don’t worry though—While solving Krakit’s four escape rooms definitely takes some brainpower, you won’t need a Turing machine to crack them.